The Times today warns that HMRC's Aspire contract, the country’s biggest IT contract, is heading for disaster under coalition plans to split it into 100 parts, putting billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money at risk.
Leading industry specialists have told The Times that splintering the £10 billion Aspire contract, which holds the tax records of 50 million Britons, will end in chaos, with higher costs and a substantial risk to the economy.
Methinks that the Aspire contract is already a lost cause, in terms of cost overruns; will splitting it into smaller parts really make things worse than they already are?
Tax does have to be taxing.
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At this rate the Westminster Abbey VIP bash will be a wake!
ReplyDeleteExcellent timing, is the Aspire contract linked in any way to RTI, electronically or otherwise?
It seems that just as you have read what you thought was news of HMRCs lowest plumbed depths along comes another iceberg! Re-arrange the deck chairs.
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Glug
I am surprised that neither you nor the Times mention the name of the person currently in charge of HMRC as she surely has a track record of mistakes that have cost the poor tax payer a fortune - the Border Agency and the West Coast Rail franchise fiascos also happened on her watch. Can someone remind us of her name?
ReplyDeleteThanks
History is repeating itself
ReplyDeleteIn 2004 EDS were given the boot from the Revenue contract because they were not deemed cost effective. Ten years later later the same thing is happening to the Aspire contract with by Capgemini\Fujistu.
The common thread in this process is the Revenue not the suppliers so why do some people think that a department that struggles to run a single contract is somehow magically going to obtain better value for money when it has to manage dozens of them.
As the Times article suggests the most likely outcome is going to be expensive chaos so if you think the systems are poor now you ain't seen nothing yet.
To be fair, isn't this a Cabinet Office edict to break up all large outsourced IT contracts across Govt? And of course if CO say anything, everyone jumps. Something about the blind leading the blind stupid.
ReplyDeleteIt could be an edict from the top of Mt Olympus and this lot will still screw it up.
ReplyDeleteA simple fact of life is that they cannot manage commercial life in all its aspects, whether that be engaging with the workforce, the customer or the professional bodies on a daily basis. Asking them to manage something contractual involving taxpayers money is doomed to failure, their project management capabilities are abysmal.They can no more handle an IT contract than Daisy the cow can handle a musket!
It will be hysterical if the outgoing Apire/Capgemini contract never sold them the workstations and ancilliary kit in the first place? Anyone know the answer?
Cabinet Orifice needs to look at why one contract could not be administered from the outset, before it launches 100 replacements.