The costly trail of British government IT and 'big bang' project disasters

From e-borders to the NHS, the billions spent tell a cautionary tale – but have lessons been learned for universal credit?

The list of reasons for failure quickly becomes familiar to those who follow these things, such as Tom Gash, the director of research at the Institute for Government.

"There are some patterns here we've seen in a lot of other failed projects," he says. "The one that stands out is doing a 'big bang', announcing it all at once."