Thursday 27 September 2012

Government Digital Service, G-Cloud, log-rolling, size matters

... do you think that Whitehall's gone mad?

[Skyscape has subsequently changed its name to UKCloud: "London – August 1, 2016 – Skyscape Cloud Services Limited, the easy to adopt, easy to use and easy to leave assured cloud services company, has today renamed and relaunched as UKCloud Ltd (www.ukcloud.com), to reinforce the company’s exclusive focus on supporting the UK public sector in the digital transformation of services".]
----------  o  O  o  ----------

One of the ways Whitehall plans to transform itself is to retain more SMEs – small and medium-sized enterprises. The big brutes like IBM are lumbering behemoths, so it is said, they're slow and they cost a fortune. SMEs would put a spring in Whitehall's step.

This is all tied up with G-Cloud, the plan to stick government data in the cloud, thereby making government services efficient, trusted and green. Or so it is said.

And so it was that the G-Cloud blog was really pleased to be able to announce on 18 September 2012 that:
We’re really pleased to be able to announce the first major sale of Infrastructure As A Service. Government Digital Service have signed a contract with Skyscape for:

1) Compute as a service

2) Compute as a service (test & development)

3) Storage as a service

This is all intended to support  the exciting work they’re doing on .gov.uk to revolutionise the way citizens access information and services online ... The purchase also shows that government is ready to embrace low cost utility cloud services and is  buying from SME’s ...
The G-Cloud team made the public statement above about how marvellous GDS are and quite independently GDS made a public statement about how marvellous G-Cloud is, coincidentally on the very same day:
In the past, we might have looked at dedicated servers or possibly even our own rack in a datacentre somewhere ...

The cloud has transformed all of this. Through the G-Cloud framework we are able to simply and rapidly buy highly reliable, highly cost-effective hosting services ...

To meet the needs of GOV.UK, we are planning to work with a number of different Infrastructure as a Service providers. We are happy to announce that the first cloud hosting provider we are working with is Skyscape ...
GOV.UK is the replacement for every single central government website + Directgov + Businesslink, please see "Single government domain" on GDS's list of projects. They'll all go. They'll all be replaced with one single domain, GOV.UK.

It's not as though there's any sign of GDS working on identity assurance or assisted digital. DWP are left waiting for identity assurance, Universal Credit is in limbo and millions of claimants are stuck in the poverty trap. All GDS are doing is re-writing a lot of websites that already exist.

They haven't finished yet and it's still in testing but GOV.UK is the only output from GDS so far, it's their only visible raison d'être. And they've decided to host their baby not on servers at a government data centre or at a big brute of a lumbering behemoth, but on Skyscape's servers.

And who, you ask, are Skyscape?

Take a look at the "Company information" bit of the Companies House website, enter "Skyscape Cloud Services Ltd" and you, too, will discover that the company's registered office is in Corsham, that it was incorporated on 3 May 2011 as company no.07619797 and that it has yet to file any accounts. Click on "Order information on this company" and you'll find that it's a £100 £1,000 company with 10,000 100,000 1p-nominal shares to its name.

Smaller than IBM, yes – but perhaps a little too small? GOV.UK depends on a £100 £1,000 company?

The G-Cloud team find this exciting and revolutionary. GDS find it simple, rapid, highly reliable and cost-effective. And they're happy.

But are you? Are you happy? Or do you think that Whitehall's gone mad?

Government Digital Service, G-Cloud, log-rolling, size matters

... do you think that Whitehall's gone mad?

[Skyscape has subsequently changed its name to UKCloud: "London – August 1, 2016 – Skyscape Cloud Services Limited, the easy to adopt, easy to use and easy to leave assured cloud services company, has today renamed and relaunched as UKCloud Ltd (www.ukcloud.com), to reinforce the company’s exclusive focus on supporting the UK public sector in the digital transformation of services".]
----------  o  O  o  ----------

One of the ways Whitehall plans to transform itself is to retain more SMEs – small and medium-sized enterprises. The big brutes like IBM are lumbering behemoths, so it is said, they're slow and they cost a fortune. SMEs would put a spring in Whitehall's step.

This is all tied up with G-Cloud, the plan to stick government data in the cloud, thereby making government services efficient, trusted and green. Or so it is said.

And so it was that the G-Cloud blog was really pleased to be able to announce on 18 September 2012 that:
We’re really pleased to be able to announce the first major sale of Infrastructure As A Service. Government Digital Service have signed a contract with Skyscape for:

1) Compute as a service

2) Compute as a service (test & development)

3) Storage as a service

This is all intended to support  the exciting work they’re doing on .gov.uk to revolutionise the way citizens access information and services online ... The purchase also shows that government is ready to embrace low cost utility cloud services and is  buying from SME’s ...

