Will the ridge of high pressure over Whitehall blow away the G-Cloud?

For the moment Chris Chant is an Executive Director in the Cabinet Office, he is Director of the G-Cloud Programme and he is uniquely emphatic in denouncing the failures of government IT. Take for example his talk to the Institute for Government last October. The litany of unacceptable practices which he enumerates there makes uncomfortable listening for his fellow senior Whitehall officials and for the contractors supplying IT services to HMG.

That discomfort may soon be relieved. Mr Chant's retirement was announced on 13 April and at the end of the month he will be replaced, part-time, by Denise McDonagh who remains simultaneously Director of IT at the Home Office.

A passing acquaintance with the work of the Public Administration Select Committee, the Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office will confirm that the problems identified by the G-Cloud team exist. The NAO give you the horrifying details. PAC remind you in their admirably trenchant style how much public money is wasted on government IT. And, with Whitehall and its favoured contractors comfortably and expensively under-performing, PASC keep asking how the quality of public administration in the UK can be raised.

The problems are known. The question is whether G-Cloud – the government cloud – is the solution.

Ms McDonagh divides the world into those in favour of G-Cloud, those against it and those who don’t know but insist on discussing it anyway. Before deciding whether we’re for G-Cloud or agin’ it, we proud members of the third group have a number of questions which remain currently unanswered. Here are just two of them:

• Firstly, as Tony “forces of reaction” Blair and David “enemies of enterprise” Cameron will tell you, parliament lost control of Whitehall a long time ago. The departments of state are impregnable satrapies where the permanent secretary, his or her chief executives and the aforementioned favoured suppliers nurse a pile of eight-, nine- and even ten-figure contracts that G-Cloud would upset mightily. How is Denise McDonagh going to succeed where parliament has failed?
• Second, even with a £1 trillion national debt and a flatlining economy the coalition government set aside £650 million for cybersecurity. Someone recognises the threat. The web is a dangerous place to be. The media treat us to stories of denial of service and the cybertheft of data every week. No-one is immune, including Whitehall. And yet that’s where G-Cloud would see all our data stored, in the cloud, on the web. How will Ms McDonagh keep control of it there?

When Chris Chant gave his “unacceptable” speech last October, was that the start of a latter-day Reformation?

Or was it the foreword to a 2015 NAO report on how G-Cloud is yet another government IT project that saw £x hundred million incinerated by Whitehall, and a PAC report asking what the point is of paying taxes if this is what happens to public money, and a PASC report on the uncomfortable question – are Whitehall capable of doing their job of public administration?

A version of this post is carried in today's PublicTechnology.net.

Will the ridge of high pressure over Whitehall blow away the G-Cloud?

For the moment Chris Chant is an Executive Director in the Cabinet Office, he is Director of the G-Cloud Programme and he is uniquely emphatic in denouncing the failures of government IT. Take for example his talk to the Institute for Government last October. The litany of unacceptable practices which he enumerates there makes uncomfortable listening for his fellow senior Whitehall officials and for the contractors supplying IT services to HMG.

That discomfort may soon be relieved. Mr Chant's retirement was announced on 13 April and at the end of the month he will be replaced, part-time, by Denise McDonagh who remains simultaneously Director of IT at the Home Office.

UKBA – what do the Board do for £1 million p.a.?

They're a busy lot on the Home Affairs Committee. On 11 April 2012, they published their 21st report since September 2010, Work of the UK Border Agency (August - December 2011).

No advance on their 17th report back in January, Inquiry into the provision of UK Border Controls, the Committee draw attention to the UK Border Agency's contemptuous lack of co-operation with parliament (para.79-81). Parliament is meant to be supreme. The Executive, in the form of UKBA, continues to behave as though it is supreme.

As with the 17th report, the Committee make the obvious point that the UK Border Agency is not an agency of the Home office at all, it is an integral part of the Home Office. The word "Agency" appears accordingly in inverted commas throughout the report.

The failings of UKBA do not stop at the Board of UKBA, they go to the top of the Home Office, to Dame Helen Ghosh, the permanent secretary. And they did not start with her, they go back to the incumbency of her predecessor, Sir David Normington.

The Committee expect not only the chief executive of UKBA to co-operate with them but also the permanent secretary (para.12, 37, 73). UKBA's failings are her failings as much as Rob Whiteman's.

And what are those failings?

The Committee list them under 23 headings in this report.

They start by listing the salaries of eight executive members of the UKBA Board, roughly £1 million per annum. £1 million should buy any organisation a lot of management and direction. Especially when, as in this case, it doesn't stop there, there is further input from the top levels of the Home Office.

