Nothing we didn't already know.
Edited highlights below. Full article here.
Edited highlights below. Full article here.
Tony Blair's former IT chief has said Labour ministers ordered expensive computer projects because they wanted their policies to "sound sexy".
Ian Watmore - who is now in charge of a Whitehall efficiency drive - gave a scathing assessment of the previous government's IT record.
He told the public administration committee Labour's procurement had been over-ambitious and badly-managed.
Mr Watmore, who is permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office, said some of the high profile IT "fiascos" under the previous government had not been down to defective technology but to poor project management and badly-defined policies.
Too often, he told the Commons public administration committee, ministers simply ordered IT as an "after thought... or worse, there were people thinking they needed to have a piece of technology to make their policy sound sexy".
Mr Watmore became the head of Tony Blair's e-Government Unit in 2004 - at the height of Labour's IT procurement strategy - before going on to head the then Prime Minister's Delivery Unit.
But it was Mr Watmore's career before entering government, when he was managing director of IT consultancy giant Accenture, that came under the spotlight most during the two-hour grilling by MPs.
Committee chairman Bernard Jenkin told him: "You come from exactly the large corporate culture which has bedevilled IT procurement in government. Are you part of the cultural change the minister is looking for, or aren't you just part of the problem?"
Mr Watmore replied: "I am certainly not part of the problem and I would contest that the corporate industry of this country has caused the problems."
He said the "so-called IT disasters" of recent years were not down to technical problems but "over-ambitious projects" that were expected to deliver complex changes at a national level on a single day, "the so-called 'Big Bang' implementation".
Ian Watmore - who is now in charge of a Whitehall efficiency drive - gave a scathing assessment of the previous government's IT record.
He told the public administration committee Labour's procurement had been over-ambitious and badly-managed.
Mr Watmore, who is permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office, said some of the high profile IT "fiascos" under the previous government had not been down to defective technology but to poor project management and badly-defined policies.
Too often, he told the Commons public administration committee, ministers simply ordered IT as an "after thought... or worse, there were people thinking they needed to have a piece of technology to make their policy sound sexy".
Mr Watmore became the head of Tony Blair's e-Government Unit in 2004 - at the height of Labour's IT procurement strategy - before going on to head the then Prime Minister's Delivery Unit.
But it was Mr Watmore's career before entering government, when he was managing director of IT consultancy giant Accenture, that came under the spotlight most during the two-hour grilling by MPs.
Committee chairman Bernard Jenkin told him: "You come from exactly the large corporate culture which has bedevilled IT procurement in government. Are you part of the cultural change the minister is looking for, or aren't you just part of the problem?"
Mr Watmore replied: "I am certainly not part of the problem and I would contest that the corporate industry of this country has caused the problems."
He said the "so-called IT disasters" of recent years were not down to technical problems but "over-ambitious projects" that were expected to deliver complex changes at a national level on a single day, "the so-called 'Big Bang' implementation".
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