The Inland Revenue has learned the lessons from its Tax Credits IT debacle, says newly-appointed chief information officer Steve Lamey.

The New Tax Credits (NTC) system, which was developed by EDS, went live in April 2003, but a number of glitches and slow performance caused massive backlogs and serious delays for citizens claiming the credit.

In an exclusive interview with Computing, Lamey says the latest release of the system is due to go live in April and that important lessons have been learned.

This will be the sixth upgrade since the system initially went live, and except for the first, all have gone smoothly, he says.

'It is important to recognise that internally the lessons from the NTC fiasco are being very well learned and that is encouraging,' said Lamey.

'The lessons include setting out our objectives at the beginning - all the stuff the NTC project managed to get in the wrong order. The recent Child Trust Fund system went live and was not reported on because it was entirely successful.'

Discussions about whether EDS should pay damages to the department, or the other way round, are continuing.

'EDS and the Revenue are in an ongoing situation that still has to be resolved,' said Lamey.

A key problem with the NTC system was that time to test the system was stripped out of the implementation to meet the Chancellor's pre-announced deadline for the policy.

Government ministers are now more likely to be aware of technical realities, says Lamey.

'How many politicians would want another NTC on their watch?' he said.

Follow link below for the full interview with Steve Lamey