Agile v. digital-by-default

Are GDS agile?

Or are they digital-by-default?

When it comes to Universal Credit,

it may not be possible to be both.

Manifesto for Agile Software Development

We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on
the right, we value the items on the left more.

Principles behind the Agile Manifesto

We follow these principles:

1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.
3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
4. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.
8. Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
10. Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.
11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

History: The Agile Manifesto

... Representatives from ... and others sympathetic to the need for an alternative to documentation driven, heavyweight software development processes convened ...

... attendees voiced support for a variety of "Light" methodologies ... articles were written that referenced the category of "Light" or "Lightweight" processes. A number these articles referred to "Light methodologies ...

... Early on, Alistair Cockburn weighed in with an epistle that identified the general disgruntlement with the word "Light": "I don't mind the methodology being called light in weight, but I'm not sure I want to be referred to as a lightweight attending a lightweight methodologists meeting. It somehow sounds like a bunch of skinny, feebleminded lightweight people trying to remember what day it is" ...

[which is how the methodology came to be called "agile"]

GDS, the Government Digital Service, are committed to making public services in the UK digital-by-default.

They are committed to achieving this goal by using so-called "agile" methods.

What are agile methods when they're at home?

Agile
As noted by the National Audit Office in their report Universal Credit: early progress (p.53), agile methods derive from the admirably short Agile Manifesto published by the Agile Alliance in 2001 and reproduced opposite.

The Agile Alliance acknowledge that their thinking is based on earlier methodologies in software engineering – it wasn't new in 2001 and it certainly isn't new now, 12 years later.

The reader may note en passant that "agile" is just a word. The Agile Alliance could have been called the "Lightweight Alliance", please see opposite, and they could have published the Lightweight Manifesto.

More important, please note the 12 principles that the Agile Alliance distilled from their professional experience in the world of software engineering.

Digital-by-default
Universal credit to be first service 'digital by default', said the Guardian on 3 February 2012, when Steve Dover was still the director of major programmes at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The article quotes him as follows:

The starting point, I said to our telephony collaboration teams based in Newcastle, was just think of a contact centre, but it has got no people in it and think of an operating model that has got no back office, and start from there.

Mr Dover is no longer the director of major programmes at DWP.

The Cabinet Office's Digital Efficiency Report estimates the savings to be made by introducing digital-by-default. These savings would be made only if 80% or more of public service transactions take place on-line. The report estimates that it could take 11 years to reach that goal. On p.19 the report says:

If the proportion of savings estimated to relate to staff costs ... is applied to the total estimated annual savings and then divided by an average cost per FTE [full-time equivalent, what we used to call a "person"], this amounts to a total FTE savings estimate of at least 40,000. This represents the number of FTEs [people] that could be saved [scrapped] if a shift towards digital transactions right across government were achieved.

"Digital-by-default" means empty call centres, unmanned back offices and 40,000 fewer public servants, minimum, all replaced by computer systems.

This is Tony Blair's deceased transformational government agenda. Dead, but still walking.

No.6
Take a look at the principles behind the Agile Manifesto reproduced above. Particularly principle no.6:

The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.

"Requirements elicitation" as it's known. The best way for a development team to understand or elicit what is required of them is by "face-to-face conversation".

As keen followers of agile methods, GDS may be expected to adhere to that principle. They will not rely on documentation printed on paper or displayed in browsers, they will not rely on emails or texts or instant messages or phone calls or memos. Face-to-face conversation. That's what works.

We can think of other scenarios where face-to-face conversation works best. Teaching children in class, for example, and diagnosing a medical problem.

Let's call this class of requirements elicitation scenarios "Class H", where the "H" stands for "human".

And let's distinguish Class H requirements elicitation from Class D, "digital".

Amazon doesn't need a teacher or a doctor to find out which book you want to buy. That simple piece of requirements elicitation can be accomplished digitally. Buying a book on Amazon is in Class D. You want to buy a heated towel rail on eBay? Ditto. Class D. You want to hire a car at Catania airport for five days beginning 12 December 2013? Class D. Etc ...

Universal Credit
Now suppose that you don't want to buy a book or hire a car, instead you want to register for Jobseeker's Allowance or any of the six state benefits that Universal Credit is meant to replace. DWP need to elicit your requirements. Is that a Class H or a Class D requirements elicitation?

The answer isn't obvious. We need an intelligent argument based on facts to convince us that registration for state benefits could be achieved exclusively digitally.

