As costs escalated, IBM got approval to develop some of the software offshore. However, “…the reduction was not as great as had been envisaged because of delays and additional costs associated with complying with the stringent government security accreditation requirements regarding software development abroad. Neither IBM nor the Department have been able to supply figures for the cost reduction, which resulted from this exercise, including the effect of increased security accreditation effort” (National Audit Office, 2008).
The Shared Service Centre had a poor performance record with delays in the availability of some services and delays in payments to suppliers. The cost per invoice processed was more than four times that of invoices processed by the National Health Service and Prison Service shared services centres.