Select Committee on Public Accounts Minutes of Evidence


Supplementary memorandum submitted by HM Treasury

Question 129 (Mr Field): Examples of successful IT-enabled projects

PLANNING INSPECTORATE—PLANNING PORTAL

  The Planning Inspectorate (an Executive Agency of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister) has established a "Planning Portal" to provide a one-stop shop for issues, information, guidance and transactions relating to town planning in England and Wales.

  The Portal cost £3 million to set up and has a number of interesting features including its success in linking central and local Government (over 50% of local planning authorities have signed up together with a number of statutory consultees and other organisations), its close work with all ICT suppliers in the sector to deliver interoperable standards and its provision of components such as online planning applications which can be used by local authorities on their own sites.

HM PRISON SERVICEEQUIP

  The Prison Service eQuip programme (part of HMPS's 12 year PFI contract with EDS known as Quantum) was brought in on time and budget last year. The programme required the installation of a completely new IT and telephony infrastructure at some 170 different sites in England and Wales, including over 130 prisons. Prisons present a particularly challenging environment for this kind of work, because the need to control movement into, out of and around them complicates the installation process considerably, as does the varied nature of the prison estate itself: prison buildings can comprise anything from medieval castles with walls metres thick right through to modern, purpose built facilities.

  Completing the programme on schedule, and with no significant business disruption, therefore represented a major achievement. This view has been underpinned by work done subsequently on benefits realisation, during which users reported tangible benefits in their day-to-day work arising from the new infrastructure.

  The cost of the Quantum project, of which eQuip is a part, is estimated to be £351 million over the 12 years of the contract.

NATIONAL SAVINGS & INVESTMENTS (NS&I)—OUTSOURCINGIn 1999, NS&I outsourced 4,200 of its 4,350 staff to Siemens Business Services. The scope of the outsourcing included IT modernisation to enable NS&I to continue to compete within the financial services industry into the 21st century.

  The total contract value of the outsourcing equates to approximately £1 billion over a 10 to 15 year period. The benefits can be measured by significant cost savings of over 25%, greatly enhanced customer service, quicker processing, delivery of new customer access channels (telephony and internet) and improved management information. This customer-centric view and improved customer service coupled with a modern IT infrastructure has enabled NS&I to grow and increase its value to HM Treasury.

NHS DIRECT

  NHS Direct provides a 24-hour telephone clinical advice and health information service. It was launched in 1998 and was rolled out to meet a demanding timetable to achieve coverage of the whole of England by November 2000. In 2003 the service handled 6.5 million calls and enjoys a regular user satisfaction rating of over 95%.

  NHS Direct also operates an on-line health information service which routinely receives over 500,000 unique visitors every month. A version of this service is due to be launched through digital television in the summer of 2004. NHS Direct on-line has also developed a secure personalised health account known as My Healthspace. In May 2002, NHS Direct on-line was awarded an e-Europe, e-Health award by the European Commission.

  In total the service costs around £120 million per year to deliver. In their July 2002 report, the Committee of Public Accounts noted that the implementation within demanding timescales was a "significant achievement".

HM CUSTOMS & EXCISE

  Two major IT projects that have been successfully implemented by Customs and Excise as part of their e-business programme are the National Co-ordination Unit and the National Export System. Both were evaluated by the NAO, who found that they had been successfully implemented on schedule, to budget, with a take up of 100% and 99% respectively. For further detail we would refer you to Case Studies 1 and 2 in the recent NAO Report, Transforming the performance of HM Customs and Excise through Electronic Service Delivery.

Question 130 (Mr Field):

  To strengthen delivery of IT-enabled projects and programmes, all departments are required to take into account actions agreed by Ministers in December 2002.These include greater scrutiny at earlier stages of proposed `big bang' projects to challenge the need for this approach as opposed to a modular incremental development and implementation and, if necessary, to ensure more comprehensive testing before operations commence.

  The actions also include the requirement for Accounting Officers to satisfy themselves that major IT-enabled projects do not suffer from any of the common causes of failure identified from OGC and NAO experience. Lack of effective engagement with stakeholders was one of the failures identified and accounting officers must satisfy themselves that all requirements, needs and views of all stakeholders including users have been taken into account.

  OGC also encourages departments where appropriate to pilot systems before they are rolled-out nationally to reduce risks of failure and increase acceptance of the system by users. For example NHS Direct conducted piloting alongside implementation to draw out lessons for the successful roll out of the remaining sites.

  The Public Record Office's Electronic Catalogue is a good example of where successful implementation was aided by adopting a controlled and incremental approach, running precursor projects to investigate options and prove the technology, running interim and pilot catalogues and involving senior management and users in the project.

  Where external consultants are engaged by departments to provide expert advice and assistance, they should be selected and managed effectively to ensure the needs of the end user are met. In December 2002, the OGC published "Delivering world-class consultancy services to the public sector—a statement of best practice" to support best practice working between departments and management consultancy.

13 February 2004




 
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