Offender IT failure 'a shambles'

An IT project set up by the government to track offenders in England and Wales through the criminal justice system is "a shambles", according to a parliamentary watchdog. Skip related content

The Commons public accounts committee has delivered a damning report on the C-NOMIS system, which wasted more than £40m of taxpayers money.

MPs found officials had abandoned the scheme and had lacked even a "minimum level of competence in the planning and execution of this project", which led to costs spiralling.

C-NOMIS was intended to track and manage offenders from charge to sentence, imprisonment and beyond, connecting the courts, prisons and probation services.

Started in 2004, the IT system was abandoned two years ago following the trebling of costs to £700m.

The committee's report found planning for the project had been unrealistic, due to a "good news culture" among staff, and a failure to challenge the project with "significant rigour" by senior management.

Management had been so poor that even now, the National Offender Management Service cannot account for what £161m spent before October 2007 was used for, it adds.

Committee chair Edward Leigh said: "This committee has become inured to the dismal procession of government IT failures which have passed before us, but even we were surprised by the extent of the failure of C-NOMIS, the ambitious project to institute a single database to manage individual offenders through the prison and probation systems.

"There was not even a minimum level of competence in the planning and execution of this project. This project has been a shambles."

MPs also warned that officials who had made the key decisions regarding the project had all retired or moved on, therefore "no-one had been held to account" for the £41m wasted.

A separate report by the Commons justice committee has warned that prison officers' key role in cutting re-offending has been undermined by crisis in the prison system, which could be further undermined by planned cuts and management changes.