How does this compare?
Does the private sector do much better? The likelihood of project delivery on time and on budget decreases with project size, but very few companies are in a position to regularly bet hundreds of millions of pounds on giant projects. Those that do sometimes get it wrong too (the TSB fiasco springs particularly to mind).
When a big company does have a big project go pear-shaped the public don't generally get to hear about it; its not taxpayer money so its not a scandal. Everyone involved has an incentive to pretend that everything is really fine. So we have very little clue about whether government actually does worse than the rest of the world. Its possible that the UK civil service is comparatively good at project delivery.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
