Watchdog condemns multimillion pound government database on offenders

The failure of a multimillion-pound government IT system was today condemned by the National Audit Office.

In June 2004 the National Offender Management Service set out to build a single offender management IT system (C-NOMIS) for the prison and probation services.

However, by July 2007 the project was two years behind schedule and its estimated costs had soared to £690 million, a report by the National Audit Office has found.

Poor management and spiralling costs has led to the the scrapping and replacement of the programme which will cost at least £279 million more than the original budget.

You can read the National Audit Office report here.