Report - Guardian

218 The LSE Identity Project Report: June 2005“ID cards and the national register would be right at the centre of thewheel, and a whole range of spokes could be built up around it to meeta broader vision.” 520A failure of the Identity Card system could shut down our borders, restrict access tohealth care, prevent access to benefits, and reduce the security of the country. Accordingto one observer, “[t]he consequences of anything but the briefest failure of the systemcould prove catastrophic.” 521Similarly, a lack of training can result in departments failing to provide necessaryservices. The Passport Agency previously failed to assess and test adequately the timeneeded by staff to learn and work with the new system, resulting in serious delays inissuing passports. 522Another challenge that was identified by the NAO was that service delivery was put atrisk if “departments are slow to modernise existing IT and fail to adopt appropriatestandards to ensure that different systems are interoperable, secure and meet dataprotection and privacy needs.” 523 The NAO calls for a user-led approach to thesesystems. Such an approach would focus on the needs of the user, creating incentives forpublic interaction and use. 524One important example of an identity project failing is the Benefits Payment Cardproject, which was started in May 1996 but cancelled in May 1999, is analogous to theIdentity Card. 525 The project was intended to replace paper-based methods of payingsocial security benefits, and to automate the national network of post offices. Thepurpose was to provide a ‘virtually fraud-free’ method of paying benefits, reduce costsof transactions, increase efficiency, improve competitiveness, aid accounting, andimprove service. It was estimated to cost £1 billion, and a trial project was assumed totake ten months to implement. One year into the project the contractor notified that thecosts would either have to increase by 30 percent or the contract extended by five yearswith costs increased by 5 percent. Three years later the trial had not even begun, and thegovernment decided to abandon the project.A review by the NAO tried to assess what had gone wrong. It argued that the projectwas high risk and ambitious, “and with hindsight, probably not fully deliverable withinthe very tight timetable originally specified.” 526 With an estimated 20,000 post offices tobe equipped, involving 67,000 staff and 28 million customers per week, and 17 millionbenefits recipients claiming 24 different benefits, the demands on the system wereeasily identifiable as complex. A more rigorous process of selecting contractors wasalso recommended. The NAO concluded that there were a number of reasons for the520 ‘Minister says ID technology is robust’, Statement by Home Office Minister Tony McNulty, Kable’s GovernmentComputing, June 6, 2005.521 ‘Memorandum submitted by British Telecommunications plc’ to the Select Committee on Home Affairs, January2004, available at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmhaff/130/130we04.htm.522 ‘Better Public Services through e-government’, p.17.523 Ibid, p.35.524 Ibid, p.46.525 ‘The Cancellation of the Benefits Payment Card project’, Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, HC 857Session 1999-2000, August 2000.526 Ibid page 5.