Identity assurance – the clock is ticking, your comment is awaiting moderation

27 September 2012 9:30-ish, posted on the Government Digital Service (GDS) blog here and here:
dmossesq #

Please Note: Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Steve Wreyford’s post on OIX is the latest on the ID assurance blog and is dated 14 June 2012, three months ago.

Has there been no activity on identity assurance since then?

Surely there must have been some, GDS are due to announce by the end of September – 85 hours time – which bidders have been approved to provide identity assurance services as per the 1 March 2012 notice in OJEU.

When will we be told who the winners are?

27/09/2012

Identity assurance – the clock is ticking, your comment is awaiting moderation

27 September 2012 9:30-ish, posted on the Government Digital Service (GDS) blog here and here:
dmossesq #

Please Note: Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Steve Wreyford’s post on OIX is the latest on the ID assurance blog and is dated 14 June 2012, three months ago.

Has there been no activity on identity assurance since then?

Surely there must have been some, GDS are due to announce by the end of September – 85 hours time – which bidders have been approved to provide identity assurance services as per the 1 March 2012 notice in OJEU.

When will we be told who the winners are?

27/09/2012

Tuesday 25 September 2012

What price privacy? $2.08

With thanks to SheffieldForum.co.uk
"For everything Sheffield"
You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.

So said Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems, and many people say they agree with him. Let's call those people "Roundheads".

Cavaliers believe that privacy is an essential ingredient in the recipe for human beings. Miss it out, and you cook up something different, not a human being.

Our location can be tracked by the mobile phone companies. Google records every website we visit. Our entire life history is on Facebook. Our every instantaneous emotional reaction is documented on Twitter. GCHQ want to store all our email headers. David Cameron wants to give all our medical records to researchers. The Department for Business Innovation and Skills wants us to maintain Personal Data Stores with so-called "trusted third parties" we've never met. DWP and the Cabinet Office want the same, so that we can all transact with the government on-line. The G-Cloud Puritans want to store all this data in the cloud with Amazon and others on servers that could be anywhere in the world ...

"There's something wrong with all this", say the Cavaliers. "No there isn't", say the Roundheads, "get over it". And so the argument continues, forever unresolved.

Except, sometimes, even the Roundheads briefly grasp the need for privacy, the importance of privacy, its value:
Claims that the privacy of direct messages sent between Facebook users had been compromised and that the messages were appearing publicly on users' timelines are false, the social networking service has said.

There was confusion on Monday amid reports in France that non-public messages sent in the years from 2007 onwards had started to appear in timelines, sparking many users to check back in the fear that potentially embarrassing private messages had become widely viewable.

Facebook's share price fell 9.1% to $20.79 at the close in New York on the back of the fears, the biggest drop since 27 July. The stock has slumped 45% since its May initial public offering, and hasn't traded above its $38 IPO price since the day after the share sale.
It is disputed whether people are right to fear that Facebook's privacy controls have failed. That's not the point.

The point is that the fear – whether or not it's well-founded – knocked 9.1% off Facebook's share price.

What price privacy? $2.08

With thanks to SheffieldForum.co.uk
"For everything Sheffield"
You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.

So said Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems, and many people say they agree with him. Let's call those people "Roundheads".

Cavaliers believe that privacy is an essential ingredient in the recipe for human beings. Miss it out, and you cook up something different, not a human being.

Our location can be tracked by the mobile phone companies. Google records every website we visit. Our entire life history is on Facebook. Our every instantaneous emotional reaction is documented on Twitter. GCHQ want to store all our email headers. David Cameron wants to give all our medical records to researchers. The Department for Business Innovation and Skills wants us to maintain Personal Data Stores with so-called "trusted third parties" we've never met. DWP and the Cabinet Office want the same, so that we can all transact with the government on-line. The G-Cloud Puritans want to store all this data in the cloud with Amazon and others on servers that could be anywhere in the world ...

"There's something wrong with all this", say the Cavaliers. "No there isn't", say the Roundheads, "get over it". And so the argument continues, forever unresolved.

Public spending 3

Each week, writing in the Guardian, Polly Toynbee gives a master class in public finance.

From today's lesson:
What would fairer tax look like? Council tax is the most regressive – the more expensive the property, the lower the proportion of tax paid – so correct that first, and then turn to a mansion tax. Britain's wealth taxes have atrophied. Inheritance tax doesn't work, capital gains entirely forgiven at death. As for the 50p top tax rate, because the rich had a year's notice they took their income in the year before it was introduced. Then, as soon as the cut to 45% was announced a year ahead, they delayed their income until it came in. This two-year tax planning, says the IFS, cost the exchequer £18bn. That's the same as the £18bn cut from the poorest.

It shows just what colossal discretionary sums float among the few at the top: a one-off levy could solve half the national debt while barely touching their lifestyles.
The national debt stood at £1,250.3 billion on 31 December 2011. Half of that is about £625 billion. £625 billion, £18 billion, what's the difference, they're all the same, numbers.

Can anyone think what a "one-off levy" of £625,000,000,000 that barely touched the lifestyles of the rich would look like?

