Monday 30th June, 2014

A failed ERP implementation programme at the Ministry of Justice has led to a write off of £56m after it was discovered that the project was late, over budget and crucially – being duplicated by another department.

French firm, Steria was one of three companies appointed in 2011 to help set up an in-house system for payroll, staffing and procurement services which would be created with MoJ specific needs in mind. However, when it became increasingly clear that the project was running into a number of difficulties, the decision was made to abandon it.

Instead of the public run service, the MoJ made the controversial decision to enter into negotiations with Steria in a joint owned venture - Shared Services Connected Ltd, of which Steria holds a 75% stake. The outsourcing is expected to start later this year.

A spokesman for the MoJ said that the write off would enable the department to save money in the future.

"The intention at the time was for a bespoke system, just for the MoJ. But when these new shared service centres came on, which was quite recently actually, via the Cabinet Office, we thought why duplicate the work that was going on?"