New Clause 13
Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill
4:15 pm
Andrew Selous (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; South West Bedfordshire, Conservative)
I have heard what the Minister had said, and of course he is right that there have been huge IT projects that have been successful. He might have mentioned the Pension Service system in his own Department, which has been reasonably successful. However, independent observers and those who study the effect on our public finances agree that the overall record shows that we must do a lot better than we have in the past. Sadly, vast amounts of public money have been wasted, and the inefficiencies have meant that people using services have not been well served.
I listened carefully to what the Minister has said. He said that a senior manager is currently responsible for the project, and I believe that he said that it was expected that that person would remain in place in CMEC when it is established, but I shall stick to my guns on this one. We know enough history to learn from what has gone wrong in the past, and I wish it to be stated in the Bill that that individual will indeed stay in place until the computer contract has been bedded down. I shall therefore press the new clause to a Division.