Naive

David Cameron said that the Government had demonstrated a deplorable want of maturity when it came to handling big IT projects, and is given to thinking  that  “spending a few million on these consultants” and “a few billion on this computer project, and everything will be OK”. 

He said "It's one of the most shameful and disgraceful aspects of Labour's record, the way they fall for the sales patter of the management consultants and the big IT firms, who make them think they can cut corners to success.”

Welcome to the Club

That sounds quite familiar. The industry people have been saying that for years. Incidentally, it was the big IT consultancies that sold the idea to the Government a few years ago, that there was a major IT skills shortage.

Indeed Patricia Hewitt told them there that Britain needed 300,000 more IT workers, an addition of 30% to the number of IT workers in the UK.

Doomed

We all had said that NHS IT project’s failure was a foregone conclusion doomed to failure at ITContractor.com, at least 3 years ago, when the Government had.

It's difficult enough to run a major IT project of that size. But when the Government and its departments are involved and use a number of outside IT Consultancies who don't know the business and who want to make as much money as possible then it will clearly sound the death knell.

Sales Patter

The Government took the sales 'patter' of the big consultancies far too seriously, relying on their expertise and knowledge for providing authentic information about everything related to IT.

They're paying a huge price now for that mistake.