DutchNews.nl,
Wednesday 15 October 2014
 |
| (NOS/ANP) |
This
‘cautious estimate’ is an ‘unacceptably high amount’, the commission said in
its report which was published on Wednesday.
‘The
government often fails to keep control of its IT projects in terms of cost,
timing and the end result,’ the commission said.
Unknown
spending
Coming up
with an exact figure of how much the government wastes on IT is impossible
because ‘no one knows how much it spends’. But based on expert opinion the
figure can be put at between €1bn and €5bn a year.
Parliament
is also failing to properly monitor IT projects because of a lack of interest
and expertise and projects are being undertaken with unrealistic expectations.
Among the
34 recommendations for improvement, the commission says a special committee
should be set up to supervise projects with a budget of over €5m. The green
light for such projects should only be given once the technical, management and
organisation risks have been assessed.
What is
ICT?
Parliament
chairwoman Anouchka van Miltenburg made a major gaffe while accepting the
report by saying she had had to ‘google ICT’ to find out what it meant.
The
Netherlands uses ICT to cover information and communications technology, rather
than IT like most of the world.
‘This is a
real low point,’ IT entrepreneur Rene Veldwijk who was watching the proceedings
told the Telegraf. ‘People are being cute about their ignorance.’
Projects
The
commission was set up to look at six government IT projects which ran into
serious trouble, and held its first interviews at the end of April. The NRC
sums them up as follows:
• mGBA:
modernising the local government registration system (births, marriages, deaths
and address).
•
Ov-chipkaart: smart card for public transport which was expensive and did not
have enough loading stations.
• C2000: a
new communication system for the emergency services which cost twice the budget
and still has operating problems.
• EPD: a
centralised system for storing patients’ medical records which floundered in
the upper house of parliament because of concerns about privacy.
• Werk.nl:
jobs website run by the UWV benefit centres which has been beset by computer
failure
• A73
tunnels: a security system for tunnels on the A73 highway which did not work,
leading to months of tunnel closures.
During the
hearings information science professor Hans Mulder told the committee just 7%
of the projects with a budget starting at €7.5m can be said to be successful.
In total, 70% of projects fail.
Of those
which flop, 36% fail so seriously the new system is never used and around half
are of doubtful value because they turn out to be too expensive, take too long
or produce unexpected results, Mulder said.
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