GDS simply assume that registering for state benefits is comparable to buying a book on Amazon – they haven't provided any argument to support digital-by-default in this case.

And in the absence of any such argument, it is imprudent – to put it mildly – simply to assume that registration could be digital by default. If we look at the evidence, we may find that the Agile Manifesto is right and that, in this case, "the most efficient and effective method of conveying information ... is face-to-face conversation".

Are GDS agile? Or are they digital-by-default? When it comes to Universal Credit, it may not be possible to be both.

----------

Updated 11.11.13:

Should G-Cloud and the GDS be taken seriously as contenders to run Universal Credit?

Among the offenders are those who trumpet "digital by default" as the "answer", without considering the question.

Agile v. digital-by-default

Are GDS agile?

Or are they digital-by-default?

When it comes to Universal Credit,

it may not be possible to be both.

Manifesto for Agile Software Development

We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on
the right, we value the items on the left more.

Principles behind the Agile Manifesto

We follow these principles:

1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.
3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
4. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.
8. Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
10. Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.
11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

History: The Agile Manifesto

... Representatives from ... and others sympathetic to the need for an alternative to documentation driven, heavyweight software development processes convened ...

... attendees voiced support for a variety of "Light" methodologies ... articles were written that referenced the category of "Light" or "Lightweight" processes. A number these articles referred to "Light methodologies ...

... Early on, Alistair Cockburn weighed in with an epistle that identified the general disgruntlement with the word "Light": "I don't mind the methodology being called light in weight, but I'm not sure I want to be referred to as a lightweight attending a lightweight methodologists meeting. It somehow sounds like a bunch of skinny, feebleminded lightweight people trying to remember what day it is" ...

[which is how the methodology came to be called "agile"]

GDS, the Government Digital Service, are committed to making public services in the UK digital-by-default.

They are committed to achieving this goal by using so-called "agile" methods.

What are agile methods when they're at home?

Agile
As noted by the National Audit Office in their report Universal Credit: early progress (p.53), agile methods derive from the admirably short Agile Manifesto published by the Agile Alliance in 2001 and reproduced opposite.

The Agile Alliance acknowledge that their thinking is based on earlier methodologies in software engineering – it wasn't new in 2001 and it certainly isn't new now, 12 years later.

The reader may note en passant that "agile" is just a word. The Agile Alliance could have been called the "Lightweight Alliance", please see opposite, and they could have published the Lightweight Manifesto.

More important, please note the 12 principles that the Agile Alliance distilled from their professional experience in the world of software engineering.

Digital-by-default
Universal credit to be first service 'digital by default', said the Guardian on 3 February 2012, when Steve Dover was still the director of major programmes at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The article quotes him as follows:

The starting point, I said to our telephony collaboration teams based in Newcastle, was just think of a contact centre, but it has got no people in it and think of an operating model that has got no back office, and start from there.

Mr Dover is no longer the director of major programmes at DWP.

The Cabinet Office's Digital Efficiency Report estimates the savings to be made by introducing digital-by-default. These savings would be made only if 80% or more of public service transactions take place on-line. The report estimates that it could take 11 years to reach that goal. On p.19 the report says:

If the proportion of savings estimated to relate to staff costs ... is applied to the total estimated annual savings and then divided by an average cost per FTE [full-time equivalent, what we used to call a "person"], this amounts to a total FTE savings estimate of at least 40,000. This represents the number of FTEs [people] that could be saved [scrapped] if a shift towards digital transactions right across government were achieved.

"Digital-by-default" means empty call centres, unmanned back offices and 40,000 fewer public servants, minimum, all replaced by computer systems.

This is Tony Blair's deceased transformational government agenda. Dead, but still walking.

No.6
Take a look at the principles behind the Agile Manifesto reproduced above. Particularly principle no.6:

The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.

"Requirements elicitation" as it's known. The best way for a development team to understand or elicit what is required of them is by "face-to-face conversation".

As keen followers of agile methods, GDS may be expected to adhere to that principle. They will not rely on documentation printed on paper or displayed in browsers, they will not rely on emails or texts or instant messages or phone calls or memos. Face-to-face conversation. That's what works.

We can think of other scenarios where face-to-face conversation works best. Teaching children in class, for example, and diagnosing a medical problem.

Let's call this class of requirements elicitation scenarios "Class H", where the "H" stands for "human".

And let's distinguish Class H requirements elicitation from Class D, "digital".

