Did everyone spot it?
The Killing, Series 2, Episode 7, 17'30".
Raben's father-in-law tells him Special Branch are following him. Raben instantly takes something out of his pocket, fiddles with it and puts it back.
He was taking the battery out of his mobile phone – the only way to be (fairly) sure that it isn't being used to locate/track him.
Him. Or anyone else. You, for example. Your mobile phone is a voluntarily worn electronic tag. Your mobile phone, and mine, is an electronic ID card.
Monday 12 December 2011
Mobile phones – location tracking
Did everyone spot it?
The Killing, Series 2, Episode 7, 17'30".
Raben's father-in-law tells him Special Branch are following him. Raben instantly takes something out of his pocket, fiddles with it and puts it back.
He was taking the battery out of his mobile phone – the only way to be (fairly) sure that it isn't being used to locate/track him.
Him. Or anyone else. You, for example. Your mobile phone is a voluntarily worn electronic tag. Your mobile phone, and mine, is an electronic ID card.
The Killing, Series 2, Episode 7, 17'30".
Raben's father-in-law tells him Special Branch are following him. Raben instantly takes something out of his pocket, fiddles with it and puts it back.
He was taking the battery out of his mobile phone – the only way to be (fairly) sure that it isn't being used to locate/track him.
Him. Or anyone else. You, for example. Your mobile phone is a voluntarily worn electronic tag. Your mobile phone, and mine, is an electronic ID card.
Saturday 3 December 2011
The case for midata – the answer is a mooncalf
Ed Davey, Minister at the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, is promoting the midata initiative. In this, he is guided by a management consultancy called Ctrl-Shift. Ctrl-Shift have recently issued a report which makes the business case for the investment of public money in midata.
An incomplete review of
The new personal data landscape
published in November 2011 by Ctrl-Shift
21 pages, price: £500
Ctrl-Shift is a management consultancy specialising in customer relationship management with an impressive list of clients including the UK government. This latest report of theirs predicts the rise of a new personal information management industry.
What's new about it?
Ctrl-Shift advocate the value of placing all your personal data in a single database, a personal data store (PDS), and then curating it.
Curatorial skills come into their own in museums and art galleries where some gifted individuals can assemble and present a few objects in such a way as to inspire interest in the viewers and educate them. If you have no desire to educate your electricity supplier, then a PDS is probably not for you. And if you think that showing them your utility bills will inspire interest in the attractive person you met at a party last night, then you're mistaken.
"Curator" is the wrong word. "Archivist"? No. "Custodian" is better. There is a demand for custodians, organisations that would, for a fee, store your data and protect it, rather as a Swiss bank discreetly stores your money. Swiss banks are utterly reliable. They didn't create their reputation for reliability by announcing "we are reliable". They created it over the decades by demonstrating that, come what may, they would protect their clients' privacy. The need for trust is recognised by Ctrl-Shift. But they seem to think that trust can be created just like that, overnight. Wrong.
To Ctrl-Shift, unlike a Swiss bank, privacy is nothing more than an irritating constraint (p.17):
Which organisations do Ctrl-Shift recommend that people trust with their PDS?
In the UK, a company called Mydex (p.15).
Two of the founders of Mydex are William Heath and Alan Mitchell. Alan Mitchell is also the strategy director of Ctrl-Shift and William Heath is the non-executive director of Ctrl-Shift. These are two individuals who genuinely would be empowered by the adoption of midata. Unlike the rest of us. They have a vested interest. This interest is not declared in the Ctrl-Shift report. That undermines trust. So who would want to use Mydex as their custodian?
Ctrl-Shift repeat the claims made by Mydex that having a PDS puts the customer in control of his or her own data. It doesn't. It confers no more control over what happens to your personal data than the situation we have enjoyed for the past 5,000 years during which civilisation has flourished without PDSs.
Ctrl-Shift repeat the claims made by Mydex that having all your personal data in one pot will allow you to analyse yourself, learn things about yourself and make coherent, utilitarian choices as a result. The possibilities are limitless. On p.12 we find this example:
Where is the control shift, the quasi-eponymous subject of the Ctrl-Shift report?
