Home Office Not Fit to Deliver ID Cards

Well as Charles Clarke has already told us his department is not fit for purpose it appears from leaks that they are messing up Ton'y Blair's ID card agenda very well.

As many people pointed out before implimentation not a single large scale government computer system has been fully operation by the time scheduled. IN the leaked e-mails David Foord, the ID card project director at the Office of Government Commerce said it was "a project continuing to be driven by an arbitrary end-date rather than reality". The government's timetable and the structure of the massive IT project means "we are setting ourselves up to fail."

And Peter Smith, the acting commercial director of the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) at the Home Office, which is responsible for the ID card scheme, said he had no argument with those conclusions but also in an even more damaging email to Labour revealed his staff were planning for the possibility ministers will scrap the ID card plan altogether. Because of that, he told Mr Foord that the Home Office was making sure contracts for projects linked to the ID card scheme were being designed to survive if the bigger scheme is dropped.

So with Tony Blair being the big advocate for ID cards is the heir apparent Gordon Brown less in favour? Therefore as a result is he liable to scrap the costly and irrelevant project once he takes over at a date, largely expected to be, before the implimentation date of the government's 'voluntary' ID card scheme?

Clarke has Gone

After the calls for his resignation appeared to fall on Tony's deaf ear the big news today is that Charles Clarke has gone. John 'Bulldog' Reid has taken over at the Home Office, I'm waiting for the outcry for a Scot having a say over so many matters that are devolved.

John Prescott has retained his title as Deputy Prime Minster but lost his departmental duties, no word yet as to how this will be filled or split.