Friday 29 June 2012

Francis Maude, the UK government's major IT suppliers and the empty chair

Hat tip: Tony Collins, Poor IT suppliers to face ban from contracts?
The Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude is due to meet representatives of suppliers today [28 June 2012], including Accenture[,] BT, Capgemini, Capita, HP, IBM, Interserve, Logica, Serco, and Steria.

They will be warned that suppliers with poor performance may find it more difficult to secure new work with the Government ...
The suggestion is that up to now "suppliers with poor performance" haven't found it hard as a result to "secure new work with the government".

Apart from Atos, DMossEsq and Fujitsu, who's missing from that list?

CSC. Computer Sciences Corporation, share price today $23.76 compared with $37.96 a year ago, nearly 40% off, DMossEsq is not licensed to give investment advice and is not giving investment advice.

Last heard in these parts, CSC were picking up a fortune from the UK taxpayer for collecting useless biometrics on UK visa applicants, upgrading the UK passport system expensively and unnecessarily and failing to deploy the UK National Health Service National Programme for IT scheme, NPfIT. That's the good news.

We also heard that they were facing a class action brought by the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, they'd been docked $250 million by the US Armed Services Board and they had failed to install their Lorenzo software at Pennine Care NHS Health Trust.

Some of that news is six months old. How are they doing now?

Another hat tip: Mark Ballard, Soldiers nail data for agile offensive on $6bn cock-up:
Supplier Computer Sciences Corporation finished the US Army's 1999 Logistics Modernization Programme [LMP] last year, six years behind schedule [good job the US wasn't fighting any wars at the time].

LMP went on the record as being done on budget after the Army accepted an offer on a $2bn compensation claim it had against the supplier. After seven years of contract arbitration in which CSC filed $861m of counter claims against the Army, CSC settled the matter with a $269m payment last year. The settlement also cleared another $1.2bn of outstanding contract complaints, said the Army spokeswoman.
Six years late and $269 million down the tubes seems a fair summary.

And that's not all, as Mr Ballard tells us in CSC finance director exits as fraud probe hits UK. Their 10-K, filed with the SEC, makes absorbing reading:
On May 2, 2011, the Audit Committee commenced its investigation into certain accounting errors and irregularities, primarily in our Nordic region and in our operations in Australia. This investigation is also reviewing certain aspects of our accounting practices within our Americas Outsourcing operation and certain of our contracts that involve the percentage of completion accounting method, including our contract with the U.K. National Health Service (NHS). As a result of this investigation, we have recorded certain out of period adjustments to our historical financial statements and taken certain remedial measures. The SEC is conducting its own investigation into the foregoing areas as well as certain related disclosure matters ...

As noted above, during fiscal 2011, the Company commenced an investigation into accounting irregularities in the Nordic Region. Based upon the Company's investigation, review of the underlying documentation for certain transactions and balances, review of contract documentation and discussions with Nordic personnel, the Company attributes the majority of the $92 million pre-tax adjustments recorded in the Nordic region in fiscal 2011 to accounting irregularities arising from suspected intentional misconduct by certain former employees in our Danish subsidiaries. The Company attributes the $13 million in pre-tax adjustments recorded in the Nordic region in fiscal 2012 to miscellaneous errors and not to any accounting irregularities or intentional misconduct other than a $1 million operating lease adjustment noted in the first quarter of fiscal 2012 which was a refinement of an error previously corrected and reported in fiscal 2011 ...

In the course of the Australia investigation initiated in fiscal 2012, accounting errors and irregularities have been identified. As a result, certain personnel in Australia have been reprimanded, suspended, terminated and/or resigned. Based upon the information developed to date, and the Company’s assessment of the same, the Company has identified and recorded during fiscal 2012, $23 million of adjustments reducing income from continuing operations before taxes relating to its operations in Australia. Such adjustments have been categorized as either intentional accounting irregularities (“intentional irregularities”) or other accounting errors (“Other Errors”). Other accounting errors include both unintentional errors and errors for which the categorization is unclear ...

Between June 3, 2011, and July 21, 2011, four putative class action complaints were filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, entitled City of Roseville Employee's Retirement System v. Computer Sciences Corporation, et al. (No. 1:11-cv-00610-TSE-IDD), Murphy v. Computer Sciences Corporation, et al. (No. 1:11-cv-00636-TSE-IDD), Kramer v. Computer Sciences Corporation, et al. (No. 1:11-cv-00751-TSE-IDD) and Goldman v. Computer Sciences Corporation, et al. (No. 1:11-cv-777-TSE-IDD). On August 29, 2011, the four actions were consolidated as In re Computer Sciences Corporation Securities Litigation (No. 1:11-cv-610-TSE-IDD) and Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board was appointed lead plaintiff ...

On September 13, 2011, a shareholder derivative action entitled Che Wu Hung v. Michael W. Laphen, et al. (CL 20110013376) was filed in Circuit Court of Fairfax County, Virginia, against Michael W. Laphen, Michael J. Mancuso, the members of the Audit Committee and the Company as a nominal defendant asserting claims for breach of fiduciary duty and contribution and indemnification relating to alleged failure by the defendants to disclose accounting and financial irregularities in the MSS segment, primarily in the Nordic region, and the Company's performance under the NHS agreement and alleged failure to maintain effective internal controls ...

CSC was informally advised by the Danish Justice Department on February 3, 2012 that the project known as POLSAG, a document and records management modernization program for the Danish police, will be abandoned, which affects CSC's contract with the Justice Department ...

In addition to the matters noted above, the Company is currently party to a number of disputes which involve or may involve litigation ...
Bit mean of Mr Maude not to invite CSC along for tea and biscuits with the other suppliers.