There is no control shift in the provision of data by organisations to their customers. That's always taken place. The customers gain no new control over the fate of their data just by putting it in a PDS. The claim that Mydex-users are in control of their data is marketing person's hot air.
The answer is all to do with identity assurance (IdA).
Mydex is the reductio ad absurdum of the Cabinet Office's plans for IdA. Francis Maude and Ian Watmore want people to transact with the government over the web, and only over the web. For that, everyone needs an electronic identity, proving that each person is who he or she says they are.
Not just the Cabinet Office. The Department for Work and Pensions, too. DWP's plans for Universal Credit depend on IdA over the web.
All the verbiage about monitoring your grass cuttings is just that.
Mydex want to issue people with some sort of a token, unspecified in the Ctrl-Shift report, which allows people to log on to web-based services and transact. All web-based services. Accessed via one Mydex token. There's something megalomaniac about it. That's the control shift. You would become dependent on Mydex to transact over the web. That really would be a new landscape. On the web, your PDS would be you. Who trusts Mydex enough, or any other company, to make their existence dependent on that company? No-one sane. Or prudent. Or adult. Only a mooncalf.
The Ctrl-Shift report is one-sided, more like a sales document than a management consultant's dispassionate, objective, even-handed assessment. The downside of "life-logging" is not even mentioned, let alone investigated. The downside is obvious (but for anyone who can't work it out for themselves, ENISA kindly produced a report on it).
Mydex face established competition from the credit rating agencies. Set up in the late nineteenth century to support mail order selling, the credit rating agencies (the personal ones, not the Moody's and the S&Ps of this world, organisations like Experian, in which this reviewer holds 1,324 shares, interest declared) have a well-deserved reputation for the discreet concentration of personal data gathered from multiple sources into a single data store. Not that you'd know it from the Ctrl-Shift report. Mydex have nothing to offer that the credit rating agencies don't already have.
Mydex face established competition from Facebook. 800 million people worldwide already actively maintain their Facebook page, or PDS.
It's a brave try. If peculiar. But the ecosystem isn't going to support this new life form.
----------
Updated 17.6.14
Just to remind you: "The opportunities for organisations arising from a new personal information economy are game changing. Ctrl-Shift is the world’s leading market analyst and consulting business helping organisations to capitalise on these opportunities".
Back in November 2011 Ctrl-Shift told us in The new personal data landscape (p.14) that ...
Yesterday this factoid was reborn when Ctrl-Shift told us in Personal Information Management Services - An Analysis Of An Emerging Market that:
Ctrl-Shift's research is tied to the Department for Business Innovation and Skills's midata initiative (RIP), to the Government Digital Service's identity assurance service (RIP) and to its sister company Mydex's personal data store business.
And what is the strategic objective of these mooncalf economics?
According to Mydex's CEO, no Mydex, no transactions:
An incomplete review of
The new personal data landscape
published in November 2011 by Ctrl-Shift
21 pages, price: £500
Ctrl-Shift is a management consultancy specialising in customer relationship management with an impressive list of clients including the UK government. This latest report of theirs predicts the rise of a new personal information management industry.
What's new about it?
- For the first time, Ctrl-Shift say, organisations will give data back to their customers. The kind of organisations they have in mind are banks and energy companies and anyone else who signs up to the government's midata initiative.
- For the first time, Ctrl-Shift say, people will be able to build a comprehensive picture of themselves and use it to make rational decisions.
- In this, people will be assisted, for the first time, Ctrl-Shift say, by forums in which they can share their experience.
Ctrl-Shift advocate the value of placing all your personal data in a single database, a personal data store (PDS), and then curating it.
Curatorial skills come into their own in museums and art galleries where some gifted individuals can assemble and present a few objects in such a way as to inspire interest in the viewers and educate them. If you have no desire to educate your electricity supplier, then a PDS is probably not for you. And if you think that showing them your utility bills will inspire interest in the attractive person you met at a party last night, then you're mistaken.