Amazon doesn't need a teacher or a doctor to find out which book you want to buy. That simple piece of requirements elicitation can be accomplished digitally. Buying a book on Amazon is in Class D. You want to buy a heated towel rail on eBay? Ditto. Class D. You want to hire a car at Catania airport for five days beginning 12 December 2013? Class D. Etc ...

UC soon to be/already is Steve Doverless

The Department for Work and Pensions, DWP's Universal Credit project is in difficulties.

We know that.

The political problems are hard enough to solve.

Whitehall has created additional problems:

• Turf wars between DWP and GDS, the Government Digital Service – Universal Credit and the December putsch
• Dependence on a non-existent identity assurance service – GOV.UK is not Government on the Internet, but of the Internet
• Failure to develop an assisted digital scheme – The Government Digital Service, no time to fit in Universal Credit, too busy
• Adoption of a cloud computing strategy which will ensure that Whitehall loses control of our data – Cloud computing turns IT into a utility, and that's a good thing?

And the difficulties are increasing.

6 February 2012, Universal Credit, the Whitehall computer game in which real money is used to provide imaginary services to a virtual public:

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, played it by the Lomax book and took his Universal Credit idea to his officials and let them work out the details. It's not a bad idea, Universal Credit. And what horse designed by a committee did his officials come up with? Let Steve Dover tell you himself, otherwise you won't believe it. Mr Dover is director of major programmes at DWP and he is quoted in the Guardian today as saying: The starting point, I said to our telephony collaboration teams based in Newcastle, was just think of a contact centre, but it has got no people in it and think of an operating model that has got no back office, and start from there.

Now we learn that Steve Dover is being replaced. And not just him. Up to five senior UC people are on the way out.

What's going on? Is good sense returning to UC under Terry Moran? Or is the chaos getting worse?

Several million people caught in the poverty trap created by our badly designed benefits systems in the UK deserve to know the answer.

----------

Philip Virgo, 6 November 2012, Has the sky fallen in on DWP's big bang implementation plans for Universal Credit?

UC soon to be/already is Steve Doverless

The Department for Work and Pensions, DWP's Universal Credit project is in difficulties.

We know that.

The political problems are hard enough to solve.

Whitehall has created additional problems:

• Turf wars between DWP and GDS, the Government Digital Service – Universal Credit and the December putsch
• Dependence on a non-existent identity assurance service – GOV.UK is not Government on the Internet, but of the Internet
• Failure to develop an assisted digital scheme – The Government Digital Service, no time to fit in Universal Credit, too busy
• Adoption of a cloud computing strategy which will ensure that Whitehall loses control of our data – Cloud computing turns IT into a utility, and that's a good thing?

And the difficulties are increasing.

Identity assurance – the clock is ticking, your moderation is awaiting comment

28 September 2012 and a reply to yesterday's enquiry has whizzed in from GDS, followed by a reply to the reply:

steve # Thanks for your comment, David. Firstly, please don’t take our lack of posts as evidence of inaction. We’ve actually been incredibly busy over the summer and are expecting a bumper crop of posts in October, to share what we’ve been up to. So, watch this space. Secondly, DWP are still working to resolve final contractual issues. The outcome will only be made public when final contracts are signed. Steve 28/09/2012 steve # Furthermore, this notification will come from DWP, not Cabinet Office or GDS, as it is their framework. 28/09/2012 dmossesq # Please Note: Your comment is awaiting moderation. Dear Mr Wreyford Thank you for your reply. I don’t mistake the absence of posts for inactivity – as I said, surely there must have been some activity in view of the importance of Universal Credit. You say that “DWP are still working to resolve final contractual issues”. Ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken made it clear on 1 March 2012 that Identity Assurance belongs to the Cabinet Office and not DWP: “… 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”. Presumably GDS are involved in those “final contractual issues” just as much as if not more than DWP*. The absence of posts does create a vacuum, though, which draws in all sorts of flotsam … The Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) midata initiative, for example. Why are GDS using BIS to try to legislate for Personal Data Stores/Inventories (PDSs/PDIs) instead of doing it themselves? And GOV.UK – why waste a lot of time and money re-writing central government websites? Is it to provide consistent hooks for PDS-based identity assurance in all government communications over the web? A PDS is a dynamic dematerialised ID card, isn’t it. The public won’t “wear it”. Neither will the banks if the Cabinet Office try to insert PDSs into the nation’s payment systems. If Google and/or Facebook turn out to be on the list of GDS-approved suppliers of identity assurance services, then DWP and everyone else will have wasted their time negotiating any contractual issues, final or otherwise. Again, the public won’t wear it. And the GOV.UK team will have wasted their time. And BIS will have wasted their credibility … Goodness, just look at all that dust, you never can tell what the vacuum’s going to draw up, can you. The sooner GDS can tell an expectant public what you’ve come up with identity assurancewise, the better. ———- * While writing this reply of mine, your second reply popped up, trying to push responsibility back on to DWP. Too late, Mr Wreyford. The Cabinet Office burnt their bridges when they made DWP withdraw their December 2011 OJEU notice. You know that. If Universal Credit fails for lack of identity assurance, that will be the Cabinet Office’s fault now and not DWP’s. 28/09/2012

