NOMS IT system ‘hampered by poor management’

An initiative started in 2004 by the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) to build a single offender management IT system for the prison and probation services has proved an expensive failure.
A National Audit Office (NAO) investigation found the project had been hampered by poor management leading to a three-year delay, a doubling in project costs and reductions in scope and benefits.
The project to provide an IT system to support a new way of working with offenders was to be introduced by January 2008, and had an approved lifetime cost of £234 million to 2020.
By July 2007, £155 million had been spent on the project, which was two years behind schedule and estimated lifetime project costs had risen to £690 million.
David Hanson, Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice, called a halt to the project while options to get the budget under control were sought.
Tim Burr, head of the NAO, said: “The initiative to introduce a single offender management database has been expensive and ultimately unsuccessful. These problems could have been avoided if the NOMS had established a realistic budget, timescales and governance for the project at the start and followed basic project management principles in its implementation. In delivering the new reduced programme, NOMS needs to focus on better financial controls and more effective management oversight.”
The NOMS has made progress in getting the project back on track; but the core aim of the original project of a single shared database of offenders will not be met. The service has, however, reduced the number of databases used from 220 to three.
Many of the causes of the delays and cost overruns could have been avoided with better management, according to the NAO. Among the failings identified by the NAO investigation were:
•There was inadequate management oversight and the technical complexity of the project was significantly underestimated.
•Budget monitoring was absent and change control weak.
•The main supplier contracts were designed in such a way that sufficient pressure could not be brought to bear on suppliers to deliver to time and cost.
•Although the project board met every two months it was unaware of the full extent of delays or the cost implications.
•More than 800 changes in the project were requested by senior managers. The cost of developing the application rose from £99 million to £254 million in 2007 because of the need to customise the system.
In January 2008, the NOMS began work on a rescoped programme with an estimated lifetime cost of £513 million and a delivery date of March 2011. It opted for the lowest cost approach, which would deliver the service’s revised needs, although this option did not have the best benefit-to-cost ratio.
The full financial impact of the delays is uncertain, but it is likely to be at least £41 million; £15 million of which has been spent on aspects of the project which have now been cut from the design. £226 million has been spent on the project so far and roll-out of the system to prisons is expected to commence in April 2009.
Many aims of the project will still be realised, but the creation of a single database of offenders directly accessible by prison, probation and other providers from sentencing to resettlement, will not.
The policy of end-to-end offender management was introduced following Lord Carter’s Correctional Services Review in 2003. Under this system an offender is supervised by a single offender manager throughout their sentence, whether it is served in custody or in the community. The aim of one integrated information system was to improve information sharing about offenders, address the lack of continuity and follow up of interventions with offenders as they move within the prison system and between prison and the community, and to provide a clearer alignment of prison and probation work with offenders.