"Curator" is the wrong word. "Archivist"? No. "Custodian" is better. There is a demand for custodians, organisations that would, for a fee, store your data and protect it, rather as a Swiss bank discreetly stores your money. Swiss banks are utterly reliable. They didn't create their reputation for reliability by announcing "we are reliable". They created it over the decades by demonstrating that, come what may, they would protect their clients' privacy. The need for trust is recognised by Ctrl-Shift. But they seem to think that trust can be created just like that, overnight. Wrong.
To Ctrl-Shift, unlike a Swiss bank, privacy is nothing more than an irritating constraint (p.17):
What Ctrl-Shift seem to be promoting instead of privacy is Californian narcissism mixed with an unreconstructed hippy's enjoinder to let it all hang out and share it all with the commune/forum. Hippy communes are either terminally dull. Or terminally fascinating, see David Koresh and Jim Jones. Either way, to be avoided.
If organisations try to share customer data with each other they invade individuals’ privacy and risk breaching the Data Protection Act. The result is duplication, waste and missed opportunities.
Which organisations do Ctrl-Shift recommend that people trust with their PDS?
In the UK, a company called Mydex (p.15).
Two of the founders of Mydex are William Heath and Alan Mitchell. Alan Mitchell is also the strategy director of Ctrl-Shift and William Heath is the non-executive director of Ctrl-Shift. These are two individuals who genuinely would be empowered by the adoption of midata. Unlike the rest of us. They have a vested interest. This interest is not declared in the Ctrl-Shift report. That undermines trust. So who would want to use Mydex as their custodian?
Ctrl-Shift repeat the claims made by Mydex that having a PDS puts the customer in control of his or her own data. It doesn't. It confers no more control over what happens to your personal data than the situation we have enjoyed for the past 5,000 years during which civilisation has flourished without PDSs.
Ctrl-Shift repeat the claims made by Mydex that having all your personal data in one pot will allow you to analyse yourself, learn things about yourself and make coherent, utilitarian choices as a result. The possibilities are limitless. On p.12 we find this example:
The impression is that Ctrl-Shift have somehow managed to preserve into adulthood a childlike fascination with technology so intense that they ignore the banality of its use – just how many people do they imagine want to see William Heath's coffee consumption statistics? (Do not assume that the answer is zero. He made this reviewer a very good cup of coffee once. But the number isn't going to be big enough to support Ctrl-Shift's multi-billion pound projections for the industry.)
Tallyzoo, a service dedicated to self monitoring, allows users to measure anything from their caffeine intake to the number of times they cut their grass. Users collect data using a mobile device or website program which creates interactive flashbased graphs enabling them to spot trends and patterns in their consumption habits, work, health and fitness goals. Data is manipulated so that users can share statistics and compare the end results.
Religiose piffle (p.14). Computers may have got more powerful over the years, which Ctrl-Shift find interesting, and data storage cheaper, but there have been no advances in the understanding of human psychology to match, and the ability to predict "what they are going to do next" is not available. What kind of organisation would make such a claim? And what kind of a person would believe it?
Access to such data represents a ‘holy grail’ data to companies because it explains why people do what they do and predicts what they are going to do next.
Where is the control shift, the quasi-eponymous subject of the Ctrl-Shift report?
There is no control shift in the provision of data by organisations to their customers. That's always taken place. The customers gain no new control over the fate of their data just by putting it in a PDS. The claim that Mydex-users are in control of their data is marketing person's hot air.
The answer is all to do with identity assurance (IdA).
Mydex is the reductio ad absurdum of the Cabinet Office's plans for IdA. Francis Maude and Ian Watmore want people to transact with the government over the web, and only over the web. For that, everyone needs an electronic identity, proving that each person is who he or she says they are.
Not just the Cabinet Office. The Department for Work and Pensions, too. DWP's plans for Universal Credit depend on IdA over the web.
All the verbiage about monitoring your grass cuttings is just that.
