No-one can be sure whether it was Andrew Pinder who failed the government, or the government which failed Pinder, in delivering the long promised e-revolution.

When he departed from the post of e-envoy Whitehall computing officials conceded that opportunities had been lost by the failure to develop a coherent, cross-governmental IT strategy capable of delivering on at times inflated ministerial ambitions for e-government.

Regardless of who is to blame, the reality is that the road towards the e-delivery of key public services is littered with the charred remains of several botched projects which have had costly repercussions both to Whitehall and private sector careers – and, more importantly, to the taxpayers.

Now, however, ministers hope that the Office of Government Commerce and the Gershon review of public sector procurement will set the scene for a smarter, quicker and more accurate process.

But the charge sheet against former projects is long and, to date, learning lessons has been a slow, painful process. Conservative estimates suggest the government may have blown as much as £1.5bn in botched IT projects in the six years.

Two of the biggest offenders were the £698m Pathway project which was cancelled. That initiative was meant to deliver a system of smart cards for benefits payments. A further £134m was overspent on the Libra project to overhaul the IT systems of magistrates courts.

But by next year the OGC is demanding a significant increase in the quality of government IT procurement. Through the creation of centres of excellence the body hopes that those responsible for procuring major projects will not have to reinvent the wheel each time they put a new project out to tender.

Acquisition programmes and procure-ment projects in central civil government are subject to OGC ‘gateway reviews’ – which are intended to minimise the risks of projects heading off the rails. The reviews amount to the regular audit of an acquisition programme or procurement project carried out at a key decision point by a team of experienced people, independent of the project team.

There are five OGC gateway reviews during the lifecycle of a project: three before contract award, and two looking at service implementation and confirmation of the operational benefits.

“The process emphasises early review for maximum added value,” says the OGC. Through the process ‘senior responsible owners’ are appointed within the procurement process to ensure that someone of authority has taken charge of the project.

The government believes that gateway reviews ensure that the best available skills and experience are deployed on the project and that all the stakeholders understand the issues involved.

The OGC argues that the new system provides an assurance that the project can progress successfully to the next stage of development or implementation without any nasty surprises arising.

To this end the OGC has identified a simple ‘traffic light’ system for the assessment of projects at each gateway. A red alert warns that to achieve success the programme or project should take ‘remedial action immediately’.

An amber alert suggests that the programme or project should go forward with actions on recommendations to be carried out before the next review. Those given a green light are on target to succeed but ‘may benefit from the uptake of the recommendations’.

To date the OGC says that the reviews have resulted in more realistic time and cost targets being achieved and have improved knowledge and skills among those who participate in review teams. It has also been decided that projects being developed in-house should also be subject to gateway review.

Through this process the OGC hopes that the future of major IT procurement in the public sector will be better than the past. And it should not take too long to tell whether the culture change is proving effective.