Alan Travis – Whitehall, the Guardian newspaper and Lord Leveson

The 25 April 2012 L Notice issued by the Cabinet Office complains about an article in the Guardian newspaper published the day before. A little detective work reveals that the article they are talking about is Government revives plan for greater data-sharing between agencies by Alan Travis, home affairs editor.

That article refers to a "recent speech" made by Francis Maude, Cabinet Office Minister. Neither the Guardian nor the Cabinet Office identifies the speech. A little detective work suggests that it is Mr Maude's keynote speech given to the Information Commissioner's Conference on 6 March 2012. That, at least, is the assumption on which we proceed here.

If the Leveson Rules are to look like anything more than the whimsical exercise of power by the Executive then perhaps we could see a few guidelines on identifying the evidence in disputes more precisely.

In his speech, Mr Maude says:

In May we will publish proposals that will make data sharing easier ... It’s my mission to get Whitehall sharing data much more effectively ... The National Fraud Authority and Cabinet Office will shortly set out the design for a counter fraud checking service as the first step to improving our intelligence sharing architecture ... the Fraud, Error and Debt Taskforce is committed to continuing to remove barriers to sharing information ... Sharing data is a key enabler in our ambition to see public services provided digitally by default ...the census is another area where I want to bust the myths around the complexities of data sharing ... we aim to find effective ways of using and sharing data for the good of everyone ...

It follows that the claim made in the L Notice that "this is not a question of increasing the volume of data-sharing that takes place across government" is simply untenable – the Guardian didn't misrepresent Whitehall's policy.

The L Notice states that because the coalition government "scrapped ID cards" they can't be accused of attempting to legislate for a "database state". That doesn't follow. Mr Maude's proposal to remove the legal barriers to data-sharing – also referred to as "old-fashioned assumptions", "cultural barriers", "complexities" and "muddled myths" – would precisely result in a database state. As Mr Maude says:

... the technology has moved on and so can we. There is now an option to share data momentarily allowing us to check for matches – with no Big Brother database in sight ... In a world of dispersed data sets, we can bring fragments together instantaneously and momentarily to corroborate – without ever creating a central database ... It’s about bringing together the data at a point in time - to provide the necessary confidence - and then disaggregating it again. At no point does information need be held on the same server to be correlated ...

Same effect. A database state.

The L Notice is entitled Digital public services: putting the citizen in charge, not the state. It is not clear why. Mr Maude's speech provides no support whatever for that contention – nothing in the speech suggests that citizens will be put in charge.

Examination of the evidence suggests that the Guardian misreported nothing and that the L Notice is simply wrong.

Sometimes, though, you need to stand back, otherwise you can't see the wood for the trees, the issues need to be judged on principle, and all things considered, particularly the need for the Guardian to keep its Leveson Publication Licence, the ineluctable conclusion must be that the case stated in the L Notice is upheld and triumphantly vindicated, and Mr Travis should perhaps undergo a brief and voluntary period of re-education to assist him in his stated desire to practise his chosen profession respectfully and humbly.

Alan Travis – Whitehall, the Guardian newspaper and Lord Leveson

The 25 April 2012 L Notice issued by the Cabinet Office complains about an article in the Guardian newspaper published the day before. A little detective work reveals that the article they are talking about is Government revives plan for greater data-sharing between agencies by Alan Travis, home affairs editor.

That article refers to a "recent speech" made by Francis Maude, Cabinet Office Minister. Neither the Guardian nor the Cabinet Office identifies the speech. A little detective work suggests that it is Mr Maude's keynote speech given to the Information Commissioner's Conference on 6 March 2012. That, at least, is the assumption on which we proceed here.

If the Leveson Rules are to look like anything more than the whimsical exercise of power by the Executive then perhaps we could see a few guidelines on identifying the evidence in disputes more precisely.

Francis Maude – Whitehall, the Guardian newspaper and Lord Leveson

The accusation against the Guardian is that it misrepresented Whitehall's policy on digital public services. Explanations later, but let's get straight to the nub of the matter now – Francis Maude says in the Cabinet Office L notice:

This is not a question of increasing the volume of data-sharing that takes place across government, but ensuring an appropriate framework is in place so that government can deliver more effective, joined-up and personalised public services, through effective data-linking.

Even to a reader who knows nothing about Cabinet Office frameworks for appropriately effective, joined-up and personalised digital public services, it should be clear that the Guardian allegedly wrongly described data-linking as "data-sharing".

