A critical House of Commons Public Accounts Committee report on how Defra is struggling to upgrade its ageing IT systems highlights broader problems in the department: https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/39847/documents/194104/default/.
The report notes: 'At the same time as addressing the challenges posed by legacy IT, Defra is undertaking a business transformation process which includes potentially major structural changes to Defra and its arm’s-length bodies. Defra does not currently have a vision of how the transformed Department and its organisations will operate.'
Defra has a reputation as one of Whitehall's weakest departments, in part because of ministerial turnover. Ambitious ministers use it as a way station while others are put there as a parking spot for those out of favour. Officials and lobby groups recently told the Financial Times that the department was becoming 'increasingly dysfunctional'.
A National Audit Office report in December found that 'Across government, risks to public services posed by ageing technology have been allowed to build up over many years and Defra has been affected more than most departments. Its systems and services are out of date, creating high risks of operational failure and cyber-attack, inconvenience for service users and additional staff and maintenance costs.'
The NAO found that Defra did not have a plan for the wider digital transformation that was needed: https://www.nao.org.uk/reports/modernising-ageing-digital-services-defra/
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