Francis Maude, the UK government's major IT suppliers and the empty chair

Hat tip: Tony Collins, Poor IT suppliers to face ban from contracts?
The Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude is due to meet representatives of suppliers today [28 June 2012], including Accenture[,] BT, Capgemini, Capita, HP, IBM, Interserve, Logica, Serco, and Steria.

They will be warned that suppliers with poor performance may find it more difficult to secure new work with the Government ...
The suggestion is that up to now "suppliers with poor performance" haven't found it hard as a result to "secure new work with the government".

Apart from Atos, DMossEsq and Fujitsu, who's missing from that list?

Wednesday 27 June 2012

The agility with which Francis Maude and Sir Bob Kerslake are being parted from our money

Leafing through Computer Weekly the other day as no doubt we all were revealed this article by Mark Ballard, Soldiers nail data for agile offensive on $6bn cock-up:
... the effort is part of an emergency reform of IT projects using agile methods, on orders issued by the Department [of] Defense last year after 11 major computer systems went $6bn over budget and 31 years behind schedule.
$6 billion over budget? 31 years behind schedule? So it doesn't just happen in the UK:
The IPPS system was started in 2010 as a clean slate on another spoiled clean slate. It replaced the DoD's previous attempt at an ERP pay system, the Defense Integrated Military Human Resource System, after 12 years work that had cost $1bn. HR system Contractor Northr[o]p Grumman, the fifth largest US defence contractor, was kept on to develop IPPS.
"IPPS" is the US Army's Integrated Personnel and Pay System – you didn't want to know that – and "ERP" is Enterprise Resource Planning, which is an earlier software engineering philosophy which was going to solve all our problems.

Earlier than "agile methods". Agile methods are the latest cure-all. You'd think after a while the gullible would stop falling for cure-alls and that they would notice that the same suppliers hang on year in year out, but no.

What went wrong with the ERP approach to paying the army? It's highly technical, of course, but readers should not be patronised by having the difficulties hidden from them:
"For this approach to work, the first increment is focused on the creation of authoritative data," a US Army spokeswoman told Computer Weekly.

"Subsequent increments will field applications utilising the authoritative data," she said.

Auditors had blamed data problems for wrecking the US military's ambitious plan to rip out pay and logistics systems and replace them with all-encompassing Enterprise Resource Planning systems by vendors such as Oracle and SAP. But with hundreds of different systems being merged, nobody had ensured their data would be compatible.
This won't have occurred to you but apparently, it has been discovered, recent high-level research suggests, if the data is wrong or not "authoritative" that can have an adverse effect on the system. Also, while several billion dollars were changing hands, no-one seems to have noticed that different systems store data in different ways that are not what we software engineers call "compatible".

If only we'd known before.

Actually, we did. Chris Chant told us. Remember his unchallenged 23-point list of what's wrong with UK government IT? Point #19 was "Government should use small and medium size suppliers whose IT practices are more 'agile' but instead they stick with the big ponderous suppliers".

"Agile" is the solution to the problems of ERP, which was the solution to the problems of structured systems design, which was the solution to the problems of the rhythm method.

And what does "agile" mean? What do agile software engineering methods look like?

Ask GDS, the Government Digital Service. They're the IT frontiersmen at the Cabinet Office having praise heaped on them by Francis Maude and Sir Bob Kerslake. They're going to transform government and deliver more for less following the digital by default precepts of Martha Lane Fox.

Let Mike Beaven of GDS explain what it's like to be Riding the Paradigm – where agile meets programme:
There are challenges to running an agile approach to delivery inside a larger organisation where agile is not yet fully understood. We are frequently asked how we approach these challenges and manage them here at GDS ...

... i[n] terms of Cabinet Office and GDS ... we have a pretty established and successful agile software delivery engine. Whilst it is relatively new it has become a firmly established way of working beyond the core delivery teams, and lean/agile methods are used across GDS in a variety of teams ...

The base premise here has been to make the programme processes lighter and more agile, let the project management office take the load from delivery managers but still be in control of our agile delivery streams in terms of money, risk and delivery expectations.

We have made some good progress in terms of the way new work is initiated, assessed and sized up ready for progress onto delivery ...

We are still learning in terms of how we manage the in-flight delivery work and get a view on risks without disrupting the flow of delivery ...

Our main learning so far:
  • You need different methods for different areas of managing delivery – one size does not fit all.
  • Backing to implement programme techniques into agile teams – trust is key and talking with delivery managers beats a written report.
  • Control areas like risk, people allocation and spend control centrally – let one team do the worrying.
For the time being though we will be on that paradigm.
The encounter group facilitator in you will want to thank Mike for that contribution but there's still a niggling sense, isn't there, that it's not clear how the troops are going to be paid, or whatever.

What, for example, explains the enormous pride with which ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken writes, in Digital a key component for Civil Service Reform Plan:
The Minister for the Cabinet Office Francis Maude today [19 June 2012] launched the Civil Service Reform Plan and we were glad to welcome him and Sir Bob Kerslake, Head of the Civil Service, to GDS this morning in advance of the announcement. You can see them chatting to GDS staff Alice Newton and Jordan Hatch in the video below.

I am very heartened to see that Digital by Default is a core theme running through the Civil Service Reform plan [otherwise I wouldn't have a job] with the explicit acceptance by the Minister that “central government wherever possible must become a digital organisation. These days the best service organisations deliver online everything that can be delivered online. This cuts their costs dramatically and allows access to information and services at times and in ways convenient to the users rather than the providers” ...