In the event, with failings in 23 areas reported here, and more being signalled for upcoming Committee enquiries, the expected management and direction are not being delivered.

John Vine, the Independent Chief Inspector of UKBA, made the point in his report on the Brodie Clark affair that (p.6):

There is nothing I have discovered which could not have been identified and addressed by senior managers exercising proper oversight.

The question arises, if they're not exercising proper oversight, what are Dame Helen and Rob Whiteman and the other senior civil servants doing?

UKBA – what do the Board do for £1 million p.a.?

They're a busy lot on the Home Affairs Committee. On 11 April 2012, they published their 21st report since September 2010, Work of the UK Border Agency (August - December 2011).

No advance on their 17th report back in January, Inquiry into the provision of UK Border Controls, the Committee draw attention to the UK Border Agency's contemptuous lack of co-operation with parliament (para.79-81). Parliament is meant to be supreme. The Executive, in the form of UKBA, continues to behave as though it is supreme.

Even the founder of Google is warning Whitehall against cloud computing

In a series of articles recently DMossEsq has warned against Whitehall's plans to adopt cloud computing, please see for example Cloud computing is bonkers or, as HMG put it, a "no-brainer". One of the risks of storing UK citizens' data on servers operated by Google, say, or any of the other suppliers of cloud computing services, is that the data will then come under the jurisdiction of other governments.

Is that true?

Yes it is. The Guardian today carry an article about Sergey Brin, one of the genius founders of Google, Web freedom faces greatest threat ever, warns Google's Sergey Brin, in which they say:

Brin acknowledged that some people were anxious about the amount of their data that was now in the reach of US authorities because it sits on Google's servers. He said the company was periodically forced to hand over data and sometimes prevented by legal restrictions from even notifying users that it had done so.

It is mystifying how Whitehall can even consider storing our personal data in the cloud, as though that might be acceptable to their parishioners. The question is indeed a "no-brainer", as Whitehall put it – no-one with a mental age over 12 would have the least trouble seeing that the answer is no.

Actually, some of these articles aren't so recent. The decision facing Francis Maude was published in January 2011 and With their head in the clouds was published 18 months ago in October 2010. Francis Maude is the man in charge. Him and Ian Watmore, permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office. Mr Maude. Mr Watmore. Please. Get a grip. Tell the children it's time to grow up.

Even the founder of Google is warning Whitehall against cloud computing

In a series of articles recently DMossEsq has warned against Whitehall's plans to adopt cloud computing, please see for example Cloud computing is bonkers or, as HMG put it, a "no-brainer". One of the risks of storing UK citizens' data on servers operated by Google, say, or any of the other suppliers of cloud computing services, is that the data will then come under the jurisdiction of other governments.

Is that true?

Yes it is. The Guardian today carry an article about Sergey Brin, one of the genius founders of Google, Web freedom faces greatest threat ever, warns Google's Sergey Brin, in which they say:

Brin acknowledged that some people were anxious about the amount of their data that was now in the reach of US authorities because it sits on Google's servers. He said the company was periodically forced to hand over data and sometimes prevented by legal restrictions from even notifying users that it had done so.

It is mystifying how Whitehall can even consider storing our personal data in the cloud, as though that might be acceptable to their parishioners. The question is indeed a "no-brainer", as Whitehall put it – no-one with a mental age over 12 would have the least trouble seeing that the answer is no.

Actually, some of these articles aren't so recent. The decision facing Francis Maude was published in January 2011 and With their head in the clouds was published 18 months ago in October 2010. Francis Maude is the man in charge. Him and Ian Watmore, permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office. Mr Maude. Mr Watmore. Please. Get a grip. Tell the children it's time to grow up.

Friday 13th unlucky for Chris Chant and the UK

Two days ago, DMossEsq published an article asking Chris Chant several questions about the government's plans for cloud computing. No answer has been received, it's early days, but now it appears that Mr Chant is retiring – Chris Chant to retire in two weeks (see also, and also, and also, ...).

The first article published on this blog, 3 October 2011, asked if Sir Gus now Lord O'Donnell is responsible for the mismanagement of the UK economy over the past 15 years or so. No answer has been received, it's early days, but now it appears that Lord O'Donnell is a strong candidate to succeed Mervyn King as Governor of the Bank of England – O'Donnell for Bank of England governor? (see also, and also, and also, ...).

