Public inconvenience

The IT industry needs to stop over-promising and under-delivering when it comes to public sector projects.

Wedged into a train crawling up from the south coast into London last week my close proximity to two fellow sufferers - sorry, passengers - meant I overheard an occasionally interesting conversation.

The subject was the living death that is commuting, and I apologise now to readers who don't live in this part of the country, whose hackles are rising at another article from a moaning southerner. Bear with me.

One of them, who seemed oblivious to the fact she was putting all of her not-inconsiderable weight onto my left foot, was pondering how Uncle Ken's congestion charges would affect the capital.

They then proceeded to scoff about the technology involved. It will all crash within a couple of days, they agreed. After all, that's what always happens with big public-sector IT installations.

Of course, they had a point. Look at the National Air Traffic Services centre at Swanwick: £180m over budget and delayed for so long that its computer systems were declared obsolete by the time they came online.

But I still felt compelled to jump to the defence of the IT industry against this gross exaggeration. Naturally, being English, I kept quiet.

What the industry needs, rather than me picking a fight on a train, is to stop over-promising and under-delivering.

The millennium bug non-event bred end-user scepticism about IT in general, and conversations like the one I overheard are all too common.

Add to that an unforgiving economy and the pressure is on for IT companies, in all sectors, to supply what they say they will, and win back public confidence.

Outsourcing firm Capita, which will run the congestion-charging infrastructure, has already come under fire over its existing contract to collect Council Tax in Lambeth.

The big test will come on 17 February, when 700 cameras start snapping away at number plates. Fingers crossed.