The Home Office – what do they do all day?

5 July 2005 – the UK wins the right to host the 2012 Olympics©®™. 12 July 2012, 2,564 days later, Olympic security contractor G4S told ministers only yesterday it could not fulfil brief:

On Monday, the Home Secretary assured the House of Commons that she was "confident" that the private company would be able to deliver out its commitments in full. Labour accused the Home Office of presiding over a "shambles," after it emerged that 3,500 additional troops would now be needed to fill in for a shortfall in the number of security guards that G4S had been able to recruit.

We have had five Home Secretaries in the past seven years and they have a huge retinue of officials whose job it is to manage the arrangements for the Olympics including security.

Officials must have had the odd progress meeting with G4S. What else can they have done for the past 2,564 days? What did they discuss at these meetings? "Are the security arrangements all in place?" seems like one of the more obvious topics to broach. But no, if the headline above is to be believed, the Home Office only discovered the day before yesterday that there is a problem.

"The disgraceful state of public administration in the UK" – where have we seen that phrase before?

The Home Office – what do they do all day?

5 July 2005 – the UK wins the right to host the 2012 Olympics©®™. 12 July 2012, 2,564 days later, Olympic security contractor G4S told ministers only yesterday it could not fulfil brief:

On Monday, the Home Secretary assured the House of Commons that she was "confident" that the private company would be able to deliver out its commitments in full. Labour accused the Home Office of presiding over a "shambles," after it emerged that 3,500 additional troops would now be needed to fill in for a shortfall in the number of security guards that G4S had been able to recruit.

We have had five Home Secretaries in the past seven years and they have a huge retinue of officials whose job it is to manage the arrangements for the Olympics including security.

Officials must have had the odd progress meeting with G4S. What else can they have done for the past 2,564 days? What did they discuss at these meetings? "Are the security arrangements all in place?" seems like one of the more obvious topics to broach. But no, if the headline above is to be believed, the Home Office only discovered the day before yesterday that there is a problem.

"The disgraceful state of public administration in the UK" – where have we seen that phrase before?

Francis Maude and the economies of scale

"A seven-year government efficiency programme has backfired and increased costs for the taxpayer by hundreds of millions of pounds, a public spending watchdog said ... Whitehall departments have spent £1.4 billion in an attempt to save £159  million by sharing "back-office" functions such as personnel and procurement ..." – Telegraph readers and followers of DMossEsq have known all about this since March.

Any 12 year-old management consultant can make the case that sharing services saves money. It stands to reason.

Except that it's not true.

And now the Public Accounts Committee have a few words of advice for Francis Maude and the Cabinet Office:

Committee chair Margaret Hodge said: "Shared service centres have failed to deliver the savings they should have. They cost £1.4bn to set up, £500m more than expected, and in some cases have actually cost the taxpayer more than they have saved. I welcome the Cabinet Office's ambitious new strategy for improving shared services. But unless it learns from the past it will end up making the same mistakes again."

Will Mr Maude listen to Parliament? Or to the agile 12 year-olds touting shared services in the G-Cloud?

Francis Maude and the economies of scale

"A seven-year government efficiency programme has backfired and increased costs for the taxpayer by hundreds of millions of pounds, a public spending watchdog said ... Whitehall departments have spent £1.4 billion in an attempt to save £159  million by sharing "back-office" functions such as personnel and procurement ..." – Telegraph readers and followers of DMossEsq have known all about this since March.

Any 12 year-old management consultant can make the case that sharing services saves money. It stands to reason.

Except that it's not true.

And now the Public Accounts Committee have a few words of advice for Francis Maude and the Cabinet Office:

Committee chair Margaret Hodge said: "Shared service centres have failed to deliver the savings they should have. They cost £1.4bn to set up, £500m more than expected, and in some cases have actually cost the taxpayer more than they have saved. I welcome the Cabinet Office's ambitious new strategy for improving shared services. But unless it learns from the past it will end up making the same mistakes again."

Will Mr Maude listen to Parliament? Or to the agile 12 year-olds touting shared services in the G-Cloud?

Biometrics – don't ask, don't tell

Police forces all over the UK are introducing mobile fingerprint equipment. Result? Approximately 20% of the criminals who would otherwise have been taken down to the station will now be asked politely to go on their way. That's what we were saying back in May.

Don't ask
DMossEsq wrote to his MP asking about this matter. Would Nick Herbert, the policing minister, care to comment? Or the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA)? Could they explain why public money is being wasted on technology that doesn't work?

And thanks to his MP an answer has now come through from Chief Constable Nick Gargan, Chief Executive of NPIA.

