On July 7th the Stormont Public Accounts Committee released a Report on Major IT projects in Northern Ireland. The report highlights that £5 billion of public money is at risk because of the way the civil service manages its IT projects and points to systemic failures in IT delivery and change including “poor strategic planning; insufficient capacity and capability to deliver complex change; governance and accountability weaknesses; and costly contract extensions”.

This systemic failure and mismanagement can and should be rectified immediately. At a time when public services are on their knees because of high demand and lack of funding, it is mind boggling that manager in the civil service, who are often the architects of major changes to how services are delivered, are themselves adverse to and unable to manage change.

In addition to longstanding problems of management of digital transformation projects the report flags up major problems not only with financial accountability but also raises serious issues in relation to procurement, with contracts having been extend by on average 8 years and one by 18 years. At the very least, this shows a lack of proper governance within those particular projects and a complete failure of oversight by the Departments responsible.