When a government asks a distinguished businessman to audit Scotland's chaotic public IT spending, and then accepts his findings, there is a reasonable expectation that it intends to deliver on them.
The expectation rises when the government uses months of civil service time creating action plans, with detailed delivery dates for parts of the agenda.
But while the talking continues, the action points of the McClelland Review into ICT spending are being ignored. Nearly two years since his report – officially watered down but still hard-hitting – there is no discernable improvement.
In June 2011 McClelland deplored excessive spending and CO2 emissions from Scotland's data centre archipelago. This waste continues as if his report had never appeared. McClelland said savings were possible "as early as 2012-13", but so far none appear to have been made.
Instead of 120 datacentres in the Scottish public sector, McClelland thought there should be around 10. But by some accounts, more are being built.
What is not yet clear is if this foot-dragging is due to quiet abandonment of McClelland's priorities, perhaps to appease bureaucratic vested interests, or if the Scottish Government "delivery" team led by Mike Neilson and Dr Jane Morgan lack the know-how or executive competence to make it happen.
In either case failure to make the easy-win savings from a grotesquely inflated £1.6bn annual ICT budget looks bad. The SNP Government complains of budget pressures but seems incapable of halting the waste and channelling hundreds of millions towards the fairer, more prosperous Scotland of its rhetoric.
Colin Donald is the Sunday Herald's Business Editor
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