Don't tell
Does Mr Gargan express confidence in the biometrics being used? No.

Does he say that mobile fingerprinting will improve crime prevention or crime detection or crime clear-up rates? No.

He doesn't disagree that there is a 20% failure rate associated with flat print fingerprinting based on the 2004 UK Passport Service biometrics enrolment trial.

Rather endearingly – obviously a conservative man with a respect for tradition – he tries on the old line that the biometrics enrolment trial wasn't really a biometrics enrolment trial but it won't wash.

That high 20% failure rate in the biometrics enrolment trial was caused, he says, by using only a small sensor to scan people's fingerprints. That was then. Policemen on patrol are now being issued with so-called "Bluecheck" devices. And what do they use? According to Mr Gargan, only a small sensor to scan people's fingerprints.

The technology has improved, he claims. Is the failure rate down from 20% to 2%? Or 0.2%? He doesn't say. All he says is that the technology has improved. An unsupported and unquantified assertion.

What's the point?
"Finally and perhaps most importantly", Mr Gargan says, policemen on patrol can always ignore the Bluecheck results and take suspects down to the station anyway.

Don't worry
The Home Office are investing your money wisely. You are much safer as a result.

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Cribsheet
Given the choice of two giants, Gargantua and Pantagruel, the English choose one and the Italians the other. Whereas we might say in English that the scale of the deception being practised on the public by the Home Office is "gargantuan", for example, in Italian they would call it "pantagruelico". Not many people know that.

Gustave Doré's 1873 illustration for Gargantua,
the second (1534) of
François Rabelais's series of five novels,
La vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel

Biometrics – don't ask, don't tell

Police forces all over the UK are introducing mobile fingerprint equipment. Result? Approximately 20% of the criminals who would otherwise have been taken down to the station will now be asked politely to go on their way. That's what we were saying back in May.

Don't ask
DMossEsq wrote to his MP asking about this matter. Would Nick Herbert, the policing minister, care to comment? Or the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA)? Could they explain why public money is being wasted on technology that doesn't work?

And thanks to his MP an answer has now come through from Chief Constable Nick Gargan, Chief Executive of NPIA.

It's the way he tells 'em

Woody Allen: "This guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, Doc, my brother’s crazy. He thinks he’s a chicken. The doctor says, Well, why don’t you turn him in? And the guy says, I would but I need the eggs".

DMossEsq: "This permanent secretary goes to a politician and says, Minister, biometrics don't work. But we keep spending money on them. The politician says, Well, why don’t you lock up the cheque book? And the permanent secretary says, I would but I need an identity assurance system".

It's the way he tells 'em

Woody Allen: "This guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, Doc, my brother’s crazy. He thinks he’s a chicken. The doctor says, Well, why don’t you turn him in? And the guy says, I would but I need the eggs".

DMossEsq: "This permanent secretary goes to a politician and says, Minister, biometrics don't work. But we keep spending money on them. The politician says, Well, why don’t you lock up the cheque book? And the permanent secretary says, I would but I need an identity assurance system".

GreenInk 8 – LIBOR and Whitehall

Let's see if the Times publish this letter:

From: David Moss Sent: 03 July 2012 19:05 To: 'letters@thetimes.co.uk' Subject: Roland Watson and Patrick Hosking, 3 July 2012, Brown and Balls to face grilling on bank scandal http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/business/industries/banking/article3463792.ece Sir Government policy, including the "light touch" regulation of the City, is designed partly by politicians and partly by Whitehall. Mr Tyrie's enquiry is due to take evidence from Messrs Brown and Balls. For completeness, it should also call as witnesses officials from HM Treasury, including Sir Gus, now Lord O'Donnell, who was permanent secretary at the Treasury before becoming Cabinet Secretary. Yours David Moss

GreenInk 8 – LIBOR and Whitehall

Let's see if the Times publish this letter:

From: David Moss Sent: 03 July 2012 19:05 To: 'letters@thetimes.co.uk' Subject: Roland Watson and Patrick Hosking, 3 July 2012, Brown and Balls to face grilling on bank scandal http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/business/industries/banking/article3463792.ece Sir Government policy, including the "light touch" regulation of the City, is designed partly by politicians and partly by Whitehall. Mr Tyrie's enquiry is due to take evidence from Messrs Brown and Balls. For completeness, it should also call as witnesses officials from HM Treasury, including Sir Gus, now Lord O'Donnell, who was permanent secretary at the Treasury before becoming Cabinet Secretary. Yours David Moss