Mydex want to issue people with some sort of a token, unspecified in the Ctrl-Shift report, which allows people to log on to web-based services and transact. All web-based services. Accessed via one Mydex token. There's something megalomaniac about it. That's the control shift. You would become dependent on Mydex to transact over the web. That really would be a new landscape. On the web, your PDS would be you. Who trusts Mydex enough, or any other company, to make their existence dependent on that company? No-one sane. Or prudent. Or adult. Only a mooncalf.
The Ctrl-Shift report is one-sided, more like a sales document than a management consultant's dispassionate, objective, even-handed assessment. The downside of "life-logging" is not even mentioned, let alone investigated. The downside is obvious (but for anyone who can't work it out for themselves, ENISA kindly produced a report on it).
Mydex face established competition from the credit rating agencies. Set up in the late nineteenth century to support mail order selling, the credit rating agencies (the personal ones, not the Moody's and the S&Ps of this world, organisations like Experian, in which this reviewer holds 1,324 shares, interest declared) have a well-deserved reputation for the discreet concentration of personal data gathered from multiple sources into a single data store. Not that you'd know it from the Ctrl-Shift report. Mydex have nothing to offer that the credit rating agencies don't already have.
Mydex face established competition from Facebook. 800 million people worldwide already actively maintain their Facebook page, or PDS.
It's a brave try. If peculiar. But the ecosystem isn't going to support this new life form.
----------
Updated 17.6.14
Just to remind you: "The opportunities for organisations arising from a new personal information economy are game changing. Ctrl-Shift is the world’s leading market analyst and consulting business helping organisations to capitalise on these opportunities".
Back in November 2011 Ctrl-Shift told us in The new personal data landscape (p.14) that ...
... and a factoid was born – the personal information management industry in the UK could one day be worth £20 billion, whether that's per annum or spread over 10 years it wasn't clear.
Every individual has a vast and rich store of knowledge and information about themselves which, most of the time, sits unused in their heads ... Access to such data represents a ‘holy grail’ data to companies because it explains why people do what they do and predicts what they are going to do next ... In the emerging personal data ecosystem individuals will have the ability to both input this information into their own digital tools and services and to voluntarily share it with organisations in order to access more appropriate services and get things done.
Ctrl-Shift’s research finds that the market for these new streams of information could grow to be worth £20bn in the UK over the next ten years.
Yesterday this factoid was reborn when Ctrl-Shift told us in Personal Information Management Services - An Analysis Of An Emerging Market that:
£20 billion? £16½ billion? Who knows. What's £3½ billion between friends. This is an untapped market opportunity for those organisations able to adapt and respond to ever-moving goalposts and new demands for exploiting personal data.
The research estimates the potential size of the market for PIMS as £16.5bn or 1.2% of gross value added in the UK economy. This is an untapped market opportunity for those organisations able to adapt and respond to new demands for managing, using and sharing personal data.
Ctrl-Shift's research is tied to the Department for Business Innovation and Skills's midata initiative (RIP), to the Government Digital Service's identity assurance service (RIP) and to its sister company Mydex's personal data store business.
And what is the strategic objective of these mooncalf economics?
According to Mydex's CEO, no Mydex, no transactions:
 |
| Mydex at the centre of ... everything |
The case for midata – the answer is a mooncalf
Ed Davey, Minister at the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, is promoting the midata initiative. In this, he is guided by a management consultancy called Ctrl-Shift. Ctrl-Shift have recently issued a report which makes the business case for the investment of public money in midata.
Monday 28 November 2011
Managing the minister
There's a right way of doing these things. And a wrong way. Whitehall got it right in November 2008. And all wrong in November 2011.
2008 – the right way
November 2008. You remember. Gordon Brown is sub-Prime Minister and is busy saving the world. The economy is in meltdown and Sir Gus O'Donnell is Cabinet Secretary, Permanent Secretary at the Cabinet Office and Head of the home civil service, responsible for all senior appointments. Sir David Normington is Permanent Secretary at the Home Office. Bob Quick is Assistant Commissioner at the Met, Damian Green is Shadow Immigration Minister, Christopher Galley is chief Tory Mole at the Home Office, and Jacqui Smith is Home Secretary.
