> for a government with a clear need.

There's your problem. The needs are never clear, not on massive systems. Governments will write a spec, companies will read the spec, offer to implement it as written, knowing full well that it won't work. Then they charge exorbitant fees to modify the system after launch, so that it will actually full fill business needs.

The Danish government is famous for sucking at buying massive IT systems.

  * Specs for new tax system: 6000 page, tax laws not included. That's basically impossible to implement and it predictably failed. The version that worked: Implement just the basics to collect TV license fees. The build from there.

  * System to calculate the value of people home, I think we're at round five (rumors has it that one system worked, but was scrapped because it showed that most home are massively overvalued and it do terrible things to the tax collection in the municipalities).

  * New case management system for the police, failed, development never restarted. One suggested solution was to have the police hire a handful of the best developers in the country and have them produce smaller deliverable over a number of year. The money wasted could have funded 10 world class developers for ~30-50 years.