If the distinction eludes you, you'll just have to take Francis Maude's word for it that data-linking is Whitehall policy and a good thing, whereas data-sharing is a disgraceful slur on him personally and a bad thing, and the two should never be confused by any newspaper hoping to hold on to its publication licence.

The preceding paragraphs in the L Notice provide the background:

• This dispute is all something to do with the previous government's failed ID cards scheme which Mr Maude is proud to have terminated, he is the friend of civil liberties and the friend of many other friends of civil liberties such as Which? magazine.
• What Mr Maude is trying to achieve – and what the Guardian culpably misunderstood – is "the citizen in charge". Citizens need a way to identify themselves on-line so that they can apply for disabled parking permits using Mr Maude's "quick, easy and secure" digital public services. No new legislation is envisaged, it's all going to be voluntary and stakeholders will be consulted proactively.

Data-linking is the method chosen by Mr Maude, libertarian, to put the citizen in charge, and not data-sharing. That is now so clear that, come to think of it, it is impossible to understand how the Guardian made its reprehensible mistake.

Francis Maude – Whitehall, the Guardian newspaper and Lord Leveson

The accusation against the Guardian is that it misrepresented Whitehall's policy on digital public services. Explanations later, but let's get straight to the nub of the matter now – Francis Maude says in the Cabinet Office L notice:

This is not a question of increasing the volume of data-sharing that takes place across government, but ensuring an appropriate framework is in place so that government can deliver more effective, joined-up and personalised public services, through effective data-linking.

Even to a reader who knows nothing about Cabinet Office frameworks for appropriately effective, joined-up and personalised digital public services, it should be clear that the Guardian allegedly wrongly described data-linking as "data-sharing".

If the distinction eludes you, you'll just have to take Francis Maude's word for it that data-linking is Whitehall policy and a good thing, whereas data-sharing is a disgraceful slur on him personally and a bad thing, and the two should never be confused by any newspaper hoping to hold on to its publication licence.

Introduction – Whitehall, the Guardian newspaper and Lord Leveson

It is our intention in this report of our findings on the affaire Guardian to follow the example of the Guardian themselves. Now rehabilitated after their contretemps with the Leveson Rules, following some months of intensive re-education, they say of Lord Leveson's report that:

The press should treat it with respect – and not a little humility.

There speaks the voice of a truly free press. We humbly and respectfully agree.

That is the principle but what about the practice? What does it mean to report with respectful humility? How do you do it?

By way of response, the Guardian have just this to say:

The press urgently needs to find a substantial figure above the immediate fray who can approach Leveson's proposals with something like an objective eye and who can make convincing responses on merit. Nothing else, at this late hour, will command respect from the party leaders, who have embarked on a cross-party endeavour to avoid a damaging clash between politics and press.

And there is nothing more to say.

They're right.

Aristotle would agree (see Nicomachean Ethics).

We shall abide by the high standards of journalism enshrined in the Leveson Rules most definitively exemplified by today's greatest political philosopher in his colossal contributions to Twitter:



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Updated 10.4.14

Senior David Cameron aide 'threatened' Daily Telegraph over Maria Miller expenses Tony Gallagher, the former editor of The Daily Telegraph, has said that David Cameron’s director of communications “threatened” the newspaper over Maria Miller’s expenses claims. Mr Gallagher said that Craig Oliver, one of Mr Cameron’s most senior aides, phoned him to say that Mrs Miller was “looking at Leveson” after The Telegraph made inquiries about the Culture Secretary’s expenses. Mrs Miller is the Cabinet minister responsible for the future of press regulation and the response to the Leveson inquiry into press standards ... “Maria Miller's special adviser rang one of the reporters concerned - Holly Watt - and said to her that Maria has obviously been having quite a lot of meetings around Leveson, I'm just going to flag up that connection for you to think about and you may wish to talk to people higher up your organisation. “The special adviser in question, Joanna Hindley, rang a senior executive at the Telegraph to make precisely that point. I then got a third call from [David Cameron's director of communication] Craig Oliver pointing out that she's looking at Leveson and implying the call was badly timed... “When you get phone calls from a special adviser flagging up a connection to Leveson and saying you should take this up with people higher up the organisation, it can hardly be construed as anything other than a threat.” He added: “Bear in mind this story came to light just after the Leveson inquiry was published, and bear in mind the menacing way the minister, her special advisor and Downing Street reacted to that story, and threatened me, the newspaper and the reporter in question. "It's actually a clear example of why MPs and politicians in general should have no locus over a free press. Ironically you would know nothing about this story were it not for a free press." Mr Oliver said Mr Gallagher’s comments were “utterly false” ...

