Almost every month, formally commissioned reports are produced on the failure of UK Public sector IT projects. So much so that the Public are becoming immune to the pain of the continual and incessant comments on their failure.

The reasons for failure can be attributed to the complex intersection of political pressures, rigid bureaucratic processes, and a fundamental "design–reality gap".

Technical issues do occur, but the fundamental reasons for these expensive mistakes lie in governance, culture, and procurement.

The statistics for failure in UK Public Sector IT Projects are grim:

• Just 13% are deemed fully successful,
• 58% are considered deemed partial failures
• Almost 33% fail outright.
• Only 1 in 200 delivers the intended benefits on time and within budget.
• 80% of projects exceed their initial schedules.
• Only 9% of major tech programs were assessed as "Green" (successful delivery highly likely)
• 60% more were assessed as "Red" (highly at risk) compared with non-tech projects

Most of the reasons for failure of Public Sector projects are well documented in the numerous Parliamentary Committee Reports, specially commissioned audit reports and other oversight and review mechanisms. However, for reference purposes they are summarised below in order of what I consider criticality:

Procurement & Vendor Issues

• Government contracts are, all to too frequently, based on massive, inflexible requirement lists. They do not allow for the iterative adjustments of modern software development.
• Procurement rules often force agencies to choose the “lowest bidder” rather than opting for the best value for money. In consequence, vendors are inclined to drastically underbid in order to win the contract and then resort to cutting corners or charging for "change requests" to regain profit.
• Large projects outsource core design and architecture to external vendors, resulting in a loss of institutional knowledge and high dependency on single vendors.

Structural & Political Issues

• As political initiatives are often dependent on technology for delivery, timelines are dictated by political expediency, such electoral cycles. Realistic delivery timescales are superseded by such considerations.
• Long-term projects often outlast the tenure of the ministers or officials who initiated them. As a result there is re-prioritisation due to changing political priorities, and a consequent a loss of accountability.
• There is a cultural unwillingness to report problems or be the bearer of bad new to senior leadership or political masters. This leads to issues being suppressed until they are too large to rectify.

Governance & Management Failures

• There is a shortage of high-level leadership with the technical and commercial skills required to manage complex digital markets and vendors effectively. Historically promotion in the Civil Service has been through recognition of skill in policy formulation and delivery, rather than effective operational implementation. The Civil Service places more value on policy rather than delivery.
• Minor project changes may require months of bureaucratic approval, particularly if they have political or policy implications. Meanwhile, contractors continue to bill and outcomes suffer.
• Responsibility and accountability are frequently poorly defined as they are spread across multiple “stakeholders”, including ministries, agencies, vendors, committees and subcommittees. As a result, no single person has the authority to make critical decisions and there is an absence personal stake in the delivery of outcomes.

Project & Design Issues

• Governments tend to seek large scale rollouts from day one- “the Big Bang” approach, rather than small-scale, testable and iterative pilots. “The Big Bang approach” increases the risk that individual technical failures or flaws will cause a major or total system collapse.
• Changing political and refined Policy mandates and the aspiration to "cover all bases” leads to projects becoming over complex, with commensurate budget over-runs.
• Policy makers are inclined to design systems without significant input from the frontline staff or the public who will actually use them.

What Are The Key Remedies?

Although there are technical remedies, to which I shall briefly make reference, the underlying issue is cultural, namely- Civil Service Accountability.

Change the current Civil Service Accountability Model

Civil Servants are accountable through both indirect (vertical) and direct (horizontal) channels. The principles of this accountability date back to the Northgate-Trevelyan Report of 1854 and were updated by the Haldane Convention of 1918, the latter reflecting some of the experiences of World War I.

Much of what has evolved is at best mumbo jumbo shaped by Constitutional Lawyers and the Judiciary:

• Civil servants are primarily accountable to their government Ministers. Ministers are then constitutionally responsible to Parliament for the actions of their departments.
• This so-called “Westminster Model is overlaid by accountability to Parliament through select committees and legislative scrutiny, officials (especially senior leaders like Permanent Secretaries) are held directly to account for departmental spending, efficiency, and policy implementation.
• A further complexity arises because Officials are increasingly accountable directly to the citizens they serve. This is enforced through transparency laws (like the Right to Information), public feedback, and service delivery performance.
• Civil servants owe a loyalty to the Constitution or the rule of law, ensuring they do not follow unlawful orders.
• Finally accountability is also owed to independent institutions such as the Civil Service Commission, Auditors-General, Ombudsmen and other quangos with quasi-judicial powers.

The conventional dictum, that accountability serves as the "hallmark of modern democratic governance," acting as an instrument to signal competence and maintain the public's trust in government institution, is at best and abstract notion.

Too much emphasis is laid on policy development, rather than delivery, when assessing civil servant performance. The inability of the Public Sector to rein in the mechanisms wasting funds is but one example of where public trust and confidence has eroded.

Accountability for performance may only be achieved by restricting the frequency senior civil servants may change roles within the Civil Service. When appointed to lead roles in major project, they should be subject to a fixed posting unless or until there is a formal documented hand over of projects with an evaluation of their performance up to the hand over.

The other remedies are fairly conventional and operate in the Private sector as well as Public Sector:

Structural & Strategic Remedies

• Move away from "big bang" implementations in favour of breaking projects into smaller, manageable steps. This allows for continuous evaluation, adjustments, and earlier delivery but most importantly more focussed evaluation of leadership performance and accountability
• Adopt formal checkpoints to assess if a failing project still aligns with strategic objectives.

Governance & Leadership Improvements

• Establish a well-resourced core team from the start, in order to provide technical expertise across relevant government department, so that each department remains an informed and effective customer.
• Assign a “Senior Responsible Owner” for the total duration of the project subject to agreed and documented formal transfer should circumstance or events demand change. The is actively involved, empowered to make decisions, and can bridge the gap between technical teams and policy-makers.
• Abandon collective responsibility, which is too ambiguous for critical Government projects, by clearly defining roles and ensuring individual accountability for project milestones.

Operational & Procurement Remedies

• Invest in training for existing staff, or attract private sector talent, to fill critical gaps in digital and commercial procurement skills on a permanent rather than secondment basis.
• Abandon rigid, one-size-fits-all contracts by implement performance-based incentives and penalties to nail down vendors’ accountability for failing software by conducting a thorough code audit to identify bugs and performance bottlenecks before proceeding with new development.

Additional Cultural & Communication Remedies

• Involve end-users, normally the general public at the project's inception to ensure the final product actually meets their needs and reduces resistance to change.
• Engender a culture where failures can be discussed openly without fear of reprisal, similar to air accident investigations.

Most of the comments in this article are frankly fairly obvious and of a common sense nature to anyone who has had experience in the private sector. It is an unfortunate reflection of political leadership that it contains few people who have had private sector commercial experience- the two are in many ways contradictory but that is a wider discussion.

Bob McDowall

March 2026