Saturday 20 July 2013

UC and the missing £300 million

Hat tip: @Welfare__Reform

The things they say on Twitter!

Universal Credit dead? Surely not.

£300 million down the drain? No. No public administration could waste that much money. Could they?

C.f. 10 December 2012: Universal Credit – GDS's part in its downfall















Posted by David Moss at 01:22 0 comments

UC and the missing £300 million

Hat tip: @Welfare__Reform

The things they say on Twitter!

Universal Credit dead? Surely not.

£300 million down the drain? No. No public administration could waste that much money. Could they?

C.f. 10 December 2012: Universal Credit – GDS's part in its downfall

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Posted by David Moss at 01:22 0 comments

Friday 19 July 2013

GDS – an open and shut case

The case
Ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken's Government Digital Service (GDS) is "pivoting", he says.

First GDS pioneered the concept of governments publishing data by creating the award-winning GOV.UK website. Now GDS is "pivoting", which means that it's moving on from mere publishing and it's going to pioneer two-way communication with the mob, the mobile vulgus, who are going to be allowed to undertake on-line transactions in the digital-by-default new world.

There are about 650 types of transaction between government and the public, according to GDS, and they've chosen 25 of them for starters. "Exemplars", as they call them, GDS will show the rest of the world how to do it.

We’ve started work on redesigning 25 of the biggest and most-used transactional public services – we call them exemplars, leading the way for others to follow.
There's no telling what ye Mighty think about GDS's first attempts at transactions but four professors who reviewed the Government Digital Strategy were left less than optimistic:
It is impossible with the detail provided to form any reasonable view of how this key activity [service transformation] will be performed. Similarly in Annex 3 the proposed transactional service standard is outlined. Again, in the few pages provided there is far too little to make any assessment ... (p.5)

[on the subject of (a) open source and (b) web platforms, as alternatives to the current practice of using ponderous and expensive IT contractors] ... we would strongly argue that neither case offers a direct, clear model that applies to this UK Government context: A technologically-diverse, long-lived set of transactional services to be executed in a complex cultural, political, and regulatory environment. How the lessons of these alternative models can be brought to bear on the current UK Government’s IT systems is a core question that the [Government Digital Strategy] must address, but right now it has little meaningful to say. The [Government Digital Strategy] must avoid falling into the trap of an overly-simplistic response that one approach is poor and the other is better. (p.6)
And a fifth professor gave evidence to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, who are keeping an eye on Whitehall's digital-by-default project, to the effect that GDS are wasting their time. Despite "heroic" amounts of testing, they won't know if their transaction systems work, it's impossible to measure the quality of software systems unless you use formal methods, and GDS don't.

Open
Undismayed, GDS are pressing ahead. "Onwards", as ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken always says. What's more, everything is out in the open:
People are seeing the live, working software that’s already making government services Digital by Default.

We are running this programme of continual iteration in the open. You can follow our progress at www.gov.uk/transformation, where we’re regularly publishing information about every exemplar. You’ll see performance data, screenshots and status reports of where each service is at, and we’re going to add more to it as each service progresses ...

Reporting in public
It’s important that we continue to publish these updates in public, that we report on the services we’re transforming, and that we blog about our progress. Publishing this means more of our colleagues can see what’s happening and what part they play in the process. It’s also the best way to make sure that we’re accountable for the things we build. As our design principles say, if we make things open, we make things better.
Shut
Take a look at https://www.gov.uk/transformation. Exemplar #1 is Electoral Registration – "rebuilding trust in our electoral system and making voter registration more convenient and secure".

Making things open makes them better. It's all about accountability. Click on the link, and what do you find?

"Live, working software that’s already making government services Digital by Default"? No.

"Performance data"? No.

"Screen shots"? No.

Dig a little deeper, click on "our original strategy statement", and you find:
To support IER [Individual Electoral Registration] and make it simpler for users, a new digital channel will be created and a method for confirming identities will be introduced.
What "new digital channel"? They don't tell us.

What "new method for confirming identities"? They don't tell us.

Will voter registration be more "convenient" and more "secure"? Who knows?

Will trust in our electoral system be "rebuilt"? An important question. And GDS aren't helping us to answer it.

For an organisation dedicated to openness and accountability, GDS are remarkably tight-lipped.

The next general election in the UK is round the corner and we're relying on GDS to provide the electoral register. Why?

----------

Updated 24 July 2013
The post above was published last Friday, 19 July 2013.

The day before yesterday, Monday 22 July 2013, the following comment (#42377) was submitted on ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken's post, The pivot: from publishing to transactions. The comment has been deleted. There have been no answers from GDS by way of response:
What GDS say
GDS say in the post above that: “People are seeing the live, working software that’s already making government services Digital by Default … We are running this programme of continual iteration in the open. You can follow our progress athttp://www.gov.uk/transformation, where we’re regularly publishing information about every exemplar. You’ll see performance data, screenshots and status reports of where each service is at, and we’re going to add more to it as each service progresses”.

