Another Year Another Massive IT System Overspend.

The new NHS 24 IT system is now £41.6m over budget and far from complete. The Public Audit Committee (of the Scottish Parliament) is unsurprisingly conducting a review of how this has happened. The former Chief Executive told MSPs that he felt let down by a senior colleague that “didn’t advise him at all". He is also claiming that he was not told of a fundamental flaw in the system for 22 months and that junior staff were aware of omissions in the contract but didn’t let him know.

This leaves 2 questions

Why didn’t staff feel able to inform senior staff of problems in a system?
Why do Chief Executives sign contacts that they have not checked with relevant staff?

Paul Martin MSP pointed out that the overspend would have paid for 1900 nurses.

Sadly this is not a one-off problem. Again and again we see sales pitches from IT companies treated as impartial advice and the knowledge and skills of in-house IT staff ignored.

Cornwall has now terminated its contract with BT Cornwall (BTC) after BTC attempts to get a high court injunction failed. ICT and other so-called backroom services have now formally transferred back to the council. Negotiations continue over the level of damages the council hopes to get following the failures which led to the termination of the contract. The council believes that they are owed millions of pounds in damages.

Publictechnology.Net is reporting that the UK cabinet office is launching yet another review of government IT contracts with the understatement that “a series of contracts have not stood the test of time". It is believed that the option of bringing IT expertise back in house is seriously under consideration. Not before time.

UNISON’s recent survey of members working in ICT is available here.

Bumper Book of Government Waste

The tax cutting campaign group the Tax Payers Alliance have produced yet another one of their attacks on public spending. In their imaginatively title Big Book of Government Waste, they stick to their effective tactic of finding spending they don’t like at calling it waste. This year they have managed to reach a total of £120billion.


It’s a great laugh, mocking arts projects, awards ceremonies and councillor's lunches meanwhile, the Big Bumper Book of Private Sector Waste is still unpublished: The costs of failed privatisation, massive bonuses paid to chief execs for failure, billions wasted on PFI, private failures like Southern Cross and G4S and its Olympic security fiasco. As ever public sector workers terms and conditions are their first point of attack. Almost half of their waste total: £53billion comes from “overpaying on public sector pay and pensions”. This is not mistakenly overpaying. What they mean is that wages are too high in the public sector. So key to reducing “waste” in their eyes is reducing workers wages.


They claim that public sector workers are paid 8.2% more than private sector workers; this requires some deeper analysis though. The figures do not include bonuses or other perks which are far more prevalent in the private sector. Across the UK, particularly in England many of the lower skilled and paid jobs that were once in the public sector have been outsourced to the private sector. Outsourcing the lower paid jobs raises the average wage measure without anyone receiving any wage rise at all. This has also increased the number of low paid jobs in the private sector so decreasing the average wage point there.


Despite what the tax dodgers’ alliance claim the public sector is not where the fat cats are working. If you compare the pay of graduates, for example, in the public and private sectors then they earn less: 5.7% to be exact.


A trawl thorough their pages outlining figures from newspaper paper reports on council tea biscuit and train ticket bills can raise a smile but it’s not a serious analysis of public spending. It’s a shame that so many media outlets treat them as if they are producing high quality independent research. They are a right-wing body dedicated, not to value for money for tax payers, but to reducing the size of the public sector. They are currently campaigning to get rid of National Insurance, which no doubt suits their wealthy backers but may be a bit more tricky for the rest of us. “Behind the Mask” published by the Northern Ireland Public Service Alliance shows exactly who they are. Backers include: Tony Gallacher owner of Gallacher UK who has given £3million to the Conservatives since 2001; Christopher Kelly owner of Keltruck : Sir Anthony Bamford, of JCB who has also donated £1million to the Conservatives. and Stuart Wheeler who having previously donated £5million to the Conservatives has now endorsed UKIP. Remember who they are what they are trying to do the next time you here them on the radio.