What's a little waste among friends?

The Sun newspaper this morning carries two shocking facts about the bungling which has occurred in the management of the NHS computer network scheme.

First, it is running presently at about £18 billion over budget. (Of this the connection of all 30,000 GPs to the system, which was estimated to cost £2.3 billion is now expected to cost £12.7 billion.)

Second, the project is running four years behind schedule, and the the two main system providers, BT and CSC, are threatening to pull out.

This is a serious indictment of a publicly managed IT project. It compares unfavourably with other organisations which have huge networks, such as the banks - go into any branch of your bank or use their on-line banking service or even cashpoints, and you can instantly discover details. In fact local account details are not kept locally. The same is true of companies who sell on line, and also of many commercial organisations with many branches and customers.

It is also a serious waste of resources, and a sacrifice of alternative spending by the government. The Sun points out that the cost increase could have financed 200 hospitals, 2000 Challenger tanks or 1 million heart by-pass operations.

Why is this so familiar in government projects, and especially IT projects?

In private industry care and monitoring take place because it impinges on shareholder and worker alike in competitive situations. In the public sector there is no comeback and the attitude is that the money is other peoples'.

Perhaps for similar reasons there is a tendency to under-estimate costs at the outset.

An important reason is probably the failure to specify features and conditions fully at the start, and almost certainly politicians will intervene in various ways during the implementation. As the man said, "The one who aims at nothing in particular, hits that exactly every time." Then, of course, he has to put things right.