The National Audit Office (NAO) has warned the government that strategies currently in place to transform out-dated ICT services may be ineffective.

Legacy ICT represents a ‘very significant risk' the NAO warned in a new report, with the planned attempts to introduce cost-effective public services being potentially hampered by out-dated services.

The report suggests that the public sector moves to plan contingencies and manage risk associated with out-dated services, saying: 'the strategies that government bodies have been applying to legacy ICT are unlikely to be sufficient to deliver the level of transformation envisaged by the government's digital strategy.

The report pointed to strategies employed by the DWP and HMRC in following a enhance and maintain model when transforming ICT services, in order to deliver stable developments and modernisation.