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MoD accused of squandering millions on failed IT project

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By John Glenday, Reporter

January 14, 2014 | 2 min read

Britain’s cash strapped Ministry of Defence has been accused of throwing away £50m on a delayed online recruitment system following delays to the £15.5m initiative – part of a wider £1.3bn project.

Leaked documents show that the IT scheme, designed to let the Army recruit via the internet, is now two years behind schedule and won’t go live until 2015 at the earliest.

Mounting frustration at slipping schedules, not to mention a rolling £1m a month ongoing cost, has led defence secretary Philip Hammond to consider canning the project entirely and stumping up £47.7m to project partner Capita for an entirely new system.

According to The Times technology research firm Gartner blamed the delays on a decision by the army’s recruitment wing to pick the wrong bidder for the deal after being hamstrung by MoD policy, resulting in an inexperienced and under resourced team being appointed.

In a briefing note for Hammond the MoD’s director general of finance, David Williams, wrote: “If the ICT hosting solution is not put in place then the MoD risks not gaining the appropriate number of recruits needed. Given recent criticism of army recruitment … and the use of reserves, this would lead to further negative media reporting and reputational damage for MoD."

An MoD spokeswoman said: "In December last year, we acknowledged a number of problems with the army and Capita recruitment partnership. Ministers have gripped these problems and put in place a number of fixes to correct the issues that had emerged.

"As we have previously said, in the medium-term we are building a new IT platform that will be ready early next year and in the short term we are introducing work-arounds and mitigation measures to the old IT platform to simplify the application process.”

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