The director general of the National Offender Management Service, Phil Wheatley, was taken to task by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee last week over the service’s IT programme.

Edward Leigh MP, the committee’s chairman, told Wheatley that a National Audit Office report on his service’s efforts to create a joined-up IT system for prisons, probation and beyond was ‘dreadful’. The project, C-NOMIS, is delayed by at least two years, and estimated to run £270m over budget.

‘The same old lessons haven’t been learned,’ said Leigh.

Wheatley admitted that C-NOMIS ‘was badly run in the early stages’. He said many improvements had been made to address issues raised. The ‘new’ C-NOMIS is on track for delivery on 22 May, he said.