Information had been leaking from the Home Office for some time, allowing Damian Green to ask embarrassing questions in the House. How, for example, had 11,000 illegal immigrants been licensed by the Security Industry Authority to work as security guards?
Sir David discussed the matter with Sir Gus and between them they decided to call in the police. Why? According to the Independent, Sir Gus said it was because:
Then, on 27 November 2008, Damian Green was arrested on suspicion of conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office and aiding and abetting, counselling or procuring misconduct in a public office.
He was detained for nine hours without a lawyer being present. His home was searched, his constituency office was searched and his House of Commons office was searched. His computers, and hard copy documents, were taken away.
How did Assistant Commissioner Quick's men get into the Palace of Westminster? By asking the Serjeant-at-Arms to let them in. Did they have a search warrant? No. What about Mr Speaker? He is Gatekeeper. Where was he? Good question. Was it the first time the Palace had been invaded in this way since 1642? Yes. Damian Green was subsequently charged with ... absolutely nothing.
As the BBC remind us:
She should have done – John Reid raps Jacqui Smith, as they put it in the Sun ...
Arguably, Sir David went a bit far rubbing it in, when Jacqui Smith later resigned as Home Secretary. As reported on the civil service live network
2011 – the wrong way
Now roll forward three years.
Sir Gus O'Donnell is the only member of the 2008 cast still in the same job(s). He has appointed most of the members of the new cast.
On the other hand, there is no 2011 equivalent of Sir David Normington causing Sir Gus to come out into the limelight. The Head of the home civil service has remained publicly silent during an embarrassing spat in the home civil service.
John Vine is the Independent Chief Inspector of the UK Border Agency. Previously Chief Constable of Tayside Police, he is a safe pair of hands (SPOH).
Mr Vine goes to Heathrow for an inspection and interviews Brodie Clark, Head of the UK Border Force, and a SPOH.
Mr Vine is worried about the suspension of fingerprint checks and voices his concerns to Rob Whiteman, the Chief Executive of UKBA, recently appointed, presumably on the basis that he is a SPOH. Mr Whiteman offers Brodie Clark early retirement.
Dame Helen Ghosh, the successor to Sir David Normington at the Home Office, is the ultimate SPOH. She vetoes the early-retirement-with-a-bonus package and Brodie Clark is suspended.
Then the Home Secretary, Theresa May, herself no mean SPOH, goes off the deep end denouncing Brodie Clark. According to Rachel Sylvester in the Times, writing on 15 November 2011, clearly briefed by the Home Office:
Updated 21 January 2014:
Richard Heaton is Permanent Secretary at the Cabinet Office.
Is he a Normington or a Ghosh?
His minister has just picked a fight with the Americans. Quite unnecessarily. Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude Decries 'Old Style' Obamacare Insurance Website.
More of a Ghosh, perhaps, than a Normington.
2008 – the right way
November 2008. You remember. Gordon Brown is sub-Prime Minister and is busy saving the world. The economy is in meltdown and Sir Gus O'Donnell is Cabinet Secretary, Permanent Secretary at the Cabinet Office and Head of the home civil service, responsible for all senior appointments. Sir David Normington is Permanent Secretary at the Home Office. Bob Quick is Assistant Commissioner at the Met, Damian Green is Shadow Immigration Minister, Christopher Galley is chief Tory Mole at the Home Office, and Jacqui Smith is Home Secretary.
Information had been leaking from the Home Office for some time, allowing Damian Green to ask embarrassing questions in the House. How, for example, had 11,000 illegal immigrants been licensed by the Security Industry Authority to work as security guards?
Sir David discussed the matter with Sir Gus and between them they decided to call in the police. Why? According to the Independent, Sir Gus said it was because:
On 19 November 2008, Christopher Galley was arrested on suspicion of misappropriating some quite sensitive stuff and released on bail. He was subsequently charged with ... absolutely nothing.