Under the heading ‘Reporting In Public’, GDS add: “It’s important that we continue to publish these updates in public, that we report on the services we’re transforming, and that we blog about our progress. Publishing this means more of our colleagues can see what’s happening and what part they play in the process. It’s also the best way to make sure that we’re accountable for the things we build. As our design principles say, if we make things open, we make things better”.

What GDS do
Take a look at https://www.gov.uk/transformation. Exemplar #1 is Electoral Registration – “rebuilding trust in our electoral system and making voter registration more convenient and secure”. What do you find?

“Live, working software that’s already making government services Digital by Default”? No.

“Performance data”? No.

“Screen shots”? No.

Dig a little deeper, click on “our original strategy statement”, and you read: “To support IER and make it simpler for users, a new digital channel will be created and a method for confirming identities will be introduced”.

What “new digital channel”? GDS don’t tell us.

What “new method for confirming identities”? GDSdon’t tell us.

Will voter registration be more “convenient” and more “secure”? Who knows?

Will trust in our electoral system be “rebuilt”? An important question. And GDS aren't helping us to answer it.

For an organisation dedicated to openness and accountability, GDS are remarkably tight-lipped.

22/07/2013

Reply

Updated 27 July 2013
The following comment (#42539) was today submitted on ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken's post, The pivot: from publishing to transactions:
dmossesq #

Please Note: Your comment is awaiting moderation.

QUOTE
People are seeing the live, working software that’s already making government services Digital by Default … We are running this programme of continual iteration in the open.
UNQUOTE

GDS may believe this but it is simply not true, please see GDS – an open and shut case.

The behaviour of GDS, which describes its 25 transactions as “exemplars”, needs itself to be exemplary.

27/07/2013
Posted by David Moss at 16:48 0 comments

GDS – an open and shut case

The case
Ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken's Government Digital Service (GDS) is "pivoting", he says.

First GDS pioneered the concept of governments publishing data by creating the award-winning GOV.UK website. Now GDS is "pivoting", which means that it's moving on from mere publishing and it's going to pioneer two-way communication with the mob, the mobile vulgus, who are going to be allowed to undertake on-line transactions in the digital-by-default new world.

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Posted by David Moss at 16:48 2 comments

Tuesday 16 July 2013

IPS temporarily Rapsonless

The Identity & Passport Service (IPS) doesn't exist any more, of course, it's now HM Passport Office (HMPO) and the Home Office is IPSless.

The executive director of IPS between about June 2010 and March 2013 was Sarah Rapson. Her predecessor, James Hall, presided over the British public being over-charged for passports by about £300 million a year. He also presided over the disaster of Whitehall's attempted introduction of state-produced ID cards.

Ms Rapson has delivered a £5 reduction in the cost of a 10-year adult passport since then, from £77.50 to £72.50. Otherwise her tenure seems to have been without incident.

She is perhaps lucky that IPS/HMPO were banned from having anything to do with Whitehall's latest attempt to re-enact the ID cards massacre – that honour goes to the Cabinet Office (individual electoral registration and the Identity Assurance Programme) and the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (midata). If you hold futures in either organisation, sell, sell, sell.

Now her luck has broken.

Home Office press release, 16 April 2013:
New interim Directors General appointed

Two interim Directors General have been appointed to lead the new immigration commands in the Home Office that were announced by the Home Secretary on 26 March.

Sarah Rapson will lead UK Visas and Immigration, bringing her experience of managing a successful customer-focused organisation as Chief Executive of the Identity and Passport Service.

David Wood will lead Immigration Enforcement, drawing on his background with the Metropolitan Police and as Director of Operations for UKBA ...
The history of the UK Border Agency (UKBA) is spectacular and its demise under Rob Whiteman even more so. The Home Office is now UKBAless. It's shattered into three pieces – the UK Border Force, Immigration Enforcement (ambiguous name) and the piece Ms Rapson has picked up, UK Visas and Immigration (UKV&I).

Interim Director General Sarah Rapson gave evidence in front of the Home Affairs Committee on 11 June 2013:



Next day, the Times newspaper reported the session and found themselves with an over-abundance or superfluity or excess or nimiety of scoops. Too many to handle. They settled for Visa system might never be up to job, admits chief.

A month later, the Home Affairs Committee published their report, and they went with Backlogs hit half a million at immigration service. This followed Ms Rapson's revelation that there are 190,000 unresolved immigration cases that her predecessors unfortunately forgot to tell the Committee about.

