HOWZAT

He adds: “Even if everything went perfectly (which it will not) it is very debatable (given performance of government IT projects) whether whatever [the register] turns out to be (and that is a worry in itself) can be procured, delivered, tested and rolled out in just over two years and whether the resources exist within government and industry to run two overlapping procurements.

“What benchmark in the Home Office do we have that suggests that this is even remotely feasible? I conclude that we are setting ourselves up to fail.”
He reveals that the contracts for the ID card scheme are under threat because of “the amount of rethinking going on about identity management”. He also says they are “[un]affordable”; “lack clear benefits from which to demonstrate a return on investment”; and suffer from a “very serious shortage of appropriately qualified staff”.

Foord says: “I do not have a problem with ministers wanting a face-saving solution but we need to be clear with . . . senior officials, special advisers and ministers just what this implies.” He then warns of a “botched introduction” of the scheme, adding: “If it is subject to a media feeding frenzy, which it might well be close to a general election, [it] could put back the introduction of ID cards for a generation and won’t do much for IPS credibility nor for the government’s election chances.”

Acknowledging these concerns, Smith says his IPS agency is planning around the possibility that the entire protect will fail. In a June 8 e-mail he writes: “We are designing the strategy so that [other contracts such as a contact centre for passport queries] are all sensible and viable contracts in their own right EVEN IF the ID card gets canned completely.”

In public, ministers have so far given no hint of any private fears about the viability of the scheme. But senior officials admit privately that the Home Office has abandoned its timetable for introducing cards.

Foord writes: “This has all the inauspicious signs of a project continuing to be driven by an arbitrary end date rather than reality. The early variant idea introduces huge risk on many levels.”

The problems in designing a workable system have meant a delay until March 2007 in putting out contracts to tender to private companies to build and manage the scheme. They had been due this summer.

Another official involved in the project said: “Nobody expects this programme to work. It is basically on hold while ministers rethink their options. It’s impossible to imagine the full scheme being brought in before 2026.”

The disclosures will be seized on by critics who say it is too expensive, unworkable and a breach of privacy. The Tories plan to scrap the cards and use the money to build prisons.

Simon Davies, a member of the LSE team that said costs could rise to £19 billion, said the rethink was “a vindication of all the concerns we have expressed about the costs and viability” of the scheme.

Last night the Home Office said it remained committed to an ID card scheme but had always maintained its introduction would be an “incremental” process. The cards are expected to cost about £93, which each citizen must pay when getting a new passport from 2010.

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