So it’s a good day for digital in government and I look forward to taking part in the debates that will follow. The Minister and Sir Bob Kerslake will be back in GDS this Thursday 21 June from 4.00 to 5.00, to take part in a Facebook discussion so Civil Servants can give feedback directly on the plan. You can take part on the Civil Service Facebook page and you can ask Sir Bob Kerslake questions directly on Twitter by tweeting him (@sirbobkerslake) using the hashtag #asksirbob ...
All well and good, Mike, but suppose we have to tweet @sirbobkerslake using the hashtag #tellsirbob? What do we tell him? How do agile methods help?

For the answer to that, we have to turn to Chris Heathcote, one of the stakhanovites toiling away in the GDS boiler room, whose blog post The speed of change at last casts light on the matter. There he treats us to the hero's tale of how he went over the top and responded to a tweet about when the clocks change.

Not only did one Caspar Aremi feel that the government website devoted to this matter should show the columns as rows and the rows as columns but he even found the time in his busy schedule to tweet about it. And Mr Heathcote rose to the occasion. Scary stuff. But that's not all – the crucial point is that, presumably because he had nothing better to do, he did it the same day as receiving the tweet. Agile, or what.

Therein lies ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken's pride – at the accomplishment of one of his staff who can respond quickly to a footling request.

And therein lies the confidence that Francis Maude's future and Sir Bob Kerslake's, and our tax money, are all in good hands. "Agile" means sleeping easy of a night, one size does not fit all, trust is key, let the GDS team do the worrying. And the spending.

----------

Mr Heathcote's claim to have demonstrated the true benefits of agile methods is attracting a certain amount of contumely. "One change, one day thanks to Agile? I feel sorry for whoever is in charge when real music starts to play!", says Andres Crespo. Quite. On that day, maybe the US military will give Messrs Bracken, Beaven and Heathcote a job. And Bob Kamall and Paul Downey.

The agility with which Francis Maude and Sir Bob Kerslake are being parted from our money

Leafing through Computer Weekly the other day as no doubt we all were revealed this article by Mark Ballard, Soldiers nail data for agile offensive on $6bn cock-up:
... the effort is part of an emergency reform of IT projects using agile methods, on orders issued by the Department [of] Defense last year after 11 major computer systems went $6bn over budget and 31 years behind schedule.
$6 billion over budget? 31 years behind schedule? So it doesn't just happen in the UK:

Tuesday 26 June 2012

Is Blair bidding to become the patron saint of lost causes?

1 June 2012: Tony is back. But what shall we do with him?

24 June 2012: Tony Blair: ID cards needed to tackle illegal migrants
24 June 2012: Blair denies he ‘gagged’ Goldsmith over Iraq war
24 June 2012: Tony Blair: I don't regret opening UK borders to European immigrants
25 June 2012: Blair wants ‘grand plan’ for euro - and UK joining
26 June 2012: Blair defends PFI as NHS trusts face bankruptcy

----------

Updates:
27 June 2012: Tony Blair: I would be prime minister again
29 June 2012: Unthinkable? Tony Blair for PM again
30 June 2012: I wish I had been offered presidency of EU, Tony Blair admits
11 July 2012: Meet the new Labour adviser: Tony Blair
12 July 2012: Blair returns to help shape Olympic legacy plan
12 July 2012: Tony Blair, the David Hasselhoff of Labour politics, returns for an ill-advised curtain call
13 July 2012: Tony Blair's back - and he's dangerous for the Tories and Labour
17 July 2012: Tony Blair's unfinished business
23 July 2012: Tony Blair's return as prime minister would not get Britain's backing
26 July 2012: Tony Blair may itch to return, but he faces a cruel reality check
4 August 2012: No shadow cabinet return for Tony Blair
12 August 2012: Stewart Lee: movements afoot to return Tony Blair to Labour's seat of power?
28 August 2012: Archbishop Desmond Tutu pulls out of event with Tony Blair because of Iraq War
31 August 2012: Tony Blair to be honoured with Parliament bust

In the same demented vein:
15 June 2012: A waste of good talent – give Gordon a job
28 June 2012: Gordon Brown could have been Britain's LBJ ...

Is Blair bidding to become the patron saint of lost causes?

1 June 2012: Tony is back. But what shall we do with him?

24 June 2012: Tony Blair: ID cards needed to tackle illegal migrants
24 June 2012: Blair denies he ‘gagged’ Goldsmith over Iraq war
24 June 2012: Tony Blair: I don't regret opening UK borders to European immigrants
25 June 2012: Blair wants ‘grand plan’ for euro - and UK joining
26 June 2012: Blair defends PFI as NHS trusts face bankruptcy

----------

Updates:
27 June 2012: Tony Blair: I would be prime minister again
29 June 2012: Unthinkable? Tony Blair for PM again
30 June 2012: I wish I had been offered presidency of EU, Tony Blair admits
11 July 2012: Meet the new Labour adviser: Tony Blair
12 July 2012: Blair returns to help shape Olympic legacy plan
12 July 2012: Tony Blair, the David Hasselhoff of Labour politics, returns for an ill-advised curtain call
13 July 2012: Tony Blair's back - and he's dangerous for the Tories and Labour
17 July 2012: Tony Blair's unfinished business
23 July 2012: Tony Blair's return as prime minister would not get Britain's backing
26 July 2012: Tony Blair may itch to return, but he faces a cruel reality check
4 August 2012: No shadow cabinet return for Tony Blair
12 August 2012: Stewart Lee: movements afoot to return Tony Blair to Labour's seat of power?
28 August 2012: Archbishop Desmond Tutu pulls out of event with Tony Blair because of Iraq War
31 August 2012: Tony Blair to be honoured with Parliament bust

In the same demented vein:
15 June 2012: A waste of good talent – give Gordon a job
28 June 2012: Gordon Brown could have been Britain's LBJ ...

