UK IT supremo won't be supreme

The government's yet-to-be-appointed chief information officer won't have the power needed to stop major project failures, a top IT civil servant has warned.

According to reports in the FT, Richard Granger, in charge of the £6.2bn NHS IT project, has warned the government that the newly created position lacks the power to prevent the sort of catastrophes, such as that at the Passport Office, that have plagued most big government IT projects.

The ad for the new government CIO only refers to the 'influence' that the job will have and says nothing about control. The post will replace that of e-envoy Andrew Pinder, who is part of the Cabinet Office.

A spokesman for the Cabinet Office would only say that it is aware of today's article and that "the process of appointing a new head of e-government was going ahead according to procedures".

Asked if the e-envoy's office had any comment about the implication that the new post is insubstantial, she asked for time to answer and later came back to say that it would offer no further comment.

Granger reportedly confirmed that he had commented that the post should be more "delivery focused".

For about 40 years, government attempts to control computer and system procurement through agencies and policies have foundered for lack of effective power and through being circumvented by powerful ministries.