A contribution to the Guardian's "Battle for the internet" debate

The Guardian have been running a series of articles on whither the web? all week. Here is one contribution to the debate.

Every time somebody puts a magazine on a phone now and doesn't put it on to a web app ... we lose a whole lot of information to the general public discourse – I can't link to it, so I can't tweet it, I can't discuss it, I can't like it, I can't hate it.

That is recognisably the voice of a petulant teenager. So what if the petulant [teenager] can't link to it or tweet/discuss/like/hate it? Who cares? What difference does it make to anyone? None.

Except that actually it's the voice of Tim Berners-Lee in the Guardian.

There are serious issues raised by the Guardian's week-long seminar on the web. And there are childish ones. They seem to be linked.

The instant gratification of curiosity provided all but free by the web comes at a price. Our direct broadband connection costs are heavily subsidised by private sector interests. The problem with low/free costs is near-infinite demand. The huge energy resources required to keep our current incontinent use of the web on the road raise a green issue which perhaps should be added to the other issues being discussed. Energy consumption is regulated by price in every other sphere of our lives. Why not in the web? The price of web usage should increase.

The effectively free access to the Guardian over the web means that I haven't paid for a copy for years. How long can the Guardian or any other newspaper keep on providing a professional service under those circumstances? Not long. The Guardian seem to want to take this problem on the chin. They haven't moaned about it. But they've got to do something or we'll lose plurality in our news media and that's dangerous in a country, it undermines democracy. Should the Guardian go behind a pay wall? If they don't, out of some childish worry about what it will look like to the other kids, they'll die in the process. Cui bono?

It's not just newspapers who face this web quandary. The book industry, music and films are famously in the same boat. So are the commercial banks. They do all the heavy-lifting, know-your-customer, account maintenance, deposit guarantees, etc ..., and then up pops PayPal – very businesslike, very professional – and skims off a whole lot of commission between the customers and their banks. All these industries are having their modus operandi materially changed and even mortally threatened by a bad pun, "free" meaning liberal v. "free" meaning no cost. Paying the "proper" price for goods and services keeps everyone's noses clean and protects their survival. Giving things away for free is childish and self-destructive.

And then there's the UK government. Besotted by the success and the popularity of Amazon, PayPal, Google, Facebook et al, the children in the Cabinet Office, in particular, and the Department [for] Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) can't wait to stick all our data in the cloud and to hand over identity management to the likes of Google and Facebook. They want to be popular. They want to be like their heroes. The difficulties of keeping our data secure and of keeping control of it don't matter to the Cabinet Office and BIS, they just want to be allowed to play, I want to be able to link to it, I want to be able to tweet it, I want to discuss it and like it or hate it and I want it now.

Another issue the Guardian might consider, is that Amazon and Google pay no tax in the UK despite making a lot of money here. Amazon and Google are two of the most likely cloud computing suppliers to whom the Whitehall children may turn to take over the job of government which defeats them. Surely the Guardian doesn't wish to reward tax avoidance?

A contribution to the Guardian's "Battle for the internet" debate

The Guardian have been running a series of articles on whither the web? all week. Here is one contribution to the debate.

Every time somebody puts a magazine on a phone now and doesn't put it on to a web app ... we lose a whole lot of information to the general public discourse – I can't link to it, so I can't tweet it, I can't discuss it, I can't like it, I can't hate it.

That is recognisably the voice of a petulant teenager. So what if the petulant [teenager] can't link to it or tweet/discuss/like/hate it? Who cares? What difference does it make to anyone? None.

Except that actually it's the voice of Tim Berners-Lee in the Guardian.

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, ...).