Thursday 21 June 2012

Heywood's Whitehall – no longer economical with the actualité

What?

Top civil servant: Britain faces decade of cuts?

That's what it says in the Times:
The most senior civil servant in the country has warned of a decade of spending cuts.

Sir Jeremy Heywood said the Government was only a quarter of the way through its austerity programme, the BBC reported. Speaking to civil servants at Westminster, Sir Jeremy warned that spending restraint could last “seven, eight, maybe ten years”.

The Cabinet Secretary’s prediction echoes warnings by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) earlier this year that the Coalition’s austerity programme would be insufficient to bring the deficit down to “prudent” levels.
Prudent levels? Ten years of cuts?

Has Sir Jeremy gone native?

Has he forgotten the fine example of Sir-Gus-now-Lord O'Donnell who quite unmistakably told us that boom and bust had been abolished in the UK and that opportunities for all are available as a result? Now how is the unfortunate St Augustine supposed to lay his healing hands on the Governorship of the Bank of England?

There are entire countries currently voting against austerity – and presumably in favour of water running uphill – and Sir Jeremy chooses this moment, of all moments, to make it clear that if you get in the shower you're going to get wet?

Ed Miliband and Ed Balls are trying to build an opposition policy based on the idea that austerity is counter-productive and unnecessary. If Sir Jeremy insists that austerity is, quite simply, reality, what are the poor Eds to do?

How can they face François Hollande when he nips over to buy a flat in South Ken with his paramour Mme Rottweiler?

What do they say when Barack rings up for a spot of advice on the Presidential election campaign?

And most tragic of all, how are the Guardian supposed to fill their op-ed pages? Even 1,000 more Jimmy Carrs repenting would only raise a crummy billion pounds in extra revenue – a drop in the ocean, barely one-fiftieth of the annual interest bill on our national debt of a trillion pounds.

It wouldn't even help all that much if the Guardian themselves forswore their tax avoidance arrangements with Apax Partners and started paying their fair share.

Sir Jeremy – it's very brave of you, of course, very brave indeed, but what were you thinking of?

(Moody's poised to downgrade UK's banks – truth-telling becomes fashionable.)

----------

Cribsheet:
Just to remind the younger readers how successful Gus was, running the economy with his glove-puppets Brown and Balls, the Times article says:
Despite the deficit-reduction programme, the European Commission predicts Britain’s deficit will reach 6.5 per cent of GDP in 2013, higher than any other EU state bar Greece with 8.4 per cent and Ireland at 7.5 per cent.
Not the ideal CV, surely, for the supplicant would-be next Governor of the Bank of England.

Heywood's Whitehall – no longer economical with the actualité

What?

Top civil servant: Britain faces decade of cuts?

That's what it says in the Times:
The most senior civil servant in the country has warned of a decade of spending cuts.

Sir Jeremy Heywood said the Government was only a quarter of the way through its austerity programme, the BBC reported. Speaking to civil servants at Westminster, Sir Jeremy warned that spending restraint could last “seven, eight, maybe ten years”.

The Cabinet Secretary’s prediction echoes warnings by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) earlier this year that the Coalition’s austerity programme would be insufficient to bring the deficit down to “prudent” levels.
Prudent levels? Ten years of cuts?

Has Sir Jeremy gone native?

Has he forgotten the fine example of Sir-Gus-now-Lord O'Donnell who quite unmistakably told us that boom and bust had been abolished in the UK and that opportunities for all are available as a result? Now how is the unfortunate St Augustine supposed to lay his healing hands on the Governorship of the Bank of England?

Thursday 14 June 2012

HMG's cloud computing strategy – there isn't one – and the Edgbaston Test

On 20 October 2011 Chris Chant listed 23 symptoms of the illness which Government IT suffers from. He carried on energetically repeating his diagnosis, unchallenged, and promoting cloud computing as the effective prescription. There he was, at it again, six months later on 11 April 2012, in a blog post on the G-Cloud website, #Unacceptable IT is pervasive. Two days later his resignation was announced.

The man in charge of G-Cloud is Andy Nelson, the Government's Chief Information Officer (CIO). That's only a part-time job. He is more fully occupied as CIO at the Ministry of Justice, where he's got his work cut out with Libra among other things. Libra is the £467 million Fujitsu system which is meant to produce the accounts for HM Courts and Tribunals Service. When the National Audit Office saw the 2010-11 accounts they were in such a mess that the NAO couldn't even qualify their opinion, they had to disclaim an opinion.

Under Mr Nelson, Denise McDonagh is also responsible for G-Cloud. Again, it's only a part-time job. Her day job is CIO at the Home Office. And again, there are quite a few distractions there:
  • There's the £385 million CSC contract with Sarah Rapson's Identity & Passport Service which is one of the reasons UK passport-holders are currently being over-charged by £300 million a year.
  • There's the £265 million IBM contract with the UK Border Agency to provide IABS, Jackie Keane's Immigration and Asylum Biometric System. IABS is meant to keep the UK border secure and make the 2012 Olympics safe but there's a problem – the biometrics don't work.
  • The same problem applies to the National Policing Improvement Agency's promotion of MobileID, a system to allow policemen on patrol to check suspects' fingerprints on the spot using mobile equipment. The idea is for MobileID to save police time. Which it will because, with a 20% failure rate, this flaky technology will cause 20% fewer criminals to be arrested.
Those distractions and others will no doubt explain her lacklustre post on 26 April 2012, Cloud Cynicism (or Dispelling the Dark Clouds) and why she hasn't been heard from since.