Introduction – Whitehall, the Guardian newspaper and Lord Leveson

It is our intention in this report of our findings on the affaire Guardian to follow the example of the Guardian themselves. Now rehabilitated after their contretemps with the Leveson Rules, following some months of intensive re-education, they say of Lord Leveson's report that:

The press should treat it with respect – and not a little humility.

There speaks the voice of a truly free press. We humbly and respectfully agree.

That is the principle but what about the practice? What does it mean to report with respectful humility? How do you do it?

Whitehall, the Guardian newspaper and Lord Leveson – darkness at noon

On 25 April 2012 the Cabinet Office issued what we might take to be a sample L Notice, a rebuke of the press issued under the Leveson Rules:

Digital public services: putting the citizen in charge, not the state 25 April 2012 On its front page on 24 April, the Guardian ran an article on government data sharing plans which misrepresented statements the Government has made concerning existing data sharing arrangements. Minister for the Cabinet Office Francis Maude today made a statement in response, pointing to the Government’s commitment to putting the citizen in charge, not the state ...

It would be extraordinary if the Guardian newspaper, of all newspapers, were to be the victim – and the first victim at that – of the movement for probity and compassion in the press which marches with Lord Leveson at its head.

Extraordinary because the Guardian, after all, is a centre of excellence in world journalism, with its measured and impeccably high-minded comments always supported by the responsible and dispassionate reports on world events with which its journalists fill the pages of the newspaper.

If even they, even the Guardian, can misreport Cabinet Office policy so culpably as to be issued with an L Notice, then veritably we have seen darkness at noon.

The important word there is "if". Can it be true? Did the Guardian fall from grace? Or is it just possible that actually the newspaper reported the Cabinet Office's plans to "put the citizen in charge" correctly?

This matter calls for minute investigation ...

... an investigation which has been undertaken in the public interest and which has now been completed. As soon as we receive permission, our findings will be published.

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Added 12.12.12:

The minister and a warning to The Telegraph before expenses story Maria Miller's advisers warned The Telegraph to consider the minister’s role in implementing the Leveson Report before this newspaper published details of her expenses ...

Whitehall, the Guardian newspaper and Lord Leveson – darkness at noon

On 25 April 2012 the Cabinet Office issued what we might take to be a sample L Notice, a rebuke of the press issued under the Leveson Rules:

Digital public services: putting the citizen in charge, not the state 25 April 2012 On its front page on 24 April, the Guardian ran an article on government data sharing plans which misrepresented statements the Government has made concerning existing data sharing arrangements. Minister for the Cabinet Office Francis Maude today made a statement in response, pointing to the Government’s commitment to putting the citizen in charge, not the state ...

It would be extraordinary if the Guardian newspaper, of all newspapers, were to be the victim – and the first victim at that – of the movement for probity and compassion in the press which marches with Lord Leveson at its head.

Extraordinary because the Guardian, after all, is a centre of excellence in world journalism, with its measured and impeccably high-minded comments always supported by the responsible and dispassionate reports on world events with which its journalists fill the pages of the newspaper.

If even they, even the Guardian, can misreport Cabinet Office policy so culpably as to be issued with an L Notice, then veritably we have seen darkness at noon.

The important word there is "if". Can it be true? Did the Guardian fall from grace? Or is it just possible that actually the newspaper reported the Cabinet Office's plans to "put the citizen in charge" correctly?

This matter calls for minute investigation ...

Universal Credit and the December putsch

Without him, 21 million people will have no identity.

Without him, Universal Credit will fail.

Will ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken deliver on time?

----------  o  O  o  ----------

December 2011, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) needs an identity assurance service to make its Universal Credit plan work. DWP officials write an invitation to tender (ITT) estimating a figure in the region of £240 million to be offered to suppliers interested in five-year contracts. A notice is published, as required by law, in OJEU, the Official Journal of the European Union.

This is the old way, the path of false consciousness.

