Current trouble at the Passport Office is just one in a series of major investments in technology that the Government has seen go painfully wrong. Others include a new National Insurance recording system, an immigration system for the Home Office, a records system for the Prison Service and a long overdue air traffic control system. Last month development of a joint Post Office/Benefits Agency system was abandoned mid-stream.
All these have one thing in common - they are PFI projects. But they are now being roundly condemned as under-briefed, under-funded and over-ambitious. In some cases, there is also the suggestion that too much was happening at the same time, specifically wholesale upgrading of computer systems, combined with fundamental changes in work methods and securing compliance with Y2K criteria.
Conservative spokesman on social security affairs David Willetts brands the whole situation "sheer incompetence". And the PFI Taskforce is worried the dubious track record achieved to date will undermine other proposed projects.
Meanwhile, Siemens Business Systems, supplier of the new passport system, is reported to have so far escaped any of the significant penalties that could be levied under the £120M contract.
There are numerous lessons in all this for anyone involved in project briefing and management.
Elliott Chase
