5 years ago: Ofsted red-faced over software blunder

18.01.2000:The UK government's school inspection agency, Ofsted, is being forced to delay the launch of its flagship software project after a series of embarrassing failures.

The electronic inspection notebook - known as Wizard - was developed by an inhouse team of programmers to make life simpler and quicker during evaluations. It was intended to enable inspectors to electronically file reports, which could then be emailed to Ofsted's head office.

But after templates failed to work, the project was dubbed "disastrous" by contracting companies who employ school inspectors on a short term basis.

silicon.com spoke to one contractor based in the Midlands who said: "There were significant problems. The program was easy to install but hopeless to use."

18.01.2005:The government still has a none-too-impressive record on IT cock-ups - the most notable of late being the headline-grabbing news that 80,000 Department of Work and Pensions PCs fell over after an upgrade.

Another high-profile IT failure that cost the government some £456m saw MPs repeatedly call for more access to information and transparency.

The government still have trouble controlling IT budgets, with both Customs and GCHQ experiencing runaway budgets.

Still, Whitehall has managed to pull the odd one or two success stories out of the bag in recent months, including the news that a move to e-government could save £300m and a new e-procurement systembeing introduced.