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Government IT critics 'creating mood of national defeatism'

By Nicholas Timmins,Public Policy Editor

FINANCIAL TIMES Published: January 23 2007 02:00 | Last updated: January 23 2007 02:00

Endless and inaccurate criticism of government IT projects risks creating a mood of "national defeatism" over the use of modern technology in government services, Pat McFadden, the minister responsible for e-government has warned.

Projects did go wrong, he said, and when they did, "we should hold our hands up, fix the problem and

But it was "factually wrong" to say that was the case for all government investment in technology. A wide range of projects from the Pensions Service to online renewal of car tax to the transport department's journey planner were all working well.

"Tens of thousands of people, right now, are completing self-assessment income tax returns online," he said.

Critics also repeatedly cited projects as failures when they hit trouble for a time and were then put right. For example, the Passport Agency was repeatedly described as an IT failure because of chaos when a new system was introduced in 1999. "But that was six or seven years ago. Since then it has worked extremely well," he said. "To describe it as a failure is simply inaccurate.

"Government cannot ignore the availability of technology to improve services when people are shopping online, banking online and using technology in every other part of their lives," said Mr McFadden.

"We cannot allow the belief to take hold that somehow government cannot be part of this change - that we should be frozen in time and not drive through projects to improve the quality of service because someone says it won't work."

The minister said government did face the challenge that many of its IT applications were hugely complex, dealing with many millions of people, with many operating on a scale and with a reach far greater than in the private sector. So things did go wrong.

"But there seems to be a sort of 'established truth' that they all go wrong, and too many people appear not to want to listen when the facts are otherwise," he said. To argue that the government could never get projects right created a sense of "national defeatism". If that was listened to, it "would hold us back as a country".

If government-based IT really never worked, he said, 13m benefit payments would not be being made every week, a million biometric passports would not have been issued in the past year, and several million people would not have been able to renew their car tax online.

It was right that the public should demand value for money from government projects, said Mr McFadden, and right that there should be criticism when they went wrong. But the ambition to improve services should not be defeated by a nostalgia that said government services should not be part of the modern world.