The last comment will only appear on the GDS blog after moderation by them and only if they want it to appear.

Identity assurance – the clock is ticking, your moderation is awaiting comment

28 September 2012 and a reply to yesterday's enquiry has whizzed in from GDS, followed by a reply to the reply:

Identity assurance – the clock is ticking, your comment is awaiting moderation

27 September 2012 9:30-ish, posted on the Government Digital Service (GDS) blog here and here:

dmossesq # Please Note: Your comment is awaiting moderation. Steve Wreyford’s post on OIX is the latest on the ID assurance blog and is dated 14 June 2012, three months ago. Has there been no activity on identity assurance since then? Surely there must have been some, GDS are due to announce by the end of September – 85 hours time – which bidders have been approved to provide identity assurance services as per the 1 March 2012 notice in OJEU. When will we be told who the winners are? 27/09/2012

Identity assurance – the clock is ticking, your comment is awaiting moderation

27 September 2012 9:30-ish, posted on the Government Digital Service (GDS) blog here and here:

dmossesq # Please Note: Your comment is awaiting moderation. Steve Wreyford’s post on OIX is the latest on the ID assurance blog and is dated 14 June 2012, three months ago. Has there been no activity on identity assurance since then? Surely there must have been some, GDS are due to announce by the end of September – 85 hours time – which bidders have been approved to provide identity assurance services as per the 1 March 2012 notice in OJEU. When will we be told who the winners are? 27/09/2012

Identity assurance – the clock is ticking, ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken's chickens are coming home to roost

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is part of the Cabinet Office and has six projects on hand, including Identity Assurance:

The ID Assurance team are working on accrediting and approving third party identity to facilitate digital transactions between citizens and government.

If "citizens" and the government are to transact business on-line, there must be a rock solid identity assurance service so that each party knows who it's dealing with. Invitations to tender for the service were issued earlier this year.

GDS haven't so far publicly approved any third parties to provide identity assurance, but we shouldn't have long to wait – no more than five days, in fact:

The tendering process will run for several weeks and is expected to report successful bidders in September 2012.

Delays are only to be expected. Identity assurance for the entire population of the UK is a big project.

But in this case there can't be any delays. The joint GDS/DWP notice of the identity assurance project states that identity assurance is required to be ...

... fully operational from spring 2013.

That's six months time if we measure to the start of next spring, or nine months if we measure to the end. Either way, DWP's Universal Credit (UC) scheme has to be up and running by October 2013 and UC depends on identity assurance as Lord Freud, the welfare reform minister, has emphasised – no identity assurance, no UC.

Appearing before the House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee, Lord Freud was asked what is the biggest risk facing UC. His answer – identity assurance.

Why did DWP allow this dependency/risk? Why didn't they write their own invitation to tender?

They did. Then they withdrew it. Apparently at the command of the Cabinet Office. Because next thing, GDS announced that:

... 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.

"Governed by the Cabinet Office" – GDS have put themselves on the spot. If UC fails now, is it Iain Duncan Smith's fault? Or Francis Maude's?

GDS must approve several accredited suppliers of identity assurance services in the next 120 hours. Who's likely to be on the list?

GDS are only offering up to £30 million for the identity assurance service and they're only letting contracts for 18 months.

The Home Office tried for eight years to issue us all with ID cards. They failed.

Which companies can afford to assure the identities of everyone in the UK – or at least the identities of the 21 million expected claimants for UC – for only £30 million? Which companies can afford to take the risk of losing their contract to a competitor only 18 months later? Not many of them. It can only be a short list.

The banks/credit card companies/PayPal, the phone companies, the utility companies and IBM might be big and competent enough. But they have to think about the failure of the Home Office and about reputational risk.

