NOMIS marks another government IT failure

Another government IT project gets chalked up to experience

The National Offender Management Service Information Technology programme (C-NOMIS), will now be introduced in prisons only and no longer extended to the probation service as originally planned, according to a Written Ministerial Statement published on January 8th.

The C-NOMIS computer system was intended to centrally manage and track offenders through the prison system, from courts to prisons to probation services. The plan is for the system to store details on offenders, such as their nationality, ethnicity, education and employment.

But now, the computer system will not be delivering offender end-to-end management. A strategic review process that Minister of State David Hanson commissioned in August said instead “arrangements will be made to allow sharing of information between prisons and probation areas through a new mechanism ‘data share’ which will give read only access to core case information to support offender management.”

Reportedly the new arrangements had to be made because of the project’s escalating costs.

This news comes as a Guardian survey reveals that the cost of failed government computer projects since 2000 has reached almost £2bn. The survey did not take into account the C-NOMIS project reduction in size and the Guardian reporters note that the survey is not exhaustive and is likely to be an underestimate of the actual costs of failed projects.

Examples of other failed government projects include a system intended to streamline benefit payments and a management system aiming to help with the Home Office’s immigration casework.

The Shadow Justice Secretary, Nick Herbert, said, “With typical Government incompetence there has been a total failure to manage the costs of the project, which have exploded, and to deliver it as promised.”

“This is not only yet another Government IT fiasco but also a serious setback for the aim of reducing re-offending and making our communities safer,” Herbert said.

In a letter Herbert sent to the Secretary of State for Justice, Jack Straw, on August 9th, he asks the government how much money it has spent on the system so far.

“Napo (the Trade union and professional association for family court and probation staff) claims that the costs of the project have quadrupled in five years, from an estimated eventual capital cost of about £234m to the latest estimate in the region of £950m for national roll-out,” Herbert adds.

In 2007, the Home Office confirmed that over £69.5m had been spent on the project out of a budget of £99m. Mike Manistry, C-NOMIS project head, said “we can’t even get the basics right,” adding that “the whole thing is actually very badly thought through.”

In response to the recent news, a Ministry of Justice spokesman said “Prison NOMIS will continue the roll-out of C-NOMIS with a version that builds on the one currently running successfully in three prisons, preserving the financial and business benefit work completed to date.”