... when we started the inquiry the reason for it was we were worried certain information was getting out that was potentially very damaging to national security.
To have access to some other things that had come out in the newspapers, the kind of person (who) would have access to that material might also have access to some quite sensitive stuff ...
Then, on 27 November 2008, Damian Green was arrested on suspicion of conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office and aiding and abetting, counselling or procuring misconduct in a public office.
He was detained for nine hours without a lawyer being present. His home was searched, his constituency office was searched and his House of Commons office was searched. His computers, and hard copy documents, were taken away.
How did Assistant Commissioner Quick's men get into the Palace of Westminster? By asking the Serjeant-at-Arms to let them in. Did they have a search warrant? No. What about Mr Speaker? He is Gatekeeper. Where was he? Good question. Was it the first time the Palace had been invaded in this way since 1642? Yes. Damian Green was subsequently charged with ... absolutely nothing.
As the BBC remind us:
The Home Secretary knew nothing about these events in advance. Did she lose her rag when she found out? No.
Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer said there was a "high threshold before criminal proceedings can properly be brought", and that he had considered the "freedom of the press to publish information and ideas on matters of public interest". He said the information leaked was not secret information or information affecting national security and there was "insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction against Mr Galley or Mr Green".
She should have done – John Reid raps Jacqui Smith, as they put it in the Sun ...
... but she didn't.
HOME Secretary Jacqui Smith was left reeling yesterday by a vicious Commons attack over the Damian Green case by her predecessor John Reid.
Mr Reid said he was "surprised" she was not told cops were about to arrest a shadow minister.
He added: "I cannot think that if I had been told this had been done, after the event, I would have remained as placid as you have."
Arguably, Sir David went a bit far rubbing it in, when Jacqui Smith later resigned as Home Secretary. As reported on the civil service live network
Textbook. Sir David remained in control of his minister at all times. We could not really have asked for more.
The head of the Home Office has praised the secretary of state following her decision to stand down.
Permanent secretary Sir David Normington said Jacqui Smith had shown "exceptional leadership" during the her two year stint as home secretary ...
Sir David said Smith had allowed the department "to come out of our previous difficulties". The department was famously described as "not fit for purpose" by Smith's immediate predecessor, John Reid.
Smith had allowed staff to regain their confidence, Sir David said: "In private she was always challenging us to improve; in public she was always supportive. We could not really have asked for more."
2011 – the wrong way
Now roll forward three years.
Sir Gus O'Donnell is the only member of the 2008 cast still in the same job(s). He has appointed most of the members of the new cast.
On the other hand, there is no 2011 equivalent of Sir David Normington causing Sir Gus to come out into the limelight. The Head of the home civil service has remained publicly silent during an embarrassing spat in the home civil service.
John Vine is the Independent Chief Inspector of the UK Border Agency. Previously Chief Constable of Tayside Police, he is a safe pair of hands (SPOH).
Mr Vine goes to Heathrow for an inspection and interviews Brodie Clark, Head of the UK Border Force, and a SPOH.
Mr Vine is worried about the suspension of fingerprint checks and voices his concerns to Rob Whiteman, the Chief Executive of UKBA, recently appointed, presumably on the basis that he is a SPOH. Mr Whiteman offers Brodie Clark early retirement.
Dame Helen Ghosh, the successor to Sir David Normington at the Home Office, is the ultimate SPOH. She vetoes the early-retirement-with-a-bonus package and Brodie Clark is suspended.
Then the Home Secretary, Theresa May, herself no mean SPOH, goes off the deep end denouncing Brodie Clark. According to Rachel Sylvester in the Times, writing on 15 November 2011, clearly briefed by the Home Office:
So no doubt about it. Out of control. Butterfingers. How not to do it.
She took the decision to do this, I am told, against the advice of Home Office civil servants, who thought it would be wiser to hold a swift internal inquiry and establish the full facts before suspending a senior member of staff.
Updated 21 January 2014:
Richard Heaton is Permanent Secretary at the Cabinet Office.