They wouldn't be in control of the identity assurance service. GDS would be, and if anything went wrong, even if it wasn't the contractors' fault, the banks/phone companies/utility companies/IBM would see their brands destroyed.

Any chief executive of a bank/phone company/... who signs up for one of these GDS identity assurance contracts would be roasted by the equity analysts and by their shareholders. Which means they won't.

We can probably forget the insurance companies and the credit rating agencies. Who else does that leave?

Google and Facebook.

In no more than 118 hours now and counting, ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken, executive director of the Government Digital Service and Senior Responsible Officer Owner for the Identity Assurance programme, is going to have to host a press conference at which he announces that he thinks it's a good idea for Google and Facebook to provide the electronic identities of everyone in the UK.

If you get an invitation, don't miss it.

Identity assurance – the clock is ticking, ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken's chickens are coming home to roost

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is part of the Cabinet Office and has six projects on hand, including Identity Assurance:

The ID Assurance team are working on accrediting and approving third party identity to facilitate digital transactions between citizens and government.

If "citizens" and the government are to transact business on-line, there must be a rock solid identity assurance service so that each party knows who it's dealing with. Invitations to tender for the service were issued earlier this year.

GDS haven't so far publicly approved any third parties to provide identity assurance, but we shouldn't have long to wait – no more than five days, in fact:

The tendering process will run for several weeks and is expected to report successful bidders in September 2012.

Delays are only to be expected. Identity assurance for the entire population of the UK is a big project.

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."

The Government Digital Service, no time to fit in Universal Credit, too busy

They're a ruthless lot, GDS.

They have to prioritise.

Millions of people could be given the opportunity to make work pay?

Too bad.

GDS have a website to write.

----------  o  O  o  ----------

At last the technical IT problems with Universal Credit (UC) are beginning to be reported in the national press, please see selected examples below.

UC is important. "Make work pay" means rescuing people from the poverty trap, where dependency rots their souls, as Frank Field puts it. And tragically, as Mr Field also puts it, "UC is on course for disaster".

There are political problems with UC. That is a matter for Parliament, and Parliament is debating it – the House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee is considering 500 pages of evidence from 70 organisations.

Suppose that Westminster resolves the political problems. Then what?

Then UC will still fail because of the IT problems introduced by Whitehall.

Digital by default
Whitehall has decided that all public services, including UC, should be "digital by default". That is, public services should be delivered over the web, and only over the web, please see newspaper articles quoted below. But something like ten million people in the UK have still never used the web. They will be "excluded by default".

Assisted digital
Whitehall has invented a phrase to plug the gap between the unwebbed and UC – "assisted digital". There will be an assisted digital programme, they say, to help their web novice parishioners to register with UC and to claim. There is no such programme, there is nothing more than the phrase and Whitehall's actual response, as opposed to their promised response, is simply not to answer the telephone, please see newspaper articles quoted below. That, Whitehall believes, will force people to use the web.

Identity assurance
Once forced onto the web, how do claimants prove that they are who they say they are? If they can't, either we risk denying benefits to people who are entitled to them or we risk automating benefit fraud. That invidious choice is currently avoided on the web by using the UK Government Gateway, which requires user IDs and passwords.

Whitehall believes that the Government Gateway is old-fashioned and too difficult for most people to use, and has promised to replace it with a new "identity assurance" service. Another phrase, another promise, another failure, please see newspaper articles quoted below, no use to UC, there is no new identity assurance service.

Cybersecurity
In their more lucid moments, Whitehall departments warn individuals, businesses and each other that the web is a dangerous place to be. Identity theft, industrial espionage, viruses, man-in-the-middle attacks, hacking, distributed-denial-of-service, you name it, it's a cyberthreat.

GCHQ has established an academic institute for cyberdefence. GCHQ appear to understand the problem. And yet simultaneously, schizophrenically, Whitehall has decided to put all public services including UC on the web, please see newspaper articles quoted below.

Cloud computing
"Cloud computing" is the solution, whatever the problem, according to Whitehall. Whitehall wants a G-Cloud – a government cloud – and they want to put all our data in the cloud where, they claim, it will be secure, it will be maintained in real time, always up to date and always accurate, cloud computing is flexible and cheap and efficient and trusted and always available (resilient, no down time, always safely backed up) and green and modern and fit for the 21st century.

Cockpoppy.

