Court computer plan wastes millions - and still doesn't work

A huge project to put all the nation's magistrates courts on one computer system is condemned by a powerful committee of MPs today as one of the worst public finance projects they have seen. The cost of the scheme has risen from £146m to almost £400m, while it still does not deliver.

The scheme, known as Libra, is an even worse fiasco than the computer systems put in place by the Passport Office, the Criminal Records Bureau and the Child Support Agency - to name three Whitehall scandals that have cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds and inconvenienced millions of people.

The cost of installing each personal computer terminal in the court is working out at £21,000. The project involves 11,000 PCs for courts in England and Wales.

The deal, agreed by Geoff Hoon in his first job in government, as a junior minister in the Lord Chancellor's Department, aimed to streamline more than 300 magistrates court procedures, saving millions of pounds. The report by the Commons public accounts committee shows that it has done the opposite: Fujitsu, the computer company which took over ICL, has so far been paid £232m for a scheme that does not operate properly.

The company was given a 10-year contract costing £146m but was unable to deliver the software. Instead, the government is paying £390m to Fujitsu and additional suppliers for an eight-year contract that is not as comprehensive as the original scheme.

Edward Leigh, the Tory chairman of the committee, said: "The Libra deal is one of the worst PFI projects my commit tee has seen. It has failed to deliver the common IT solution for magistrates courts that is so desperately needed and has turned out to be an astonishingly poor deal for the taxpayer.

"The handling of this project by the Lord Chancellor's Department was disastrous at every turn. Departments must be willing to terminate PFI contracts or take legal action when contractors fail to deliver."

Richard Bacon, the Conservative MP for South Norfolk and a member of the committee, said: "This works out at over £21,000 per workstation during the life of the project. If you include the replacement kit, it still works out at around £10,500 per PC, although you could go down to PC World and get a personal computer for £700. Even with the associated support, it is impossible to see how this price is justified."

The MPs point out that Fujitsu was also behind the benefits payment card project, which was cancelled with losses of £1.1bn.

"This is not the first time that Fujitsu has let taxpayers down so badly," Mr Bacon said. "The time has come to consider whether the government should be awarding further contracts to this company."

The MPs' report found: "The department... ran a poor competition, attracting only one bidder, and it failed to take decisive action when ICL did not deliver what was required. For its part, ICL did not understand the department's requirements, took on excessive risk and underpriced its bid."

The MPs conclude that the computer firm performed poorly throughout. "As a result of these failures the cost of the project has more than doubled in just four years to almost £400m and magistrates courts still do not have the IT systems they need to manage their workload properly."