Defra's legacy IT systems critical to the UK's trade, disease prevention, and flood protection are "outdated and difficult to use", MPs have warned.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said that for Defra's customers, which range from farmers to vets, its legacy IT systems were also "inefficient and expensive".
Defra and its organisations handle around 14 million transactions per year that still involve paper forms.
Though it is embarking on a fundamental review to restructure its organisation, Defra does not yet have a strategy for the transformation of its digital services.
Defra estimates that it needs to spend £726m on modernising legacy services between 2021 and 2025, and that fully transforming its digital systems could save £20 million to £25m every year.
But the Committee warned that the lack of overall vision meant any changes made now to its digital systems may not be appropriate in the longer-term and could lead instead to wasted time and money.
The majority (80%) of Defra’s IT applications remain either in extended support, possibly incurring additional charges for updates, or are unsupported by their supplier.
MPs who sit on PAC said, in their new report, that the department "hasn’t given enough attention to the impact of its poor digital services on its users".
They added that Defra "doesn’t 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 the wider economy".
For example, previously, vets had to buy old laptops to be able to run the programmes they needed to use, according to PAC's report.
Defra was also struggling to recruit the digital, data and technology staff it needed, and so it remained over-reliant on contractors which could cost up to twice as much.
MPs have called on Defra to explain what new approaches it would adopt to recruit staff and reduce its reliance on contractors and temporary staff to provide digital skills.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, deputy chair of the committee, said Defra’s IT systems were "so outmoded and disconnected".
"We are facing down rapidly spreading animal diseases, maybe the next pandemic, with systems that may rely on moving paper forms around. This cannot continue.
"We on the PAC will also not accept a situation where Defra spends hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ money on a disjointed upgrade programme only to find that it no longer fits the structure of new systems of air quality monitoring, food and clean water supply in this country.
"It’s time for a complete overhaul at Defra, with a concurrent, pro-active digital strategy that matches every step.”
