We know what all too often happens to big IT projects in the public sector - they almost inevitably end up overspent, delayed and not fit for purpose.
But all that changed, according to the government, when new controls on spending were introduced. Now it seems that the bad old days could be coming back with reports that one major department has a huge IT overspend.
Back in 2010 the GDS, the Government Digital Service, was given the task of sprucing up the way the Civil Service provided online services.
It was also given oversight of any digital project spending more than £100,000, and set about questioning a Civil Service philosophy that had seen hugely expensive long-term contracts signed with major providers like Fujitsu and Microsoft, along with massive overspends on government websites.
One former GDS executive describes this way of thinking as "government doesn't do tech, let's buy it in from big IT suppliers." Instead, the new approach was to encourage smaller, more adaptable projects, which involved bringing expertise inside government.
The £100,000 threshold - which applied to digital services not big hardware projects - might seem rather low, but the former executive explains: "you can do a lot of harm with a poorly designed service, even if it's cheap."