Public spending 3

Each week, writing in the Guardian, Polly Toynbee gives a master class in public finance.

From today's lesson:
What would fairer tax look like? Council tax is the most regressive – the more expensive the property, the lower the proportion of tax paid – so correct that first, and then turn to a mansion tax. Britain's wealth taxes have atrophied. Inheritance tax doesn't work, capital gains entirely forgiven at death. As for the 50p top tax rate, because the rich had a year's notice they took their income in the year before it was introduced. Then, as soon as the cut to 45% was announced a year ahead, they delayed their income until it came in. This two-year tax planning, says the IFS, cost the exchequer £18bn. That's the same as the £18bn cut from the poorest.

It shows just what colossal discretionary sums float among the few at the top: a one-off levy could solve half the national debt while barely touching their lifestyles.
The national debt stood at £1,250.3 billion on 31 December 2011. Half of that is about £625 billion. £625 billion, £18 billion, what's the difference, they're all the same, numbers.

Identity assurance – the clock is ticking, ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken's chickens are coming home to roost

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is part of the Cabinet Office and has six projects on hand, including Identity Assurance:
The ID Assurance team are working on accrediting and approving third party identity to facilitate digital transactions between citizens and government.
If "citizens" and the government are to transact business on-line, there must be a rock solid identity assurance service so that each party knows who it's dealing with. Invitations to tender for the service were issued earlier this year.

GDS haven't so far publicly approved any third parties to provide identity assurance, but we shouldn't have long to wait – no more than five days, in fact:
The tendering process will run for several weeks and is expected to report successful bidders in September 2012.
Delays are only to be expected. Identity assurance for the entire population of the UK is a big project.

But in this case there can't be any delays. The joint GDS/DWP notice of the identity assurance project states that identity assurance is required to be ...
... fully operational from spring 2013.
That's six months time if we measure to the start of next spring, or nine months if we measure to the end. Either way, DWP's Universal Credit (UC) scheme has to be up and running by October 2013 and UC depends on identity assurance as Lord Freud, the welfare reform minister, has emphasised – no identity assurance, no UC.

Appearing before the House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee, Lord Freud was asked what is the biggest risk facing UC. His answer – identity assurance.

Why did DWP allow this dependency/risk? Why didn't they write their own invitation to tender?

They did. Then they withdrew it. Apparently at the command of the Cabinet Office. Because next thing, GDS announced that:
... this approach ensures that, ultimately, HMG-wide Identity Assurance is supplied across central departments via a common procurement portal (to HMG agreed standards) and governed by the Cabinet Office.
"Governed by the Cabinet Office" – GDS have put themselves on the spot. If UC fails now, is it Iain Duncan Smith's fault? Or Francis Maude's?

GDS must approve several accredited suppliers of identity assurance services in the next 120 hours. Who's likely to be on the list?

GDS are only offering up to £30 million for the identity assurance service and they're only letting contracts for 18 months.

The Home Office tried for eight years to issue us all with ID cards. They failed.

Which companies can afford to assure the identities of everyone in the UK – or at least the identities of the 21 million expected claimants for UC – for only £30 million? Which companies can afford to take the risk of losing their contract to a competitor only 18 months later? Not many of them. It can only be a short list.

The banks/credit card companies/PayPal, the phone companies, the utility companies and IBM might be big and competent enough. But they have to think about the failure of the Home Office and about reputational risk.

They wouldn't be in control of the identity assurance service. GDS would be, and if anything went wrong, even if it wasn't the contractors' fault, the banks/phone companies/utility companies/IBM would see their brands destroyed.

Any chief executive of a bank/phone company/... who signs up for one of these GDS identity assurance contracts would be roasted by the equity analysts and by their shareholders. Which means they won't.

We can probably forget the insurance companies and the credit rating agencies. Who else does that leave?

Google and Facebook.

In no more than 118 hours now and counting, ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken, executive director of the Government Digital Service and Senior Responsible Officer Owner for the Identity Assurance programme, is going to have to host a press conference at which he announces that he thinks it's a good idea for Google and Facebook to provide the electronic identities of everyone in the UK.

If you get an invitation, don't miss it.

Identity assurance – the clock is ticking, ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken's chickens are coming home to roost

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is part of the Cabinet Office and has six projects on hand, including Identity Assurance:
The ID Assurance team are working on accrediting and approving third party identity to facilitate digital transactions between citizens and government.
If "citizens" and the government are to transact business on-line, there must be a rock solid identity assurance service so that each party knows who it's dealing with. Invitations to tender for the service were issued earlier this year.

GDS haven't so far publicly approved any third parties to provide identity assurance, but we shouldn't have long to wait – no more than five days, in fact:
The tendering process will run for several weeks and is expected to report successful bidders in September 2012.
Delays are only to be expected. Identity assurance for the entire population of the UK is a big project.