£100 MILLION lost on failed UK.gov IT projects - in just ONE YEAR

[Batcher]

Kind of makes you wonder who does negotiate these contracts. Its rather hard to believe no one has any common sense to ask what happens if it does go tits up?

And surely the government have teams of lawyers at their disposal that should be checking contracts before signing.

[Zero Liability]

It is very different. Within a business there are lines of accountability that ultimately end up at the shareholder's feet. No such accountability in the public sector.

They still like to pretend we're their "customers", though.

[NickFitz]

£100 MILLION poured down drain on failed UK.gov IT projects - in just ONE YEAR

Somebody forgot to negotiate a clause for a reduction in charges should sites be decommissioned early. The result was the Department was forced to continue paying for unwanted facilities, resulting in a constructive loss of £4.707m.

That one's not a particularly good example, as it wasn't a case of any kind of IT failure - it was a management failure. The effect would have been the same if it had been a cleaning or catering contract negotiated without such a clause.