Not so, Eleanor Stewart. She's a trouper. She's the Assistant Director of G-Cloud and she's always good for a lively post. On 27 April 2012 she produced Crowdsourcing and a response., in which she took up some of the many questions posed in the 20 responses to Chris Chant's last post.

What the heck can we do to resolve some of the scary and largely unknown legal and policy issues that people are nervous about in a globalised world?, she asked. Good question. No answer.

And What ‘worked examples’ might we be able to provide to ... sceptics? That's in response to the simple question how cloud computing is supposed to obviate the need for long contracts to produce systems like Libra, for example, or IABS or DWP's Universal Credit. Chris Chant says it will. How? No answer.

Ms Stewart threw the post open to the crowd. And published one comment. One. The limiting case of a crowd. (I wandered lonely as a cloud?)

"Scary and largely unknown"? Hmm. Quite clearly, no-one in HMG knows the answers to some very basic questions about its cloud computing strategy. Which is odd. They keep talking about it. Andy Nelson, for example, was holding forth at the Cloud Computing World Forum only the other day. And they've been advocating it for years – the G-Cloud Overview was being touted in August 2010. But still no-one can answer the questions.

Is it all hot air? A cloud of hot air? A cloud which, when it hits some of the colder patches of reality, results in heavy precipitation and the wettest drought ever seen, which washed out the Edgbaston Test? That's certainly what it looks like at this end of the wicket.

----------

A version of this post has been kindly published by the estimable PublicTechnology.net

HMG's cloud computing strategy – there isn't one – and the Edgbaston Test

On 20 October 2011 Chris Chant listed 23 symptoms of the illness which Government IT suffers from. He carried on energetically repeating his diagnosis, unchallenged, and promoting cloud computing as the effective prescription. There he was, at it again, six months later on 11 April 2012, in a blog post on the G-Cloud website, #Unacceptable IT is pervasive. Two days later his resignation was announced.

Monday 11 June 2012

A senior Whitehall insider publicly cites 23 reasons why the relationship with Government IT suppliers is poisoned, and no-one disagrees – who cares?

On 20 October 2011, when he was still an Executive Director of the Cabinet Office, Chris Chant delivered a famous speech to the Institute for Government about Government IT. He said that:

Introducing Chris Chant
Chris has a long track record of success in delivering complex business and technology change in the public sector. Most of his work has involved working in successful partnership with multiple public sector bodies and the largest IT suppliers in the industry, where he has championed innovative approaches which challenge attitudes on both sides of the partnership. His recent work has included stints as the Programme Director in the Cabinet Office leading the UK Government’s move to cloud computing and data centre consolidation across the public sector. Previously, Chris was Director of London 2012 Integration and Assurance and also Chief Information Officer within the Government Olympic Executive, and also held specific responsibility for ensuring integrated delivery of the security systems required. Before that, Chris was CIO for Defra, where he led a major IT service improvement programme with a strategic outsourcing partner. After his early career in the (then) Inland Revenue and later, HMRC, he worked at the cabinet Office where he was programme director for a range of large and complex multi-agency IT services, including the Government Gateway.
  1. Government IT is outrageously expensive ...
  2. ... and ridiculously slow
  3. It is poor quality ...
  4. ... and not user-centric
  5. No-one knows how many staff are employed or what they do or how much they cost
  6. No-one knows whether contracts with suppliers can be terminated or how much it would cost to do so
  7. No contract should be signed for a term of more than 12 months but they are – they are signed for years into the future, far beyond the time when anyone could know what will be wanted by then
  8. Procuring Government IT should be like buying a suit from Marks and Spencer – M&S do not make you promise in advance to buy x suits over the next y years before opening a shop in your vicinity
  9. The Government doesn't know what IT systems it owns, how much they cost and even whether they are used
  10. They don't know if users have given up using systems and, if so, why
  11. Government can't communicate with its customers securely
  12. Government pays £3,500 p.a. per PC
  13. Staff should be allowed to use Twitter and YouTube at work but they're not
  14. Call centre staff should have access to the systems they are trying to support but they don't
  15. 80% of Government IT is supplied by just five contractors
  16. Departments outsource their strategy to contractors and consultants
  17. It can cost £50,000 to get a single line of program code amended
  18. It can take 12 weeks to get a new server commissioned whereas with Amazon there is no wait
  19. Government should use small and medium size suppliers whose IT practices are more "agile" but instead they stick with the big ponderous suppliers
  20. Government keeps paying for IT resources even if they're not used
  21. They waste time and money as one department after another performs the same job of assessing the same products for the same job
  22. Prices are not forced down, competition is not working and there is no incentive for contractors to do a good job ...
Mr Chant recommended several times over the ensuing months that Government IT professionals who couldn't deliver a better service should consider their position.

In the event, they're still in place, and it's Mr Chant who has gone – he retired at the end of April 2012 ...

... but not before giving one last speech (25 April 2012, SOCITM Spring Conference) in which he revealed a 23rd problem – that Government departments have in the past agreed, at the suppliers' insistence, not to tell each other how much they are paying for IT services:
There were times when we couldn't talk between government departments about one organisation's contracts with another ... Not being able to discuss contracts between government departments is crazy.
No-one has contradicted Mr Chant.

Not a soul. Not a politician, not a civil servant, not a contractor, not a consultant. No-one.

We may take it, then, that Mr Chant's view of the current state of Government IT is accepted without demur. He is right. This is the state of the art. This is the conventional wisdom – the relationship between Whitehall and its IT suppliers is poisoned and the public are being fleeced. After three decades of outsourcing and privatising. Three decades of introducing private sector methods and private sector personnel.

