£469m goes up in smoke as fire rooms plan ends in chaos - Telegraph.co.uk

Peter Housden was permanent secretary and principal accounting officer for the Department for Communities and Local Government, which ran the project, for most of the scheme's life.

Last year he was made a knight and promoted to become permanent secretary of the Scottish Government.

Over six years, there were five Senior Responsible Owners and four difference Project Directors.

"None have so far been held to account for failure and most have suffered no hindrance to their career," the report said.

Roger Hargreaves, Project Director for the final two years, previously told the Committee: "Ultimately we were not able to deliver the project, and the problems that we faced at the time proved not to be surmountable.

"That does not necessarily mean that, on the basis of the evidence available to us at the time, the judgments were wrong.

"In hindsight, if we had not ever started the project, then that would have been possibly the best course of action."

FiReControl was launched in 2004, with the aim of replacing 46 fire and rescue control rooms in England with nine new regional centres, but the coalition Government scrapped it last year after a series of expensive delays.

It is likely that only five of the centres will be used by the fire service, said the report, which criticised the DCLG for excluding fire and rescue services about the design and content of the new centres.

The contract was poorly designed and the department awarded computer work to a firm with no direct experience of supplying the emergency services, which relied mainly on subcontractors, said the report.

Consultants also made up half the management team, costing £69 million by 2010, but they "were not managed".

One company alone, PA Consulting, received £42 million to advice on project management issues.

In 2008, PA Consulting had a £1.5 million contract with the Home Office cancelled after it lost a memory stick containing the details of 84,000 prisoners, plus another 30,000 offenders on the police national computer.

Margaret Hodge, the committee chairman, said: "No one has been held to account for this project failure, one of the worst we have seen for many years, and the careers of most of the senior staff responsible have carried on as if nothing had gone wrong at all, and the consultants and contractor continue to work on many other government projects."

The Government has earmarked £84.8 million to meet the project's original objectives of improving efficiency but the MPs voiced concern that the department could not say how this will provide value for money.

Fire Minister Bob Neill said: "Not for the first time, hard-working taxpayers are paying for Labour's inability to manage risks and control costs."