Not in this 21st century. Not on this planet.

Whitehall's G-Cloud team hosted a lively debate about the problems of cloud computing, pulled all the questions together and tried to crowd source some answers. They can't have liked the answers submitted and published only one – the limiting case of a crowd. The problems remain, unresolved, even the founder of Google is warning Whitehall against cloud computing, and yet G-Cloud proceeds, ensuring maximum risks to UC.

Agile
It is a sad fact that IT projects tend to come in late and over budget. Staggeringly late and eye-wateringly over budget. UC is meant to be different. UC is using "agile" systems development methods and "agile" means that systems are flexible, delivered on time and within the budget.

"Agile" is just another word. Computer Weekly magazine reported in June on an emergency project of the US military's:

... 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.

Transformational government
UC is the victim of "transformational government", the overall Whitehall plan which incorporates "digital by default" and "assisted digital" and "identity assurance" and "cloud computing" and "agile". Iain Duncan Smith, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, looks utterly sincere in his desire to make work pay but he has failed. His officials have prevailed and undermined UC.

Steve Dover, for example, the director of major programmes at DWP and clearly a card-carrying member of the Transformational Government cult, worshiping computers and full of contempt for human beings, is quoted in the Guardian on the subject of UC as saying:

The starting point, I said to our telephony collaboration teams based in Newcastle, was just think of a contact centre, but it has got no people in it and think of an operating model that has got no back office, and start from there.

Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office Minister, is in charge of both cybersecurity (don't use the web) and the Government Digital Service (GDS, only use the web). How does he reconcile the two? On 31 October 2011, he announced that he was funding the nascent identity assurance industry with £10 million taken from ... the £650 million cybersecurity budget.

When it comes to IT, our politicians are apparently helpless in the hands of their officials.

Officials like Steve Dover, and ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken, the executive director of government digital services and Senior Responsible Officer Owner of the identity assurance programme. Bracken trundled Francis Maude off to Estonia to see what transformational government looks like in action. Before that, Mr Maude was made to go to California to listen to Google talking about the identity ecosystem. Later, there was a trip to Washington for Bracken's Government Digital Service (GDS) team.

Estonia, of course, precisely because the country's government has been transformed and relies entirely on cloud computing, was brought to its knees by the Russians in a matter of days in 2007. Why does ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken wish to expose the UK in general and UC in particular to the same vulnerability?

The trip to California included a talk given by Google on identity management. If the suggestion is that perhaps Google could provide the identity assurance that UC and other public services require, it should be understood what that implies. Application for benefits and the administration of their payment would become dependent on Google, whose name could conceivably one day replace Her Britannic Majesty's in our passports. As custodians of our identity, the company would tend to become part of the Constitution. Is Constitutional change in the remit of ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken?

The Washington boondoggle included a photo opportunity in the White House library, enough to turn anyone's head, and was the occasion for groupthink with GDS's transformational government opposite numbers working on NSTIC, the US National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace. The fact that the US administration is pursuing the same mistaken strategy as the UK's does not alter the fact that it is mistaken.

GOV.UK
GDS's serious responsibilities are set out on its website under the following headings – assisted digital, digital engagement, directgov, ID assurance, innovation and single government domain. They concentrate on the single government domain task, producing GOV.UK, a re-write of all the departmental government websites that already exist.

No time to waste on UC
When GDS aren't visiting Estonia or the US, they're re-writing websites. They're not promoting digital engagement, they're not providing assisted digital services and DWP don't have the new identity assurance system that they need and that they were promised.

They're a ruthless lot, GDS. They have to prioritise. Millions of people could be given the opportunity to make work pay? Too bad. GDS have a website to write.

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A selection of recent newspaper reports on the state of UC:

Last Saturday's Guardian, 15 September 2012, Welfare bill won't work, key advisers tell Iain Duncan Smith:

Seventy organisations wrote to the Commons work and pensions select committee last week, raising a host of potential objections to the universal credit, including doubts about the ability of the government to successfully deliver the IT necessary to unify benefit payments or use real-time wage information to ensure that work always pays better than welfare. Those working with the vulnerable said the insistence that the system be wholly internet-based will leave many unable to access benefits, and claim the government does not have a plan B.