The uncomradely hate crime committed by the reactionary cadre DWP is deprecated by Francis Maude, Cabinet Office minister, and following a late-night encounter in his facility deep in the bowels of the Lubyanka DWP's OJEU notice is voluntarily and swiftly withdrawn. Loyal agents of Minitrue erase all traces of it from the record. All except for this one, expressing DWP's meek contrition:

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has cancelled its tender for identity assurance services, claiming it had not followed the relevant procedures for the procurement. A spokeswoman for the DWP told GGC: "The Ojeu for identity assurance services (IAS) was (prematurely) issued by the department before all of the necessary governance, approvals and checks were complete and therefore needed to be withdrawn. We expect an Ojeu for IAS to be re-issued in the new year."

1 March 2012, ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken, executive director of the Government Digital Service (GDS) and Senior Responsible Officer Owner for the Identity Assurance programme, publishes Identity: One small step for all of Government on the Identity Assurance blog operated by GDS:

GDS has been working closely with DWP to revise the OJEU and agree it with other Departments ... The revised DWP OJEU notice is effectively an HMG-wide framework being delivered initially using DWP as the vehicle. We will then introduce wider HMG needs into this first draft and cut/paste the whole approach into GPS. This approach ensures that, ultimately, HMG-wide Identity Assurance is supplied across central departments via a common procurement portal (to HMG agreed standards) and governed by the Cabinet Office.

Following revision of the ITT, in the gloom of the Cabinet Office darkness at noon, and with the tortured body of DWP now quivering in the basement, the consideration for identity assurance is reduced to £30 million, the ex-Guardian man says, and the lease on the contracts will be only 18 months. The new notice in OJEU makes surprising reading:

HMG is intending to establish a marketplace of suppliers to deliver identity assurance services consistent with the Cabinet Office guidelines and utilising agreed open standards. This will support the roll-out of strategic customer services and HM Government programmes - DWP’s universal credit and personal independence payments in the first instance. The initial DWP services will be required to provide identity assurance for approximately 21 000 000 claimants. As the HMG customer base is diverse, a wide range of suppliers will be required to ensure demographic coverage to ensure that no claimant sector is unfairly disadvantaged by limiting supplier choice. To support the rollout of universal credit and personal independence payments, identity assurance suppliers will be selected in summer 2012 and systems will need to be fully operational from spring 2013 ...

The revised notice was published on 1 March 2012 and the service has to be operational from the Spring of 2013? Barely a year later? Only six months after the contracts are awarded? 21 million claimants? Millions of whom have never used the web? Operational? Countrywide?

It's a tall order. Nevertheless, 25 May 2012, GDS apparatchik Steve Wreyford publishes Identity Assurance gets closer to market in Pravda assuring 21 million grateful claimants that a framework agreement has been established, that "a selection of potential suppliers has passed the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire stage of the procurement" and that the successful bidders (Google) should be announced by the end of September – only eight days to go, tovarich.

The announcement cannot come too soon. 17 September 2012, and the normally resilient tractor-drivers are becoming despondent:

Universal Credit is due to replace scores of individual benefits from next year, simplifying claims and allowing claimants to keep more of their benefits when they take paid work. The regime will be internet-based, with ministers intending that most claimants apply and report a change in circumstances online. Appearing before a Commons inquiry into the reform, Lord Freud, the welfare reform minister, was asked what was the biggest risk to the programme. “I’ll say what the challenges are, what we need to get right: to get the security system working properly,” he said. Private security companies will be commissioned to develop a system of “identity assurance” to check that only real claimants can get benefits. “That’s one of the biggest challenges,” said Lord Freud.

Without him, 21 million people will have no identity. Without him, Universal Credit will fail. Will ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken deliver on time? Who will the winning suppliers be? (Google.) Who will be the UK's "identity providers", as they are known in GDS Newspeak? (Google, the mind-writers™.)

----------

A historian writes:

If you ask me, it all went wrong last December when the spineless bourgeois DWP lost control of its own programme to the kulak Maude and his entryist henchmen, Martha Lane Fox and ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken. I mean that's just my opinion. L. Trotsky

Universal Credit and the December putsch

Without him, 21 million people will have no identity.

Without him, Universal Credit will fail.

Will ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken deliver on time?

----------  o  O  o  ----------

December 2011, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) needs an identity assurance service to make its Universal Credit plan work. DWP officials write an invitation to tender (ITT) estimating a figure in the region of £240 million to be offered to suppliers interested in five-year contracts. A notice is published, as required by law, in OJEU, the Official Journal of the European Union.