Mr Chant's views are consonant with the findings week after week of the National Audit Office and with the judgements of the Public Accounts Committee and the Public Administration Committee, see for example Public Administration Committee – Twelfth Report, Government and IT– "A Recipe For Rip-Offs": Time For A New Approach (18 July 2011).

To be fair, Mr Chant does offer a new approach. Cloud computing. Which, the way he tells it, will solve all 23 problems at a stroke. That is the new IT strategy being pursued by Whitehall, see particularly HMG's G-Cloud (Government Cloud) website and blog.

But beware. Where is Government IT strategy made, according to Mr Chant? Answer – in the offices of the suppliers.

HMG's sales promotion of cloud computing is indistinguishable from the suppliers of cloud computing's own sales literature. Often, they are the same suppliers who suffer from the 23 deficiencies above who now claim to be "agile" and to be committed to cutting costs by – Mr Chant's figure – up to 82%.

Is it likely that the same Whitehall officials dealing with the same suppliers will reverse the lucrative practices of 30 years and now show mercy to the taxpayer? Is it likely that the same Whitehall officials dealing with new suppliers, like Google and Amazon and maybe Facebook, will deliver any better value for money to the public?

No.

to be continued ...

A senior Whitehall insider publicly cites 23 reasons why the relationship with Government IT suppliers is poisoned, and no-one disagrees – who cares?

On 20 October 2011, when he was still an Executive Director of the Cabinet Office, Chris Chant delivered a famous speech to the Institute for Government about Government IT. He said that:

Introducing Chris Chant
Chris has a long track record of success in delivering complex business and technology change in the public sector. Most of his work has involved working in successful partnership with multiple public sector bodies and the largest IT suppliers in the industry, where he has championed innovative approaches which challenge attitudes on both sides of the partnership. His recent work has included stints as the Programme Director in the Cabinet Office leading the UK Government’s move to cloud computing and data centre consolidation across the public sector. Previously, Chris was Director of London 2012 Integration and Assurance and also Chief Information Officer within the Government Olympic Executive, and also held specific responsibility for ensuring integrated delivery of the security systems required. Before that, Chris was CIO for Defra, where he led a major IT service improvement programme with a strategic outsourcing partner. After his early career in the (then) Inland Revenue and later, HMRC, he worked at the cabinet Office where he was programme director for a range of large and complex multi-agency IT services, including the Government Gateway.
  1. Government IT is outrageously expensive ...
  2. ... and ridiculously slow
  3. It is poor quality ...
  4. ... and not user-centric
  5. No-one knows how many staff are employed or what they do or how much they cost
  6. No-one knows whether contracts with suppliers can be terminated or how much it would cost to do so
  7. No contract should be signed for a term of more than 12 months but they are – they are signed for years into the future, far beyond the time when anyone could know what will be wanted by then
  8. Procuring Government IT should be like buying a suit from Marks and Spencer – M&S do not make you promise in advance to buy x suits over the next y years before opening a shop in your vicinity
  9. The Government doesn't know what IT systems it owns, how much they cost and even whether they are used
  10. They don't know if users have given up using systems and, if so, why
  11. Government can't communicate with its customers securely
  12. Government pays £3,500 p.a. per PC
  13. Staff should be allowed to use Twitter and YouTube at work but they're not
  14. Call centre staff should have access to the systems they are trying to support but they don't
  15. 80% of Government IT is supplied by just five contractors
  16. Departments outsource their strategy to contractors and consultants
  17. It can cost £50,000 to get a single line of program code amended
  18. It can take 12 weeks to get a new server commissioned whereas with Amazon there is no wait
  19. Government should use small and medium size suppliers whose IT practices are more "agile" but instead they stick with the big ponderous suppliers
  20. Government keeps paying for IT resources even if they're not used
  21. They waste time and money as one department after another performs the same job of assessing the same products for the same job
  22. Prices are not forced down, competition is not working and there is no incentive for contractors to do a good job ...

Friday 8 June 2012

Dead fish Department of Health has lost sight of the "public" in "public service" – Sir David Nicholson KCB CBE

Key Stage 3 is that phase in the education of our children which takes place in England between the ages of 11 and 14. The syllabus is demanding and includes a course on management consultancy. No mere ivory tower training divorced from the real world, students are expected to give policy advice to Whitehall departments. Advice on procurement, for example, much needed by the Department of Health.

All procurement should be centralised, said the team from Stretchford Middle School, so that stakeholders in the NHS all pay the same price and, with the economies of scale available to the Department, currently spending about £120 billion of our money every year, that price should be a minimum, offering the best value for public money.

Similar advice was given to the Civil Service by Sir Philip Green, of course, on one of his rare visits from Monaco. Philip Green's efficiency purge recommends more centralisation, ran the headline in the Guardian, before going on to spell it out:
The government has little control over the money its own civil servants spend and is wasting billions every year by failing to negotiate the best contracts for phones, IT equipment and rent, according to the Topshop boss Sir Philip Green, who was brought in by ministers to assess efficiency in Whitehall ...

The report identifies massive variation in procurement with one department paying £73 for a box of paper and another paying £8. The most paid for printer cartridges is £398 and the least is £86 ...
As all management consultants know, you hand in your report full of tightly argued recommendations, you go back to Monaco (or Stretchford) and what does the stupid client do?

Something stupid.

Like ignore your recommendations.

Generally true, that is not the case at the NHS. Not by a long chalk. Sir David Nicholson KCB CBE, Chief Executive, runs a tight ship. The National Programme for IT (NPfIT) divides England into five regions, the contracts are held by just two organisations, (CSC-3 and BT-2), and they all come together at just one central point, CfH, Connecting for Health, as recommended.

