NAO slams IT project’s rising costs

The National Audit Office has slammed plans for a multi-million pound central database of offenders that failed because of poor management and a lack of budget control. The spending watchdog said the abandoned IT project’s rising costs and delays could have been avoided if basic management rules had been followed.

Edward Leigh MP, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, described C-NOMIS as a “spectacular failure” and commented “What they delivered was a master class in sloppy project management.”

Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of probation officers union Napo, said the programme had been “a scandalous misuse of taxpayers’ money”.

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