This is the old way, the path of false consciousness.

The uncomradely hate crime committed by the reactionary cadre DWP is deprecated by Francis Maude, Cabinet Office minister, and following a late-night encounter in his facility deep in the bowels of the Lubyanka DWP's OJEU notice is voluntarily and swiftly withdrawn. Loyal agents of Minitrue erase all traces of it from the record. All except for this one, expressing DWP's meek contrition:

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has cancelled its tender for identity assurance services, claiming it had not followed the relevant procedures for the procurement. A spokeswoman for the DWP told GGC: "The Ojeu for identity assurance services (IAS) was (prematurely) issued by the department before all of the necessary governance, approvals and checks were complete and therefore needed to be withdrawn. We expect an Ojeu for IAS to be re-issued in the new year."

midata, the loneliest initiative in Whitehall – 2

You will recall the Behavioural Insights Team and its work, the initiative being sponsored by Francis Maude's Cabinet Office.

At least you will if you have that annoying capacity for retaining trivial information which afflicts some people.

For the rest of you, a refresher ...

According to their website:

The Behavioural Insights Team was set up in July 2010 with a remit to find innovative ways of encouraging, enabling and supporting people to make better choices for themselves. The Team’s work draws on insights from the growing body of academic research in the fields of behavioural economics and psychology which show how often subtle changes to the way in which decisions are framed can have big impacts on how people respond to them. The Team’s remit is to apply these insights to public policy making in the UK ...

Governments devise policies. They want to achieve certain ends. They are more or less successful in that endeavour. Sometimes we proletarians accede in the government's wishes – we tend to put on our safety belts, for example, when driving. And sometimes we don't – there is no sign of us proletarians at large giving up the illegal use of recreational drugs, for example.

How do we proletarians decide whether to accede or to disobey? If only legislators knew the answers to that question, then maybe they could influence us to improve their success rate and, in their eyes, improve our lives.

The answers are deemed to lie in the insights of behavioural psychology and behavioural economics – "nudge theory", for short. There are various expressions of the gospel. Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness by Richard H Thaler and Cass R Sunstein, for example, and Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini.

The marketing tricks used can be subtle, clever and effective in achieving quite unimpeachable objectives. There could be less legislation and regulation, less fining and imprisonment, more carrot and less stick. But somehow Rt Hon Oliver Letwin MP manages to make all this nudging look downright sinister:

Cameron Conservatism puts no faith in central direction and control. Instead, it seeks to identify social and environmental responsibilities that participants in the free market are likely to neglect, and then establish frameworks that will lead people and organisations to act of their own volition in ways that will improve society by increasing general wellbeing.

There is considerable skill required to nudge opinion and while they were still in opposition, David Cameron and his merry men displayed no facility whatever to influence people successfully.

So you might hope that they gave up on nudging when they came to power. But no. Instead, they set up the Behavioural Insights Team, with an advisory panel headed by Sir-Gus-now-Lord O'Donnell. The team met recently in Taunton to take stock and there is a presentation of their deliberations available here.

But perhaps we could make our own assessment.

The Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) issued a press release on 3 November 2011 according to which:

midata is a voluntary programme the Government is undertaking with industry, which over time will give consumers increasing access to their personal data in a portable, electronic format. Individuals will then be able to use this data to gain insights into their own behaviour, make more informed choices about products and services, and manage their lives more efficiently ... The midata programme marks a non-regulatory approach to consumer empowerment and is in keeping with the Government’s broader focus on transparency and openness.

Being a voluntary and non-regulatory initiative designed to help people manage their lives more efficiently, midata is definitively a candidate for the Behavioural Insights Team's skills. And, indeed, the recent midata 2012 review and consultation is published jointly by BIS and the Behavioural Insights Team:

Since the launch of Better Choices Better Deals: Consumers Powering Growth the midata programme has proceeded on a voluntary basis ... (p.11) In the last year progress towards these goals has been made using the voluntary approach to the midata programme ... (p.13) During the past year midata has been a voluntary partnership between the UK Government, businesses, consumer groups, regulators and trade bodies ... (p.20) These are encouraging developments and we will continue to push forward midata on a voluntary basis ... (p.27)

The task is to nudge organisations into voluntarily giving people access to the personal data those organisations hold. And what subtle means have been devised by the Behavioural Insights Team to achieve that end?