And now, a cautionary tale.

Some poor deluded soul at the Whittington Health NHS Trust went out on his or her own and bought an electronic patient records system (EPR). They could have got it from BT, who have the NPfIT contracts for London and for the South of England. But, no, poor benighted fools that they are, lambs to the slaughter, they set out to do the procurement themselves.

BT's EPR is an American package called Cerner Millennium. In London, Cerner Millennium costs £31 million on average. And in the South of England, health trusts pay an average of £36 million for the same thing. Almost the same price. Only £5 million different.

And, wantonly ignoring all the added value of Whitehall's magisterial assistance acting energetically exclusively in the public interest, what did the naïve neophytes of Whittington Health pay?

£7.1 million.

----------

Hat tip: as so often, Tony Collins.

What the students learn at Key Stage 4 is that all the normal rules of logic, arithmetic, business and economics that govern rational open markets break down in Whitehall.

These rules melt in the heat of the close personal bonds between the Department and its suppliers. The Department of Health's friendship with BT and CSC is not a unique example. We have already seen a similar  case of producer capture at the UK Border Agency where Rob Whiteman, the Chief Executive, would rather not mention Atos's name in connection with the immigration computer system breaking down for a month.

These relationships are intense. Too intense to accommodate any other loyalties. Other loyalties such as public service.

Dead fish Department of Health has lost sight of the "public" in "public service" – Sir David Nicholson KCB CBE

Key Stage 3 is that phase in the education of our children which takes place in England between the ages of 11 and 14. The syllabus is demanding and includes a course on management consultancy. No mere ivory tower training divorced from the real world, students are expected to give policy advice to Whitehall departments. Advice on procurement, for example, much needed by the Department of Health.

Wednesday 6 June 2012

The other Golden Jubilee – 60 years of Whitehall's disgraceful public administration, "administrative lawlessness"

In The English Constitution (1867) Walter Bagehot famously wrote:
No one can approach to an understanding of the English institutions, or of others which, being the growth of many centuries, exercise a wide sway over mixed populations, unless he divide them into two classes. In such constitutions there are two parts (not indeed separable with microscopic accuracy, for the genius of great affairs abhors nicety of division) first, those which excite and preserve the reverence of the population — the dignified parts, if I may so call them; and next, the efficient parts — those by which it, in fact, works and rules.
We have all just had a pleasant four days here in the UK to reflect on and to observe the success of the dignified parts.

The Constitution doesn't come with guarantees but, since 1936 when Edward VIII mercifully got rid of himself, we seem to have enjoyed dignified parts of the Constitution which live up to their name.

Now the four days are over and it's back to the efficient parts, which don't.

In his book The Socialist Case Douglas Jay wrote:
Housewives as a whole cannot be trusted to buy all the right things, where nutrition and health are concerned. This is really no more than an extension of the principle according to which the housewife herself would not trust a child of four to select the week's purchases. For in the case of nutrition and health just as in education, the gentlemen of Whitehall really do know better what is good for the people than the people know themselves.
That was in 1937, 75 years ago, and things have changed since then – no civilised man today believes that women are inferior and no four year-old can still subscribe to Lord Jay’s Doctrine of the Infallibility of Whitehall.

In 1952 Professor GW Keeton published his book The Passing of Parliament. Keeton was Dean of the Faculty of Laws at University College, London. He debunks The Socialist Case and points to the danger of the Executive moving beyond the reach of either Parliament or the Common Law:
... Very far from the Common Law replacing administrative tribunals, more and more are being created outside the Common Law year by year, and some of the cases discussed earlier in this book will show how, in spite of obvious willingness, the courts have failed to hold back the onward rush of administrative lawlessness.
That was 60 years ago. Keeton’s question then was, in summary, what was the point of going through all the suffering of the Civil War and of establishing the supremacy of Parliament in the 1689 Bill of Rights if we end up with an Executive behaving for all the world like some latter-day monarch whimsically exercising his or her prerogatives?

In those same 60 years, while the dignified parts of the Constitution have given the definitive lesson in public service, too often Whitehall has continued arrogantly to ignore the interests of the public it is meant to serve while it makes one defective decision after another, inefficient and accountable to no-one.

We have just celebrated two Golden Jubilees. One of them is Whitehall's 60 years of "administrative lawlessness".

The other Golden Jubilee – 60 years of Whitehall's disgraceful public administration, "administrative lawlessness"

In The English Constitution (1867) Walter Bagehot famously wrote:
No one can approach to an understanding of the English institutions, or of others which, being the growth of many centuries, exercise a wide sway over mixed populations, unless he divide them into two classes. In such constitutions there are two parts (not indeed separable with microscopic accuracy, for the genius of great affairs abhors nicety of division) first, those which excite and preserve the reverence of the population — the dignified parts, if I may so call them; and next, the efficient parts — those by which it, in fact, works and rules.
We have all just had a pleasant four days here in the UK to reflect on and to observe the success of the dignified parts.

The Constitution doesn't come with guarantees but, since 1936 when Edward VIII mercifully got rid of himself, we seem to have enjoyed dignified parts of the Constitution which live up to their name.

Now the four days are over and it's back to the efficient parts, which don't.

