Disaster prone quango heaps yet more
expense on public purse

THE much-troubled Rural Payments Agency, still struggling to sort out subsidy payments for thousands of English farmers, has been landed with a £55 million bill for extra computer software capable of dealing with the new single farm payments scheme, Parliament was told yesterday.

That will be added to the £300 million in fines imposed on the agency by the EU for its failure to pay 2005 payments due in June last year but still unpaid. The new software is necessary to tackle the complexity of English payments - Scots, Welsh and Ulster farmers were paid on time because their local assemblies chose a much simpler system.

This is just the latest financial disaster caused by failed Government IT systems. They have caused major delays to the Inland Revenue, the air traffic control system, the Child Support Agency and the over-run in costs of a new NHS IT system has been variously estimated at between £12 and £20 billion.