This initial promise has convinced the Government that more should be done to unlock the benefits of this data revolution. That is why we are consulting on the possibility of taking an order making power. If utilised, this will compel suppliers of services and goods to provide to their customers, upon request, historic transaction data in a machine readable format ... (p.11) The power would grant the Secretary of State the power to compel suppliers of goods/services to supply, at a consumer’s request, personal transaction data relating to their purchase/ consumption of products and services from that supplier in a machine readable format ... (p.13) An order making power, if utilised, would compel suppliers of services and goods to provide to their customers, upon request, historic transaction/ consumption data in a machine readable format ... (p.14) ... we are exploring the option of taking an order making power that would enable us to compel suppliers of goods and services to provide their customers’ transaction/consumption data in a machine readable format ... (p.27)

The nudgers are meant to operate, remember, through "innovative ways of encouraging, enabling and supporting". All very modern and all flannel apparently. Faced with recalcitrance, what they propose is good old-fashioned compulsion through legislation.

midata, the loneliest initiative in Whitehall – 2

You will recall the Behavioural Insights Team and its work, the initiative being sponsored by Francis Maude's Cabinet Office.

At least you will if you have that annoying capacity for retaining trivial information which afflicts some people.

For the rest of you, a refresher ...

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?

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.

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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:

Some food for the thoughts of Jon Ungoed-Thomas and Philip Johnston – IdA/DWP

You weren't invited to Ovum's Industry Congress on 24 May 2011, were you, so you didn't hear Phil Pavitt's talk on the "frictionless services" that he says the public is demanding from HMRC.

Still, you can read about it in Computer World UK, where you will discover that Phil is the Chief Information Officer (CIO, i.e. what we used to call the "DP Manager") at HMRC and he says frictionless services require identity assurance (IdA).

He may be right about that, after all we don't know what a frictionless service is, but he must be wrong when he says: "We don't currently have ID authentication in UK government".

That's just not true. Some of us small businesses have been submitting our VAT returns online using the UK Government Gateway every three months for several years now and that requires ID authentication by the UK government. And millions of people use HMRC's self-assessment website for income tax, again via the Government Gateway.

Why does Phil make this false statement?

Because no-one in Whitehall likes the Government Gateway. It doesn't look anything like the front end of Amazon or eBay or Facebook or Google. They want the Government Gateway to go away, it's old and ugly and not the sort of accessory a hip young CIO wants to be seen dead wearing. It cost millions. It works. It seems to be secure. But it's got to go.

What will the IdA replacement look like? Not long to wait to find out now, says Phil, "in March of this year the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) revealed plans that will see it be the first central government department to roll out identity assurance services, in a project that is set to cost £25 million".

£25 million? What's the betting that there's a 1 in front of that by the time the National Audit Office get to take a look? If we're lucky. Otherwise a 4. While even Oxfam won't want the old Government Gateway, already paid for, years of successful use behind it, but pensioned off in its prime.

What do we foresee? All together now – friction!

Some food for the thoughts of Jon Ungoed-Thomas and Philip Johnston – IdA/DWP

You weren't invited to Ovum's Industry Congress on 24 May 2011, were you, so you didn't hear Phil Pavitt's talk on the "frictionless services" that he says the public is demanding from HMRC.

Still, you can read about it in Computer World UK, where you will discover that Phil is the Chief Information Officer (CIO, i.e. what we used to call the "DP Manager") at HMRC and he says frictionless services require identity assurance (IdA).

He may be right about that, after all we don't know what a frictionless service is, but he must be wrong when he says: "We don't currently have ID authentication in UK government".

That's just not true. Some of us small businesses have been submitting our VAT returns online using the UK Government Gateway every three months for several years now and that requires ID authentication by the UK government. And millions of people use HMRC's self-assessment website for income tax, again via the Government Gateway.

Why does Phil make this false statement?

Because no-one in Whitehall likes the Government Gateway. It doesn't look anything like the front end of Amazon or eBay or Facebook or Google. They want the Government Gateway to go away, it's old and ugly and not the sort of accessory a hip young CIO wants to be seen dead wearing. It cost millions. It works. It seems to be secure. But it's got to go.

What will the IdA replacement look like? Not long to wait to find out now, says Phil, "in March of this year the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) revealed plans that will see it be the first central government department to roll out identity assurance services, in a project that is set to cost £25 million".