Friday 13th unlucky for Chris Chant and the UK

Two days ago, DMossEsq published an article asking Chris Chant several questions about the government's plans for cloud computing. No answer has been received, it's early days, but now it appears that Mr Chant is retiring – Chris Chant to retire in two weeks (see also, and also, and also, ...).

The first article published on this blog, 3 October 2011, asked if Sir Gus now Lord O'Donnell is responsible for the mismanagement of the UK economy over the past 15 years or so. No answer has been received, it's early days, but now it appears that Lord O'Donnell is a strong candidate to succeed Mervyn King as Governor of the Bank of England – O'Donnell for Bank of England governor? (see also, and also, and also, ...).

The government's plans for cloud computing – hot air?

HMG have come up with another one of their questionable posts about cloud computing. And once again, the questions have been duly submitted as a comment on the HMG blog. Will they publish the comment this time? They didn't last time. And will they answer the questions?

It's all getting very butch. Under the picture of a leopard with its impressive mouth open Chris Chant, the Programme Director for G-Cloud, says:

There is still plenty more to do and, if I look back on the last dozen years and honestly reflect on those I’ve worked with and interacted with, this is still a pretty difficult list of stuff to do and some of those people just don’t have the capability to do it.  They will have to look hard at themselves and decide how they are going to resolve that because it will turn out to be the toughest thing that they have done in their career so far.

The leopard's got plenty but does the G-Cloud Programme have any teeth?

Dear Mr Chant Few would disagree with your analysis of the current problems with a lot of UK government IT. The search is on for a better way. The question is, have you found a better way? The better way you propose is digital by default and customer-centric. But the two don't mix. 10 million of your customers have never used the web. To concentrate on digital by default is to ignore 10 million of your customers and – I say this more hesitantly than it sounds – you are fooling yourself if you think otherwise. Is digital by default, for 10 million people, the very opposite of customer-centric? Your answer to that? So far, a phrase – "assisted digital". An empty phrase. The media is knee-deep in cyber (in)security stories. Every time you re-announce your plans there's always just been another one of these stories. Apart from Anonymous taking down the Home Office website for Easter, the latest serious insecurity story is the update on RSA themselves being hacked by the Chinese. If RSA can't operate securely, how can Whitehall? They can't. Is G-Cloud a strategic mistake, securitywise? Your answer to that? So far, silence. Judging by Mr Scaife's "no-brainer" post, the Cloud means no capital expenditure. Which means Whitehall would be using Amazon's servers. Or Google's or whoever's. And where will these servers be? Wherever Amazon or Google or Microsoft or whoever put them. Which could be anywhere. Which could be beyond British jurisdiction. And access could anyway be subject to Anonymous's permission. Will Whitehall literally lose control of its applications and its data? Our data, rather. Your answer to that? So far, silence. Last time the world used timesharing – the 1970s – costs went through the roof. Why wouldn't the same happen this time? Your answer to that? So far, silence. What we do get from you is assertions about the agility and affordability of cloud computing. But no examples. How about taking a big government contract, an existing one, as a worked example, and telling us in detail how we can avoid the saga-length contracts and the King Midas costs while at the same time delivering customised services instantly? ("Instantly" is probably going a bit far but a lot of your sales talk sounds as though that's what you're offering.) Without a worked example, it's all just talk. At least that's the danger. It was great the first time. 20 October 2011. And it's great listening to you every few weeks telling the dinosaurs to show themselves out of Whitehall. But meantime the dinosaurs are still in situ, still signing contracts, sagas just like the old contracts, they're still denominated in years and in billions of pounds and the counterparties are still the same old suppliers. Where's the agility? Where's the affordability? Your answer to that? So far, silence. I shan't ask you to defend your claim that Whitehall is now "open". There's quite enough else there for you to get your leopard's teeth into. Yours sincerely David Moss

The government's plans for cloud computing – hot air?

HMG have come up with another one of their questionable posts about cloud computing. And once again, the questions have been duly submitted as a comment on the HMG blog. Will they publish the comment this time? They didn't last time. And will they answer the questions?

It's all getting very butch. Under the picture of a leopard with its impressive mouth open Chris Chant, the Programme Director for G-Cloud, says:

There is still plenty more to do and, if I look back on the last dozen years and honestly reflect on those I’ve worked with and interacted with, this is still a pretty difficult list of stuff to do and some of those people just don’t have the capability to do it.  They will have to look hard at themselves and decide how they are going to resolve that because it will turn out to be the toughest thing that they have done in their career so far.

The leopard's got plenty but does the G-Cloud Programme have any teeth?