Dead fish Home Office has lost sight of the "public" in "public service" – Rob Whiteman

Thanks to Anna Leach writing in The Register magazine, the following astonishing interchange at a Home Affairs Committee evidence session (15 May 2012) is brought to everyone's attention. The Chair of the Committee is Rt Hon Keith Vaz MP and Rob Whiteman is Chief Executive of the UK Border Agency, part of the Home Office:

Q151 Chair: ... over the issue of your computer system that crashed at Lunar house. Hundreds of people were turned away, and we hear that some were in tears at the fact that the system did not work. What went wrong? Have we got compensation from the IT company? Will it happen again, and have we rearranged all the appointments? Rob Whiteman: We contacted people over the bank holiday weekend and rearranged appointments. Around 500 appointments that were cancelled were rearranged. The issues around IT are incredibly frustrating for my staff, as well as for our customers. When I meet staff, it is a constant frustration that systems do not work all the time and that some of the resilience issues do not conform to common standards. In terms of morale and other issues, it is absolutely vital that we get to the heart of these IT problems. They are complex, yes, but- Q152 Chair: Yes, but we do not want to go into that now. Do we know why it broke down? Rob Whiteman: We do know why it broke down. It was an error on the network that affected the way appointments were queued from the system, and therefore they could not travel properly around the network. It was an IT failure, but, to answer your question, I have discussed this several times with the Chief Executive of the IT company that is the primary IT provider. Q153 Chair: What is the company? Rob Whiteman: I would rather not say. Q154 Chair: I am sorry, Mr Whiteman; this is a Select Committee of the House- Rob Whiteman: It is Atos. Q155 Chair: There is no need to be secret with us; we will find out. It is public money. It is not coming out of your pocket. The taxpayer is paying. What is the name of the company? Rob Whiteman: Atos. Q156 Chair: And what was his explanation as to why it broke down? Rob Whiteman: The reason I was reluctant, Chairman, is that we have a contract with Atos. It is trying its best to resolve the issues, but obviously we are being a demanding client and saying that performance is not good enough. Q157 Chair: As you should be. Rob Whiteman: I would not want to cast aspersions on the effort that it is making. It has put an additional team in to try to analyse the problem, and I receive daily and weekly reports from them. The point I would make is that in terms of UKBA improving over the next couple of years ...

The first reaction of a senior civil servant like Mr Whiteman is meant to be in favour of the public. That's what the public service ethos is. But when Mr Whiteman is asked to name the contractor responsible for the failure of a major IT system his first reaction is "I would rather not say".

His first reaction is to try to hide information. From Parliament and from the public.

His first reaction is in favour of the producer. "I would rather not say". This is producer capture.

The relationship between the Home Office and its suppliers in this case and others is pathological. Mr Whiteman's posture is craven. He isn't meant to be beholden to his suppliers. That's the wrong way round. Instead of serving the public, he finds himself serving UKBA's consultants and contractors. Which leaves the public paying and unserved.

Dead fish Home Office has lost sight of the "public" in "public service" – Rob Whiteman

Thanks to Anna Leach writing in The Register magazine, the following astonishing interchange at a Home Affairs Committee evidence session (15 May 2012) is brought to everyone's attention. The Chair of the Committee is Rt Hon Keith Vaz MP and Rob Whiteman is Chief Executive of the UK Border Agency, part of the Home Office:

Q151 Chair: ... over the issue of your computer system that crashed at Lunar house. Hundreds of people were turned away, and we hear that some were in tears at the fact that the system did not work. What went wrong? Have we got compensation from the IT company? Will it happen again, and have we rearranged all the appointments? Rob Whiteman: We contacted people over the bank holiday weekend and rearranged appointments. Around 500 appointments that were cancelled were rearranged. The issues around IT are incredibly frustrating for my staff, as well as for our customers. When I meet staff, it is a constant frustration that systems do not work all the time and that some of the resilience issues do not conform to common standards. In terms of morale and other issues, it is absolutely vital that we get to the heart of these IT problems. They are complex, yes, but- Q152 Chair: Yes, but we do not want to go into that now. Do we know why it broke down? Rob Whiteman: We do know why it broke down. It was an error on the network that affected the way appointments were queued from the system, and therefore they could not travel properly around the network. It was an IT failure, but, to answer your question, I have discussed this several times with the Chief Executive of the IT company that is the primary IT provider. Q153 Chair: What is the company? Rob Whiteman: I would rather not say. Q154 Chair: I am sorry, Mr Whiteman; this is a Select Committee of the House- Rob Whiteman: It is Atos. Q155 Chair: There is no need to be secret with us; we will find out. It is public money. It is not coming out of your pocket. The taxpayer is paying. What is the name of the company? Rob Whiteman: Atos. Q156 Chair: And what was his explanation as to why it broke down? Rob Whiteman: The reason I was reluctant, Chairman, is that we have a contract with Atos. It is trying its best to resolve the issues, but obviously we are being a demanding client and saying that performance is not good enough. Q157 Chair: As you should be. Rob Whiteman: I would not want to cast aspersions on the effort that it is making. It has put an additional team in to try to analyse the problem, and I receive daily and weekly reports from them. The point I would make is that in terms of UKBA improving over the next couple of years ...

The first reaction of a senior civil servant like Mr Whiteman is meant to be in favour of the public. That's what the public service ethos is. But when Mr Whiteman is asked to name the contractor responsible for the failure of a major IT system his first reaction is "I would rather not say".

His first reaction is to try to hide information. From Parliament and from the public.

His first reaction is in favour of the producer. "I would rather not say". This is producer capture.

The relationship between the Home Office and its suppliers in this case and others is pathological. Mr Whiteman's posture is craven. He isn't meant to be beholden to his suppliers. That's the wrong way round. Instead of serving the public, he finds himself serving UKBA's consultants and contractors. Which leaves the public paying and unserved.

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

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

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

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

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

Why does Phil make this false statement?

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

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

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

What do we foresee? All together now – friction!

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

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

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

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

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

Why does Phil make this false statement?

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

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

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

What do we foresee? All together now – friction!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some food for the thoughts of Jon Ungoed-Thomas and Philip Johnston – midata/BIS

Wired magazine carried an article yesterday by Alan Mitchell promising that Personal data stores will liberate us from a toxic privacy battleground.

Alan Mitchell, you will remember, is the strategy director of Ctrl-Shift, a consultancy retained by the UK Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) to work on their midata initiative. William Heath is a non-executive director of Ctrl-Shift. Alan Mitchell and William Heath are the founders of Mydex, a company bidding to supply personal data stores in the UK, thereby supposedly liberating us from a toxic privacy battleground.

Mr Mitchell did not find space in his article to mention any of that background but he did, quite properly, emphasise that personal data stores are only recommended if the individuals who use them to disseminate their personal data are guaranteed to have control over how that data is used.

We do not currently have that control. It doesn't exist. It might do in the future but it doesn't exist now. Ctrl-Shift's strategy therefore depends on something indistinguishable from unicorns, which also don't exist. From that point of view, Ctrl-Shift has a strategy problem.

Wired magazine describe Mr Mitchell as "a strategic advisor to the UK Government's Midata project". By the same token, the UK Government therefore has a strategy problem. midata can't work. It depends on something which doesn't exist.

Given which, why do BIS continue to pursue it?

Some food for the thoughts of Jon Ungoed-Thomas and Philip Johnston – midata/BIS

Wired magazine carried an article yesterday by Alan Mitchell promising that Personal data stores will liberate us from a toxic privacy battleground.

Alan Mitchell, you will remember, is the strategy director of Ctrl-Shift, a consultancy retained by the UK Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) to work on their midata initiative. William Heath is a non-executive director of Ctrl-Shift. Alan Mitchell and William Heath are the founders of Mydex, a company bidding to supply personal data stores in the UK, thereby supposedly liberating us from a toxic privacy battleground.

Mr Mitchell did not find space in his article to mention any of that background but he did, quite properly, emphasise that personal data stores are only recommended if the individuals who use them to disseminate their personal data are guaranteed to have control over how that data is used.

