Report on Prism information management system 'hugely embarrassing', says committee

The Commons Foreign Affairs (FA) Committee is demanding to see Gateway Reviews for all future Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) high-risk IT programmes, following problems with the Prism information management system.

The implementation of Prism in overseas posts has caused disruption, and last June senior diplomat Norman Ling was asked to report to the department on lessons to be learned.

Ling’s report says the FCO underestimated the business and cultural change required by the programme, overstated its potential benefits and suffered from management weaknesses.

Ling’s report made 26 remedial recommendations and was described in the FA Committee report published last week as ‘hugely embarrassing’.

The committee also detailed management failings, including the lack of a senior responsible owner at board level, a shortage of specialist skills, an unwillingness to accept risk and resistance to change.

Prism replaced 30 separate systems and was designed to enable sweeping changes in management and working practices providing substantial efficiencies.

But according to the committee, it resulted in ‘anguished letters’ from FCO employees, one of whom complained that in the department’s long history of inept IT initiatives, this was ‘the most badly-designed, ill-considered of the lot’.

The committee is calling for details of how Ling’s recommendations are being acting on.