Is he a Normington or a Ghosh?
His minister has just picked a fight with the Americans. Quite unnecessarily. Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude Decries 'Old Style' Obamacare Insurance Website.
More of a Ghosh, perhaps, than a Normington.
Managing the minister
There's a right way of doing these things. And a wrong way. Whitehall got it right in November 2008. And all wrong in November 2011.
2008 – the right way
November 2008. You remember. Gordon Brown is sub-Prime Minister and is busy saving the world. The economy is in meltdown and Sir Gus O'Donnell is Cabinet Secretary, Permanent Secretary at the Cabinet Office and Head of the home civil service, responsible for all senior appointments. Sir David Normington is Permanent Secretary at the Home Office. Bob Quick is Assistant Commissioner at the Met, Damian Green is Shadow Immigration Minister, Christopher Galley is chief Tory Mole at the Home Office, and Jacqui Smith is Home Secretary.
Information had been leaking from the Home Office for some time, allowing Damian Green to ask embarrassing questions in the House. How, for example, had 11,000 illegal immigrants been licensed by the Security Industry Authority to work as security guards?
2008 – the right way
November 2008. You remember. Gordon Brown is sub-Prime Minister and is busy saving the world. The economy is in meltdown and Sir Gus O'Donnell is Cabinet Secretary, Permanent Secretary at the Cabinet Office and Head of the home civil service, responsible for all senior appointments. Sir David Normington is Permanent Secretary at the Home Office. Bob Quick is Assistant Commissioner at the Met, Damian Green is Shadow Immigration Minister, Christopher Galley is chief Tory Mole at the Home Office, and Jacqui Smith is Home Secretary.
Information had been leaking from the Home Office for some time, allowing Damian Green to ask embarrassing questions in the House. How, for example, had 11,000 illegal immigrants been licensed by the Security Industry Authority to work as security guards?
Sunday 27 November 2011
PerishTheThought: the public interest 2
In view of the impending retirement of Sir Gus O'Donnell, Sir Richard Mottram conducted a review of Whitehall and identified seven abiding problems, problems which existed before the advent of Sir Gus and which persist still.
One of those problems is for the Cabinet Office to take control of the big departments of state, which currently operate as autonomous fiefdoms or over-powerful satrapies, way beyond the control of politicians and beyond the control even of Sir Gus:
----------
Hat tips: Tony Collins, W Shakespeare
One of those problems is for the Cabinet Office to take control of the big departments of state, which currently operate as autonomous fiefdoms or over-powerful satrapies, way beyond the control of politicians and beyond the control even of Sir Gus:
On 21 November 2011, Francis Maude, Cabinet Office minister, gave a speech on The Crown and suppliers: a new way of working. Mr Maude considers several ways in which Whitehall makes procurement too difficult. Among others, he lights on the use of management consultants:
... the coalition government has given increasing priority to improving the efficiency of the civil service and the wider public service under a Cabinet Office group ...
This practice of hiring management consultants has been followed "too often" to be in the public interest. What's the minister going to do about it?
... too often in the past we have defaulted into a comfort zone of hiring external consultants to run any kind of complex procurements. This has two effects.
It reduces the need and ability for public officials to develop the necessary skills. And it can happen that consultants being paid on day rates have no incentive to get procurements finished speedily, nor to drive simplicity.
Far too many procurements feature absurdly over-prescriptive requirements. We should be procuring on the basis of the outcomes and outputs we seek ...
Forbid? Express agreement? Let's hope so. The minister is quite right. But will the other departments of state seek his permission to hire management consultants? And abide by his decision to forbid it? Can Maude make it stick?
... we will ensure that in future we focus on outputs and outcomes. And we now forbid the use of consultants in central government procurements without my express agreement.
That is the question.
Francis "Glendower" Maude:
I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
Sir Humphrey (shame it's not Percy) "Hotspur" Appleby:
Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?
