Home Blogs & Views Birmingham Mail Columnists Jon Walker
Fears of another fine mess
A LEAKED Treasury report a few years ago revealed that more than £1.5 billion has been squandered on botched or delayed Government IT projects since 1997.
These included an estimated £698m squandered on a cancelled project to develop smart cards for benefits payments, and £134m overspent on the Libra project to overhaul the IT systems of Magistrates Courts.
Midland MP Pat McFadden (Lab, Wolverhampton South East), a Cabinet Office Minister who is close to Tony Blair, has come out in favour of more big projects.
He accused critics of "a damaging national defeatism about the future."
Why? Once again the problem for the government is road pricing - which will require another massive and potentially expensive computer system.
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