The Times and the Committee and the BBC could equally well have led with Ms Rapson's management approach – she wants her staff to discover for themselves how to do the job, she doesn't intend to issue "decrees" (16:34:40 to 16:35:44), instead, she's holding "workshops". She has 7,400 staff in 150 countries and an annual budget of £450 million. There's something missing from the concept of leadership there or "command" as Ms Rapson keeps calling it.

Or they could have led with Ms Rapson's repeated claim to have only just started in the job – e.g. "I'm 54 days in" (16:59:43). According to the DMossEsq slide rule, that's nearly eight weeks. Eight weeks in, and she still doesn't know how many categories there are for the cases UKV&I deal with and didn't realise that the category with 190,000 cases in it was new to the Committee. Clearly it takes some time for a new boss to get their feet under the table, but surely eight weeks is long enough to get to grips with some of the basic metrics of the business. If eight weeks isn't long enough, is it ever going to happen?
Posted by David Moss at 16:11 0 comments

IPS temporarily Rapsonless

The Identity & Passport Service (IPS) doesn't exist any more, of course, it's now HM Passport Office (HMPO) and the Home Office is IPSless.

The executive director of IPS between about June 2010 and March 2013 was Sarah Rapson. Her predecessor, James Hall, presided over the British public being over-charged for passports by about £300 million a year. He also presided over the disaster of Whitehall's attempted introduction of state-produced ID cards.

Ms Rapson has delivered a £5 reduction in the cost of a 10-year adult passport since then, from £77.50 to £72.50. Otherwise her tenure seems to have been without incident.

She is perhaps lucky that IPS/HMPO were banned from having anything to do with Whitehall's latest attempt to re-enact the ID cards massacre – that honour goes to the Cabinet Office (individual electoral registration and the Identity Assurance Programme) and the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (midata). If you hold futures in either organisation, sell, sell, sell.

Now her luck has broken.

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Posted by David Moss at 16:11 0 comments

UKBA soon to be Whitemanless

Home Office press release, 27 June 2013:
Rob Whiteman leaves Home Office for new Chief Executive role

Rob Whiteman, Director General of Operational Systems Transformation, is leaving the Home Office to become Chief Executive of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy.

Rob Whiteman, Director General of Operational Systems Transformation, is to leave his role at the Home Office to join the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) as its new Chief Executive.
When he joined in July 2011, Mr Whiteman was chief executive of the UK Border Agency (UKBA). Eight months later in March 2012 he lost the UK Border Force, which was but is no longer part of UKBA. And a year after that in March 2013, the remainder of UKBA was split in two. Leaving Mr Whiteman with nothing to be chief executive of, any more, at least at the Home Office.

Good luck CIPFA.

How many pieces will CIPFA be broken into by March 2015?

As Theresa May, the Home Secretary, says archly in the press release:
He leaves with my very best wishes for the future and I am sure he will be a great success in his important new role at CIPFA.
And what does Mark Sedwill, the Permanent Secretary at the Home Office, have to say about the trail of destruction which is Mr Whiteman's career at UKBA? He speaks in Mandarin, of course, but you can probably manage your own translation:
Rob has made a remarkable contribution to the Home Office over the past 18 months and, on behalf of the department, I would like to thank him for his dedication and leadership.
The Home Affairs Committee routinely accuse UKBA and the Home Office of withholding information and going back on their word. It's not just the lack of accountability the Committee doesn't like. In one excruciating evidence session (15 May 2012), they also unmasked Mr Whiteman as the victim of producer capture, a common Whitehall affliction:
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 ...
Being chief executive of UKBA as was, was probably an impossible job, beyond any human being, and Mr Whiteman is just a human being.

That conclusion is a bit mundane for some. They like something more dramatic in the Guardian. Here's an extract from an open letter they published, from David Walker to Mr Whiteman:
Congratulations on finding a safe passage out of the Whitehall jungle. Senior people at the Home Office, especially those anywhere near the borders, have proved pretty expendable of late, and the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (Cipfa) job came at the right time. Some say those who live by the sword die by the sword. You shafted the UK Border Force's Brodie Clark on behalf of Theresa May and you, in turn, have been shafted by the new permanent secretary, Mark Sedwill, on behalf of Theresa May. She sails on, the Tory leadership in her sights, while all around good people fall to their deaths.
"All around good people fall to their deaths"? That hasn't been reported in the Guardian. Or anywhere else.

Anyway, take your pick, mundane or murderous.
Posted by David Moss at 11:42 0 comments

UKBA soon to be Whitemanless

Home Office press release, 27 June 2013:
Rob Whiteman leaves Home Office for new Chief Executive role

Rob Whiteman, Director General of Operational Systems Transformation, is leaving the Home Office to become Chief Executive of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy.