----------
Hat tips: Tony Collins, W Shakespeare
PerishTheThought: the public interest 2
In view of the impending retirement of Sir Gus O'Donnell, Sir Richard Mottram conducted a review of Whitehall and identified seven abiding problems, problems which existed before the advent of Sir Gus and which persist still.
Saturday 26 November 2011
PerishTheThought: the public interest 1
Sir Gus O'Donnell, Cabinet Secretary, Permanent Secretary at the Cabinet Office and Head of the home civil service, gave evidence to the Public Administration Select Committee on 23 November 2011. No transcript available yet but, according to the Guardian:
Whitehall often claim, as here in front of the Public Administration Select Committee, that they couldn't do their job properly if they had to operate in the open. They couldn't serve the public interest.
Whitehall do not operate in the open at the moment. Their deliberations go largely unreported. And yet, despite the putative benefit of this secrecy, when their performance is reported, mostly by the National Audit Office, after the event, all too often, it transpires that Whitehall aren't doing their job properly.
It transpires that, too often, Whitehall has become an irresponsible and unbusinesslike and undignified machine for transferring public money to a small group of management consultants, contractors and PFI financiers, against the public interest.
Pace Sir Gus, secrecy is not working. Sir Gus is wrong. The smug technocrat's insider view that Whitehall is currently doing a good job is untenable, mendacious, self-deception. Looking in from the outside, Whitehall seems regularly to be guilty of misfeasance in public office.
Openness might be part of the answer. Openness might help Whitehall to do its job properly. Openness might be in the public interest.
What possible interest could we the public have in how the unelected Sir Gus, or his unaccountable office, spends £710 billion of our money for us this year?
The Freedom of Information act is a mistake, and is having a negative effect on governing, Britain's top civil servant said. Sir Gus O'Donnell told the Commons public administration select committee that it had stymied full and frank discussion of options by ministers and others in government. The 2001 act gives members of the public and journalists the right to ask for publication of official documents.
"The problem is, virtually everything [in such documents] is subject to a public interest test. If asked to give advice, I'd say I can't guarantee they can say without fear or favour if they disagree with something, and that information will remain private. Because there could be an FoI request.
"It's having a very negative impact on the freedom of policy discussions."
Whitehall often claim, as here in front of the Public Administration Select Committee, that they couldn't do their job properly if they had to operate in the open. They couldn't serve the public interest.
Whitehall do not operate in the open at the moment. Their deliberations go largely unreported. And yet, despite the putative benefit of this secrecy, when their performance is reported, mostly by the National Audit Office, after the event, all too often, it transpires that Whitehall aren't doing their job properly.
It transpires that, too often, Whitehall has become an irresponsible and unbusinesslike and undignified machine for transferring public money to a small group of management consultants, contractors and PFI financiers, against the public interest.
Pace Sir Gus, secrecy is not working. Sir Gus is wrong. The smug technocrat's insider view that Whitehall is currently doing a good job is untenable, mendacious, self-deception. Looking in from the outside, Whitehall seems regularly to be guilty of misfeasance in public office.
Openness might be part of the answer. Openness might help Whitehall to do its job properly. Openness might be in the public interest.
PerishTheThought: the public interest 1
Sir Gus O'Donnell, Cabinet Secretary, Permanent Secretary at the Cabinet Office and Head of the home civil service, gave evidence to the Public Administration Select Committee on 23 November 2011. No transcript available yet but, according to the Guardian:
What possible interest could we the public have in how the unelected Sir Gus, or his unaccountable office, spends £710 billion of our money for us this year?
The Freedom of Information act is a mistake, and is having a negative effect on governing, Britain's top civil servant said. Sir Gus O'Donnell told the Commons public administration select committee that it had stymied full and frank discussion of options by ministers and others in government. The 2001 act gives members of the public and journalists the right to ask for publication of official documents.
"The problem is, virtually everything [in such documents] is subject to a public interest test. If asked to give advice, I'd say I can't guarantee they can say without fear or favour if they disagree with something, and that information will remain private. Because there could be an FoI request.
"It's having a very negative impact on the freedom of policy discussions."