£25 million? What's the betting that there's a 1 in front of that by the time the National Audit Office get to take a look? If we're lucky. Otherwise a 4. While even Oxfam won't want the old Government Gateway, already paid for, years of successful use behind it, but pensioned off in its prime.

What do we foresee? All together now – friction!

Some food for the thoughts of Jon Ungoed-Thomas and Philip Johnston – IdA/GDS

Those chaps in the Government Digital Service (GDS) get about a bit. California. Estonia. And now the White House.

GDS's job is to do Martha Lane Fox's bidding and make public services digital by default. In order to achieve that, they need to deliver an identity assurance service (IdA) and they were in Washington "to share, learn and collaborate with some of the key individuals and organisations in the US wrestling with the challenges of identity in cyberspace" including Senator Barbara Mikulski.

The encounter between these wrestlers "focused on the economic necessity of creating an ecosystem of trust both for individual users of the internet, who are overwhelmed by usernames and passwords, and for businesses where the increasing cost of fraud is offsetting the efficiency benefits from digital channels".

The notion that Whitehall could create an ecosystem of trust needs to be compared with the markets they have created to date, e.g. PFI.

Far from being overwhelmed by usernames and passwords, individuals worldwide appear to be using the web more and more. Of course what GDS are offering is yet more usernames and passwords. But with this difference. Theirs will be the only usernames and passwords we have to remember. They will act as gateways to all the other services we use. We will become entirely dependent on GDS and its various unicorn-hustler agents (Facebook, Google, ..., Mydex) to conduct any transactions with anyone. Can they be trusted in this rôle?

And the cost of fraud appears to be shrinking, not increasing. The only cloud on the horizon is DWP's Universal Credit scheme which, if it follows the government's independent learning accounts and tax credits, promises to be the locus of a fraud feeding frenzy.

But apart from that – three false propositions in one sentence, a record? – after a long bout, there was one result: "the Senator made it clear that volunteers are needed if the voluntary approach in the US is to be successful".

Gluttons for punishment, our GDS delegates went on from the White House to OIX, the Open Identity Exchange, where "there was great interest in what the UK Identity Assurance Programme is doing and an offer from OIX to help us achieve our goals – which we readily accepted".

Hands up everyone who remembers voting to have their identity traded on a US exchange?

Some food for the thoughts of Jon Ungoed-Thomas and Philip Johnston – IdA/GDS

Those chaps in the Government Digital Service (GDS) get about a bit. California. Estonia. And now the White House.

GDS's job is to do Martha Lane Fox's bidding and make public services digital by default. In order to achieve that, they need to deliver an identity assurance service (IdA) and they were in Washington "to share, learn and collaborate with some of the key individuals and organisations in the US wrestling with the challenges of identity in cyberspace" including Senator Barbara Mikulski.

The encounter between these wrestlers "focused on the economic necessity of creating an ecosystem of trust both for individual users of the internet, who are overwhelmed by usernames and passwords, and for businesses where the increasing cost of fraud is offsetting the efficiency benefits from digital channels".

The notion that Whitehall could create an ecosystem of trust needs to be compared with the markets they have created to date, e.g. PFI.

Far from being overwhelmed by usernames and passwords, individuals worldwide appear to be using the web more and more. Of course what GDS are offering is yet more usernames and passwords. But with this difference. Theirs will be the only usernames and passwords we have to remember. They will act as gateways to all the other services we use. We will become entirely dependent on GDS and its various unicorn-hustler agents (Facebook, Google, ..., Mydex) to conduct any transactions with anyone. Can they be trusted in this rôle?

And the cost of fraud appears to be shrinking, not increasing. The only cloud on the horizon is DWP's Universal Credit scheme which, if it follows the government's independent learning accounts and tax credits, promises to be the locus of a fraud feeding frenzy.

But apart from that – three false propositions in one sentence, a record? – after a long bout, there was one result: "the Senator made it clear that volunteers are needed if the voluntary approach in the US is to be successful".

Gluttons for punishment, our GDS delegates went on from the White House to OIX, the Open Identity Exchange, where "there was great interest in what the UK Identity Assurance Programme is doing and an offer from OIX to help us achieve our goals – which we readily accepted".

Hands up everyone who remembers voting to have their identity traded on a US exchange?