Friday 1 June 2012

Dead fish Home Office has lost sight of the "public" in "public service" – Rob Whiteman

Thanks to Anna Leach writing in The Register magazine, the following astonishing interchange at a Home Affairs Committee evidence session (15 May 2012) is brought to everyone's attention. The Chair of the Committee is Rt Hon Keith Vaz MP and Rob Whiteman is Chief Executive of the UK Border Agency, part of the Home Office:
Q151 Chair: ... over the issue of your computer system that crashed at Lunar house. Hundreds of people were turned away, and we hear that some were in tears at the fact that the system did not work. What went wrong? Have we got compensation from the IT company? Will it happen again, and have we rearranged all the appointments?

Rob Whiteman: We contacted people over the bank holiday weekend and rearranged appointments. Around 500 appointments that were cancelled were rearranged. The issues around IT are incredibly frustrating for my staff, as well as for our customers. When I meet staff, it is a constant frustration that systems do not work all the time and that some of the resilience issues do not conform to common standards. In terms of morale and other issues, it is absolutely vital that we get to the heart of these IT problems. They are complex, yes, but-

Q152 Chair: Yes, but we do not want to go into that now. Do we know why it broke down?

Rob Whiteman: We do know why it broke down. It was an error on the network that affected the way appointments were queued from the system, and therefore they could not travel properly around the network. It was an IT failure, but, to answer your question, I have discussed this several times with the Chief Executive of the IT company that is the primary IT provider.

Q153 Chair: What is the company?

Rob Whiteman: I would rather not say.

Q154 Chair: I am sorry, Mr Whiteman; this is a Select Committee of the House-

Rob Whiteman: It is Atos.

Q155 Chair: There is no need to be secret with us; we will find out. It is public money. It is not coming out of your pocket. The taxpayer is paying. What is the name of the company?

Rob Whiteman: Atos.

Q156 Chair: And what was his explanation as to why it broke down?

Rob Whiteman: The reason I was reluctant, Chairman, is that we have a contract with Atos. It is trying its best to resolve the issues, but obviously we are being a demanding client and saying that performance is not good enough.

Q157 Chair: As you should be.

Rob Whiteman: I would not want to cast aspersions on the effort that it is making. It has put an additional team in to try to analyse the problem, and I receive daily and weekly reports from them. The point I would make is that in terms of UKBA improving over the next couple of years ...
The first reaction of a senior civil servant like Mr Whiteman is meant to be in favour of the public. That's what the public service ethos is. But when Mr Whiteman is asked to name the contractor responsible for the failure of a major IT system his first reaction is "I would rather not say".

His first reaction is to try to hide information. From Parliament and from the public.

His first reaction is in favour of the producer. "I would rather not say". This is producer capture.

The relationship between the Home Office and its suppliers in this case and others is pathological. Mr Whiteman's posture is craven. He isn't meant to be beholden to his suppliers. That's the wrong way round. Instead of serving the public, he finds himself serving UKBA's consultants and contractors. Which leaves the public paying and unserved.

Dead fish Home Office has lost sight of the "public" in "public service" – Rob Whiteman

Thanks to Anna Leach writing in The Register magazine, the following astonishing interchange at a Home Affairs Committee evidence session (15 May 2012) is brought to everyone's attention. The Chair of the Committee is Rt Hon Keith Vaz MP and Rob Whiteman is Chief Executive of the UK Border Agency, part of the Home Office:
Q151 Chair: ... over the issue of your computer system that crashed at Lunar house. Hundreds of people were turned away, and we hear that some were in tears at the fact that the system did not work. What went wrong? Have we got compensation from the IT company? Will it happen again, and have we rearranged all the appointments?

Rob Whiteman: We contacted people over the bank holiday weekend and rearranged appointments. Around 500 appointments that were cancelled were rearranged. The issues around IT are incredibly frustrating for my staff, as well as for our customers. When I meet staff, it is a constant frustration that systems do not work all the time and that some of the resilience issues do not conform to common standards. In terms of morale and other issues, it is absolutely vital that we get to the heart of these IT problems. They are complex, yes, but-

Q152 Chair: Yes, but we do not want to go into that now. Do we know why it broke down?

Rob Whiteman: We do know why it broke down. It was an error on the network that affected the way appointments were queued from the system, and therefore they could not travel properly around the network. It was an IT failure, but, to answer your question, I have discussed this several times with the Chief Executive of the IT company that is the primary IT provider.

Q153 Chair: What is the company?

Rob Whiteman: I would rather not say.

Q154 Chair: I am sorry, Mr Whiteman; this is a Select Committee of the House-

Rob Whiteman: It is Atos.

Q155 Chair: There is no need to be secret with us; we will find out. It is public money. It is not coming out of your pocket. The taxpayer is paying. What is the name of the company?

Rob Whiteman: Atos.

Q156 Chair: And what was his explanation as to why it broke down?

Rob Whiteman: The reason I was reluctant, Chairman, is that we have a contract with Atos. It is trying its best to resolve the issues, but obviously we are being a demanding client and saying that performance is not good enough.

Q157 Chair: As you should be.

Rob Whiteman: I would not want to cast aspersions on the effort that it is making. It has put an additional team in to try to analyse the problem, and I receive daily and weekly reports from them. The point I would make is that in terms of UKBA improving over the next couple of years ...
The first reaction of a senior civil servant like Mr Whiteman is meant to be in favour of the public. That's what the public service ethos is. But when Mr Whiteman is asked to name the contractor responsible for the failure of a major IT system his first reaction is "I would rather not say".

His first reaction is to try to hide information. From Parliament and from the public.

His first reaction is in favour of the producer. "I would rather not say". This is producer capture.

The relationship between the Home Office and its suppliers in this case and others is pathological. Mr Whiteman's posture is craven. He isn't meant to be beholden to his suppliers. That's the wrong way round. Instead of serving the public, he finds himself serving UKBA's consultants and contractors. Which leaves the public paying and unserved.