Rob Whiteman, Director General of Operational Systems Transformation, is to leave his role at the Home Office to join the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) as its new Chief Executive.
When he joined in July 2011, Mr Whiteman was chief executive of the UK Border Agency (UKBA). Eight months later in March 2012 he lost the UK Border Force, which was but is no longer part of UKBA. And a year after that in March 2013, the remainder of UKBA was split in two. Leaving Mr Whiteman with nothing to be chief executive of, any more, at least at the Home Office.

Good luck CIPFA.

How many pieces will CIPFA be broken into by March 2015?

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Posted by David Moss at 11:42 0 comments

mirelationship with midata

"Today’s most successful businesses are the ones that are creative about building customer relationships". That's what Jo Swinson says. It's not obviously true. But she's the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) minister in charge of consumer affairs and that's how BIS have chosen to try to sell midata.

The consultancy advising BIS on midata, Ctrl-Shift, reckons that these days "the challenge (and opportunity) is to start building an information sharing relationship with customers where both sides use data sharing to save time, cut costs and be more efficient – and to add new value". If you're in any doubt, just remember that "far-sighted managers recognise the ground is shifting under their feet. If they don’t adapt they risk medium to long-term isolation and marginalisation". Are you far-sighted? Or isolated and marginalised.

That message is reiterated by Mydex, the personal data store (PDS) company. Mydex is closely related to both Ctrl-Shift and BIS and they say that PDSs "transform relationships between individuals and organisations to both sides’ benefit" (p.7). And from his position on the midata strategy board, the chairman of Mydex seems to have convinced BIS that midata needs PDSs to work.

The relationship in question is generally between individuals who buy products and services and the companies that sell them. But according to the Young Foundation last November Mydex and its PDSs will also transform the relationship between "the citizen and the state" – "It is a bit like flipping a world where companies engage in ‘customer relationship management’ into one in which individuals engage in ‘vendor relationship management’. Now the citizen is in charge".

And that same promise is made by the Cabinet Office in connection with data-sharing: "Minister for the Cabinet Office Francis Maude today [25 April 2012] made a statement in response [to an article in the Guardian], pointing to the Government’s commitment to putting the citizen in charge, not the state".

Do you believe Mr Maude? Do you even understand what he's saying? You'll be "in charge", not the state – what does that mean?

Are the Young Foundation right when they suggest that the result of sharing your data with, say, Nestlé will be to put you in charge of the company? In what way will telling Nestlé that you like Gold Blend® be to your benefit? What are Mydex talking about? And do you think that Nestlé will be isolated and marginalised if you don't tell them?

Is Jo Swinson right that the most successful companies are those that build a relationship with you and that midata will make the economy grow? Before you answer, would it help to know that BIS's own economist working on midata – David Miller – isn't convinced?

Do you want to be badgered all day every day with a lot of nosy questions about your Gold Blend® consumption? If you ask Norman Lamb, Jo Swinson's predecessor at BIS, what all this relationship lark amounts to, that seems to be the intention: "midata also creates opportunities for new markets to develop where businesses help consumers use their data to make better consumption decisions and lifestyle choices" (p.10).

And how much do you think you'll have to pay for all this helpful lifestyle advice?

What we seem to have here is a concerted campaign whose stated objectives give rise to a lot of questions the answers to which are not obvious. The only effect of this campaign that is clear is that you will hand over all/a lot of your personal data to companies and government departments. Is that what you would like to do? Why?

Remember that Mydex is not just a PDS supplier – it is also one of the UK's eight appointed "identity providers". As part of Mr Maude's Identity Assurance Programme (IDAP), Mydex's job will be to confirm that you are you when you apply for Universal Credit, for example, or when you attempt any other digital-by-default on-line transaction with the government.

You don't think, do you, that a PDS is actually a sort of dematerialised ID card? And that that's actually why all the jovial souls above want you to organise all your data for them? To make IDAP work. At least that would make sense, unlike all the strange claims above.

IDAP was meant to be "fully operational" by March 2013, four months ago. That's what Mr Maude's Government Digital Service (GDS) promised, and there's no sign of it yet. Once these chaps have got used to missing deadlines it tends to become habit-forming. So there's no need to hurry. Take your time before making your mind up.

But if you do ever find yourself being tempted to sign up to midata, do remember that it's not a trivial decision, as Mydex themselves warned everyone the other day ("MIL" = midata Innovation Lab):


Posted by David Moss at 08:00 0 comments

mirelationship with midata

"Today’s most successful businesses are the ones that are creative about building customer relationships". That's what Jo Swinson says. It's not obviously true. But she's the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) minister in charge of consumer affairs and that's how BIS have chosen to try to sell midata.

more ►
Posted by David Moss at 08:00 0 comments