ID Cards delayed

From the Sunday Telegraph:

The roll-out of the Government's controversial identity card scheme is set to be delayed by a Home Office failure to begin the procurement process on schedule.

The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that the process of allocating contracts to private companies to build and manage the ID card scheme was due to begin towards the end of this month. However, the starting date has now been put back to September at the earliest.

A senior executive at one company that has already expressed an interest in carrying out work on the programme said: "We still know nothing about what the Home Office requires of us.”

Otherwise the Government would have to come up with some justifications which will not be destroyed straight-away… also everyone would have an idea how much it’ll cost us.

Phil Booth, the national co--ordinator of the No 2 ID Campaign, said: "Having forced legislation through, saying it was of the utmost importance to national security and public services, it seems bizarre that the Home Office is taking so long to issue specifications when they have had truly years to prepare them and having said it has consulted widely with the private sector."