We do not currently have that control. It doesn't exist. It might do in the future but it doesn't exist now. Ctrl-Shift's strategy therefore depends on something indistinguishable from unicorns, which also don't exist. From that point of view, Ctrl-Shift has a strategy problem.

Wired magazine describe Mr Mitchell as "a strategic advisor to the UK Government's Midata project". By the same token, the UK Government therefore has a strategy problem. midata can't work. It depends on something which doesn't exist.

Given which, why do BIS continue to pursue it?

A suggestion for Jon Ungoed-Thomas and Philip Johnston, published on a blog provided "free" by Google

Two articles in the Sunday Times by Jon Ungoed-Thomas – Your emails, sex secrets and health details – all harvested by Google and Google grabs secrets of private lives – and one in the Telegraph next day by Philip Johnston – That car in your street was a Google Street View search engine.

While Google was filming our streets it was also collecting information about our WiFi networks. Without permission and without telling anyone. That was a mistake, said Google when they were found out, which is an odd thing for Google to say. The whole point about Google is that they don't make mistakes.

The US Federal Communications Commission are fining Google $25,000 for impeding their investigation of the matter. Google had revenues in 2011 of $37.905 billion on which it made profits of $9.737 billion. The fine amounts to 81 seconds of profits and is thought not to have dealt a mortal blow to the company's share price.

According to Jon Ungoed-Thomas, Google's telecommunications interception system was designed by Mr Marius Milner, a Trinity College Cambridge maths graduate, who handed it over to Google recommending that they'd better get a ruling from a privacy lawyer before using it.

At which point the claim that Google's Street View cars used Mr Milner's system by mistake all over the world for several years starts to look a bit threadbare.

We all know that Google record our web searches and read our email and do something with the information they glean there about our preferences and interests. We never pay them for the use of any of their excellent services. We know there's something odd there. Where does the $38 billion annual revenue come from? We latter-day Dr Faustuses prefer not to ask.

Mr Johnston muses in his article about the attitude of the young today, incontinently spraying their personal information all over the web, no sense of decency, or privacy, no dignity. Or words to that effect. He is rewarded for this perfectly sensible observation by being called an "old fart" by one of Google's astrosurfers commenting below the line.

DMossEsq made a much politer comment but it was deleted. Several times. Every time it was submitted. So quickly that it must have been deleted by an automated old fart.

No such indignity on the Sunday Times website (a website readers pay for, incidentally), where the comment was published and is still there:

... Note that the Department of Business Innovation and Skills want Google to help provide us all with "personal data stores" as part of the department's midata project. And that the Cabinet Office look to Google to provide us with electronic identities so that public services can all become "digital by default". And that Whitehall's plans for a G-Cloud – a government cloud – rely on Google and others storing our data on their servers in a gigantic leap of faith in so-called "cloud computing". HMG seems to be desperate to invite Google into our lives and to hand over the responsibility for public administration to Google in a re-run of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, http://www.dmossesq.com/2012/04/amazon-google-facebook-et-al-latter-day.html Why? Have they given up? Is government too difficult for them?

There's the story Messrs Ungoed-Thomas and Johnston should be writing, surely – in the name of modernisation and transformational government, the middle-aged delinquents of Whitehall are openly planning to hand over our personal data en masse to Google and others. How much will that free lunch cost us?

A suggestion for Jon Ungoed-Thomas and Philip Johnston, published on a blog provided "free" by Google

Two articles in the Sunday Times by Jon Ungoed-Thomas – Your emails, sex secrets and health details – all harvested by Google and Google grabs secrets of private lives – and one in the Telegraph next day by Philip Johnston – That car in your street was a Google Street View search engine.

While Google was filming our streets it was also collecting information about our WiFi networks. Without permission and without telling anyone. That was a mistake, said Google when they were found out, which is an odd thing for Google to say. The whole point about Google is that they don't make mistakes.

The US Federal Communications Commission are fining Google $25,000 for impeding their investigation of the matter. Google had revenues in 2011 of $37.905 billion on which it made profits of $9.737 billion. The fine amounts to 81 seconds of profits and is thought not to have dealt a mortal blow to the company's share price.