Transport mismanagement ‘one of the worst seen’
The government is being lambasted for “stupendous incompetence” today following a catastrophic Department of Transport (DfT) project.
The DfT shared service plan was labelled “one of the worst cases of project management seen” by the public accounts committee.
“Here’s yet another government Holy Grail which has so far failed to bring any benefit,” said Liberal Democrat transport spokesman Norman Baker.
The plan was for the department and seven of its agencies to be sharing services by April 2008; increasing efficiency and reducing costs.
Initial estimates said it would cost £55 million to set up the programme and save £112 million over ten years, giving a total saving of £57 million.
Current forecasts show the programme costs £121 million, saving only £40 million in ten years, adding up to a grand total cost of £81 million.
The plan has been so disastrous staff have been receiving messages in German.
Edward Leigh, chairman of the committee, said: “The DfT planned and implemented its shared corporate services project with stupendous incompetence. This is one of the worst cases of project management seen by this committee.
“Remember that this was an efficiency drive aimed at saving £57 million by 2015. It now looks like the taxpayer will have to stump up £81 million to pay for it.”
The committee documented three potential ways to fail in implementing a plan: implementation, increasing costs and providing a poorer service. In this, MPs concluded, the department failed on all three aspects.
Not a single person has been held to account over the disaster and the committee is demanding answers.
Mr Baker said: “It is astonishing that the department failed to meet any of its targets and completely unacceptable that no one has been held to account for this mess.”
Mr Leigh added: “The senior managers responsible for this failure, as in the case of other recent large-scale project failures to come before this committee, have not been properly held to account.”
The idea has been so poorly thought out and so problematic that only two of the seven agencies are using it.
A spokesman for the DfT said the criticism concerned teething problems and the system has begun to work in the way originally anticipated.
The spokesman said: “As with any large scale and long term project, there have been aspects of shared services that have taken longer to implement than others. However, the system is now starting to deliver real change within the department with smoother and more streamlined processes.
“We continue to develop shared services and believe that the new way of working will result in significant improvements.”
The department has said it has taken the comments onboard and will report back to the committee with an update in due course.
