ABSTRACT
A recent Financial Times front-page article carried the headline ‘Government to probe its IT failures'.1 The article announced the launch of an inquiry by the United Kingdom's Cabinet Office into why so many of the government's information technology projects were going wrong and struggling to deliver value for money. As well as taking the unprecedented step of reviewing projects already underway, the inquiry will also be examining private sector IT projects. But one has to ask how much value they will get from this analysis, as the private sector finds it just as difficult to achieve value for money as the public sector.
