back to article MoJ restarts troubled £250m National Offender management ICT system

The rollout of the Ministry of Justice's troubled £250m National Offender Management IT system was restarted again earlier this year - The Register can reveal. The Cabinet Office's body for monitoring costly programmes - the Major Projects Authority - has already flagged the project as red, meaning successful delivery of the …

  1. jake Silver badge

    Oh no ...

    ... They've got SCMODS.

    1. Teiwaz
      Happy

      Re: Oh no ...

      is SCMODS a WoW reference?

      I've had an early lunch...(hence happy icon)

      1. nichomach

        Re: Oh no ...

        State County Municipal Offender Data System... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1aIGqrGqnU

        1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

          Re: Oh no ...

          ***ARREST PROJECT MANAGER***

          ***IMPOUND BUDGET***

  2. Graham Marsden
    Boffin

    "Restarted"?

    So they tried switching it off and back on again...?

    1. Halfmad

      Re: "Restarted"?

      This is how they resolved the performance issues, they turned it back on several months later.

    2. Richard Taylor 2

      Re: "Restarted"?

      Or even on and back off again?

  3. adam payne
    FAIL

    The department refused to release the revised cost of the project following its major delays, the completion date, or the report by Deloitte citing "commercial confidentiality.

    Or maybe the cost to the taxpayer has gone through the roof and you want to release that information quietly later on hoping no one will notice.

    In September, justice minister Shailesh Vara insisted the rollout of the new NOMS IT system is scheduled to be completed in 2016. "The final cost of the rollout of the new system is estimated to be within the original budget," he said.

    Is that the original revised budget?

    1. hplasm
      Coat

      "...justice minister Shailesh Vara..."

      Is that Star Wars character?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    MOJ starts £250m £500m £1bn £1.25bn National Offender management ICT system

  5. xj650t
    Joke

    Acronym Alert

    NOMS - Negligent Organisation Massive Spend

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Big NOISE

    Maybe they could rename it the 'National Offender Informatiom Sharing Enviroment'. After all it seems everyone has had a hand on it.

  7. localzuk Silver badge

    Why??

    Why do government IT rollouts always end up being giant cluster-fracks? I don't get why they decide to overhaul everything all at once - the complexity becomes mind-boggling! If I had to replace every system here all at once, it'd absolutely go horribly wrong - it'd be impossible to ensure all use cases were covered.

    So why do central government departments continue to think its possible?

    1. Vince

      Re: Why??

      I imagine it's more because the major outsourcers have courted them into believing it's possible. Then wrap up the contracts in plenty of red tape so every possible scenario is an "additional requirement", then add plenty of clueless individuals who wouldn't know the left mouse button from the right one and you have the perfect recipe for creating total chaos.

      1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

        And don't forget the many high-level government types throwing in contradictory requirements after the fact, or disagreeing with the specs and the realisation simply because they just noticed that it will give them some work in some area.

        Don't throw the entire book at the companies, there's plenty of blame to be handed to government incompetence as well.

  8. teebie

    NOMS?

    Aren't the government usually more evasive when they are naming their snouts-in-the-trough projects?

  9. BearishTendencies

    Re: MOJ's move

    Re: MOJ's move under the £1.2bn FITS deal to disaggregate its IT outsourcing contract is also going badly

    That means GDS can point to this and force them to split up into even small chucks and really fuck it up. And CCS can 'help' with the complex transactions team too! Result!

    YAY! GO GDS! YAY! GO CCS! YAY! GO MOJ!

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Future IT sourcing.....going badly

    The MoJ Future IT sourcing programme is also doing quite a lot more than "going badly"...years late and hard to see how the promised cost savings will ever materialise

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yes, it's gone more than badly, it's been dumped. No more FITS. HP to continue as is...

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