German-spouting HR system costs UK gov £80m
Print'Stupendous incompetence'
Posted in Government, 16th December 2008 23:11 GMT
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A Department for Transport computer system that was supposed to save British taxpayers £57m will instead leave them £80m in the hole.
And to add linguistic insult to fiscal injury, Conservative MP Edward Leigh says that Department for Transport staff don't trust the system because it has a habit of issuing messages in German.
As trumpeted by The Daily Mail, a report from Leigh and other MPs accuses the Department for Transport of "stupendous incompetence."
"Stupendous incompetence" does not appear to be an overstatement. The original proposal for the system stated that it would cost £55m and result in an overall savings of £112m.
No such luck.
The Department for Transport now says that the system will cost £121m and generate savings of a mere £40m - that's £80m to the bad, a far cry from the original £57m to the good.
For their part, the Transporters are reacting with as-expected sheepish obsequiousness, saying that "We welcome this report and will be responding to it in due course."
There's no word if that response will include the rolling of blameworthy heads. ®
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