Irvine under fire over cost of courts computer project

The Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine of Lairg, is to be admonished by the Government's spending watchdog for allowing the cost of a £300m criminal justice computer scheme to rise by 30 per cent in three years.

A National Audit Office (NAO) report to be published this month will criticise the project after the contractor failed to meet deadlines to link 500 magistrates' courts across England and Wales under a planned network of computers.

When the contract for the "Libra project" was signed in 1998, the cost was £183m. Ministers admit the cost to the taxpayer is already £232m and by the time it is completed in 2004 it could exceed £300m.

The Lord Chancellor's Department (LCD) has already had to cancel part of the contract for buying the computer software, blaming its contractor, Fujitsu Services, formerly ICL, for putting up its prices.

The planned network is a major part of the Government's pledge to speed up justice by allowing courts to communicate with each other, the LCD, the police and the Probation Service. Some courts are still waiting for their new computer hardware, which Fujitsu has been contracted to install.

In a progress report on its investigation, the NAO says: "The study will examine why the contractor failed to deliver the project within agreed time scales and why the cost of the project has escalated. The study will also examine earlier attempts made to develop a national standard IT system between 1989 and 1996 when the LCD decided to procure a private finance initiative contract."

Staff at magistrates' courts say the project has so far provided little more than new computers, which they claim could have been bought for a fraction of the cost.

The problem is the latest to beset government IT projects. Failures with computer systems at the Passport Service, the Immigration Service, Post Office and National Air Traffic Services have cost taxpayers millions of pounds.

Rosie Eagleson, general secretary of the Association of Magisterial Officers, said: "If the core service is not delivered, we are right back to square one except that enormous sums of public money will have been expended to deliver the sort of hardware and software that is available off the shelf at PC World."

The Fujitsu contract has been renegotiated twice so that the agreed costs are now £232m with a price for the software still outstanding.

A spokeswoman for the LCD said that despite all the hitches the project remained "on track" to be completed in 2004. She added: "Since the first contract in 1998 the terms of the contract have changed with added benefits, some of it being brought forward."

Last year a minister at the LCD, Yvette Cooper, promised the Libra project would provide a modern IT infrastructure and network to link the magistrates' courts with other parts of the criminal justice system. "There are lessons to be learnt for all parties from the project. Since the original award of contract a range of government guidelines has been issued," she said.

She said "serious concerns" arose in 2001 when delays in delivery of the software and increases in costs led Fujitsu Services to seek to renegotiate the contract. "As many courts and offices had already been equipped with the IT infrastructure, a basis for renegotiation was agreed," she said.