ComputerWeekly reports that a study published by the European Services Strategy Unit claims that the majority of the 105 outsourced public sector Information and Communication Technology (ICT) projects they looked into had significant cost overruns, delays and or terminations. The 105 projects had a total contract value of £29.5 billion with cost overruns totaling £9.0 billion. Within these 105 projects, 57% of contracts experienced cost overruns with the average percentage cost overrun being 30.5%. Some 33% of contracts suffered major delays while 30% of contracts were terminated.
One reason for the problems encountered was that public sector officials often only focus on the procurement stage of projects, without considering the cost of implementation and training, while another was that the private sector contractors overstate their ability to deliver and underestimate the complexity of public service provision.
One more study to add to the dozens of others all depressingly finding the same thing.
