The parliamentary group said the department has one of the “most significant” legacy IT challenges across government as it still uses a raft of outdated applications.
“While Defra is making good progress in tackling its most urgent legacy systems it does not have a long-term strategy for its much-needed wider digital transformation,” the PAC warned.
Defra systems are used by a wide range of customers and are critical to the country’s trade, disease prevention, flood protection, and air quality monitoring.
But its customers are often forced to rely on paper forms or documents and IT systems that feel outdated and difficult to use.
Defra and its organisations handle around 14 million transactions per year that still involve paper forms, which makes them inefficient and expensive. Furthermore, it does not measure the cost to users of its unmodernised digital services, so it is not possible to assess the total burden they place on other organisations and...