Pressure on EDS over U.K. government IT system grows

November 19, 2004 —

After continuous computer failures forced the top civil servant of the U.K.'s Department of Work and Pensions' Child Support Agency (CSA) to step down from his job this week, the government is considering scrapping a welfare case management and telephony system developed in large part by Electronic Data Systems Corp. (EDS).

The computer system, launched on March 3 last year by the Plano, Texas, company, has made payments to only one in eight single parents, department Secretary Alan Johnson told a House of Commons Parliamentary Select Committee Wednesday. The committee is the legislative body charged with oversight of the government department.

Johnson, who only took his current job eight weeks ago, said he is considering the "nuclear option" of pulling the plug on the system altogether and promised he would make a "quick decision" on the matter. "It's right up the top of the agenda," Johnson said.

During the committee meeting, Johnson read from what he said was an internal EDS memo describing the computer system as "badly designed, badly delivered, badly tested and badly implemented."

A representative from EDS U.K. declined to comment or to confirm the legitimacy of the EDS internal memo.

The system, which Johnson described as "problematic and unstable," involves a Java-based application developed by EDS and is expected to cost the government

IDG News Service