Next day's Observer, Unemployed deliberately held in call centre queues to promote website:

Jobseekers are being kept hanging on the telephone for at least five minutes before they are connected to a member of staff in jobcentres – a deliberate move to encourage people to make online claims, internal documents obtained by the Guardian reveal ... Charities said that vulnerable people often do not have internet access ... Underlining the new policy is the government's target that 80% of new claims for unemployment benefit should be made online by September 2013 ... The problem for the welfare secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, is that the online flagship universal credit policy will only work if claimants not only claim jobseeker's allowance and other benefits online but also manage their benefits and job searches online ... The Department for Work and Pensions emphasised that the government tried to ensure that poor people could access jobcentre call centres ...

Monday's Telegraph, Cyber attacks threaten welfare reforms, ministers warn:

Cyber-attacks by criminal gangs and hostile states are the biggest threat to the Coalition’s welfare reforms, ministers have said. Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, said he had sought advice from major internet retailers such as Amazon about how to keep his Universal Credit systems running, despite electronic sabotage and fraud. 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. Mr Duncan Smith said: “There are states that wish to attack things, criminals that want to commit fraud.” Unlike retailers, he said, the new system would have to keep running regardless of disruption: temporary interruptions of service would harm claimants. “We must always be ready for the moment we need to pay people the money,” he said.

The Government Digital Service, no time to fit in Universal Credit, too busy

They're a ruthless lot, GDS.

They have to prioritise.

Millions of people could be given the opportunity to make work pay?

Too bad.

GDS have a website to write.

----------  o  O  o  ----------

At last the technical IT problems with Universal Credit (UC) are beginning to be reported in the national press, please see selected examples below.

UC is important. "Make work pay" means rescuing people from the poverty trap, where dependency rots their souls, as Frank Field puts it. And tragically, as Mr Field also puts it, "UC is on course for disaster".

There are political problems with UC. That is a matter for Parliament, and Parliament is debating it – the House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee is considering 500 pages of evidence from 70 organisations.

Suppose that Westminster resolves the political problems. Then what?

Then UC will still fail because of the IT problems introduced by Whitehall.

Universal Credit, the Whitehall computer game in which real money is used to provide imaginary services to a virtual public

There was Nick Robinson the other day, on BBC Radio 4's Decision Time, asking how policy is made by ministers and their officials. And there was Rachel Lomax, telling him.

Ms Lomax was Deputy Governor of the Bank of England from 2003 to 2008. The poor regulation and ultimate collapse of the UK banking system was nothing to do with her. With immaculate timing, she picked up a non-executive directorship of HSBC on 1 December 2008 and another one subsequently at BAA, the airport operator that cancels half its flights when three inches of snow fall.

The BAA appointment no doubt benefits from her experience as Permanent Secretary at the Department for Transport. She's also "done" the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the Welsh Office, the World Bank, the Cabinet Office and the Treasury.

She's been around and, according to her, the answer to Nick's question is that ministers should bring their little policy ideas to their officials and let them, the officials, work out the details, she just hates it when ministers think they know how to achieve their objectives, that never works.

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, played it by the Lomax book and took his Universal Credit idea to his officials and let them work out the details. It's not a bad idea, Universal Credit. And what horse designed by a committee did his officials come up with?

Let Steve Dover tell you himself, otherwise you won't believe it. Mr Dover is director of major programmes at DWP and he is quoted in the Guardian today as saying:

The starting point, I said to our telephony collaboration teams based in Newcastle, was just think of a contact centre, but it has got no people in it and think of an operating model that has got no back office, and start from there.

Universal Credit will be claimed over the web, and only over the web, and it will be paid over the web, and only over the web – "New dole system is 'digital by default', like it or not", as they put it in ElReg.

Never mind the fact that something between nine and ten million people in this country have never used the web, the Cabinet Office want all public services to be delivered over the web, and only over the web, even if the nine or ten million people who have never used the web are the nine or ten million people most likely to need Universal Credit and other benefits.

Universal Credit will be introduced in October 2013, says to Mr Dover. It's the way he tells them.

Universal Credit, the Whitehall computer game in which real money is used to provide imaginary services to a virtual public

There was Nick Robinson the other day, on BBC Radio 4's Decision Time, asking how policy is made by ministers and their officials. And there was Rachel Lomax, telling him.

Ms Lomax was Deputy Governor of the Bank of England from 2003 to 2008. The poor regulation and ultimate collapse of the UK banking system was nothing to do with her. With immaculate timing, she picked up a non-executive directorship of HSBC on 1 December 2008 and another one subsequently at BAA, the airport operator that cancels half its flights when three inches of snow fall.