Government branded 'a joke' over wasting £1bn installing new computer systems

New figures show just how badly budgets were blown by Whitehall officials overseeing the introduction of state-of-the-art computer systems.

Ministers were left red-faced at the extent to which departments had lost their grip of the purse strings when installing new technology.

Statistics uncovered by the Liberal Democrats revealed that over the last five years, the Government has overspent on major I.T. projects by £1.04billion - an over-run of 11.4 per cent.

The total would have bought four new and fully-equipped general hospitals at about £250 million each.

Chris Huhne, the party's environment spokesman, said the sum was 'beyond a joke'.

He branded the Government a 'laughing stock' over its handling of flagship projects.

Mr Huhne gleaned the overall figure after asking every Government department how much it had run over budget on its five biggest computer projects over the last five years.

The worst offender was the Ministry of Defence which overspent on IT by £785million - or 14 per cent.

The department, headed by beleaguered Defence Secretary Des Browne, was forced to pay £885million over budget on Skynet 5, a satellite system that will allow the Army, Royal Navy, RAF and allied forces to communicate quicker.

But it managed to claw some of the deficit back by bringing other projects in under budget.

Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs officials overspent on IT by £62.4million, or 46.3 per cent - the biggest proportion of any ministry.

Millions of pounds were wasted when the Rural Payments Agency's computer system, set up to pay around 115,750 farmers more than £1.5billion in EU subsidies, broke down.

Margaret Beckett, the then Environment Secretary, and top civil servants ignored warnings that the 'complex and very high risk' scheme was likely to run into trouble.

The Department for Transport's IT experts overspent by £136million, the Foreign Office bust its forecasts by £34.6million and the Home Office overran its predicted budget by £18.7million.

Mr Huhne said: "The Government must get a grip on its finances. Government IT projects have long been the laughing stock of the private sector but this £1billion overspend is beyond a joke.

"It is no surprise that Defra tops the league table of waste. The department's wastefulness has already required David Miliband to axe budgets for key priorities such as flood defences, waterways and animal disease prevention."

He said if the MoD could waste nearly £800million by overspending on its IT system, taxpayers could have 'little confidence' that the proposed £20billion Trident nuclear replacement programme would meet its bottom line.

Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: "Everybody who owns a PC knows that the cost of computers is falling, so it shows just how wasteful the Government is with our money that they have overspent so much on IT procurement.

"The Government spends more on IT per head of population than any other country in the EU, so they are clearly not getting value for money.

"Taxpayers deserve better, so we can have lower taxes and be left with more money at the end of each month for our own computer needs."

Last year, the Mail revealed how households paid out an average of £574 each on Government computer projects last year.

A total of £12.5billion was ploughed into IT schemes across Whitehall departments, including more than £1billion on the Health Service's crisis-hit new system, official figures showed.

The figures came as ministers admitted millions have already been wasted on Government websites and that hundreds would be shut down.