RIP IDA – Warwickshire County Council

No need to say it, it goes without saying, it should be obvious to all but, just in case it isn't obvious to all, IDA is dead.

IDA is the Cabinet Office Identity Assurance programme. And it's dead.

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"Happy new you", says Steve Wreyford.

He's the Government Digital Service man (GDS), you'll remember, the sexton, digging the grave for IDA, GDS's identity assurance programme.

"Identity Assurance gets closer to market", he told us over 18 months ago, on 25 May 2012. Four days later we learned from him that "Identity Assurance goes to Washington", which is all very well, but was IDA coming to the UK?

The answer wasn't clear but, next best thing, OIX – "Cabinet Office joins the Open Identity Exchange". That was 14 June 2012. Then there were months of silence before Mr Wreyford claimed that IDA was "Less About Identity, More About Trust" (4 October 2012). Our privacy would be respected by IDA and we would be in control of our data. How? No answer.

Roll forward to 14 November 2012. "Identity assurance – Stepping Up A Gear". And about time too. After all, at this stage, the promise was that IDA would be ready for 21 million benefit claimants by March 2013. Anyway, at least Mr Wreyford now had seven "identity providers" (IDPs), with the promise of an eighth one coming soon. And indeed, only two months later, on 17 January 2013, PayPal joined the IDP fold, "To Identity and Beyond".

But what's this we read? "Of course, this is just the beginning of the process. The real work of realising our ambitions for identity assurance services can now begin." Were the 21 million benefit claimants going to get IDA by March?

No.

Instead, GDS went off to South Yorkshire "to test the theory that if you make it easy for people to establish their identity when accessing digital public services, people will choose to access them digitally rather than pick up the phone or go to a branch", please see "Identity Alphas", 12 March 2013.

Three people are believed to have taken part in that test, although the figure was later revised upwards to 15. But not to 21 million.

Sextons need a sense of humour and on 15 April 2013 Mr Wreyford wrote "Delivering Identity Assurance: You must be certified", in which he answered the question how do we members of the public know if we can trust a digital service. Answer, the supplier will be certified by tScheme, an organisation that claims to have worked out how to measure trust. But how do you know if you can trust tScheme?

Further, as one fusspot commenting on Mr Wreyford's post said: "Possibly a silly question – and I may not be reading the article correctly – but shouldn't the [identity] providers be certified *before* being appointed?".

Public performers know how to handle this sort of contumely. Quick as a flash, Mr Wreyford organised the "Digital Identity Summit", 15 October 2013, where GDS were joined by "Australia, Canada, Denmark, Japan, New Zealand and Sweden (sadly the United States were unable to join us due to the shutdown)".

Which may be why there was no time to conduct the HMRC PAYE on-line trial which had been promised for October 2013.

Luckily, while he was busy with the summit, CESG helped by producing "Good Practice Guide 46", 18 October 2013, which good practice may or may not have been implemented in the ID hub which appeared from nowhere on 30 October 2013, "A hub is born", which, in turn, brings us, finally, to "Happy new you", where we started: "Before the end of this year [2014] you’ll be able to use our service to prove that you are who you say you are online. A whole new you, if you like".

We've heard that before, of course. IDA was meant to be live in 2013. And in 2012. Will 2014 be any better? Is there a whole new Steve Wreyford, perhaps? A whole new sexton?

It's wrong to concentrate on Steve Wreyford. He's just the sexton. The senior responsible owner of the graveyard is ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken CBE.

He's the one who said all those years ago on 1 March 2012 that: "GDS has been working closely with DWP to revise the OJEU and agree it with other Departments. In the first instance, IDA digital services will be used to support Universal Credit and the Personal Independence Payment, which from 2013 will replace DWP’s current benefit system". That was in "Identity: One small step for all of Government". In the event, DWP missed their deadline. So did GDS.

And he's the one who, on 16 October 2013, gave the Code for America Summit 2013 the impression that IDA already provides proof of identity to 45 million users.

Is there any reason to believe that 2014 will be the year?

We don't know what happened in the South Yorkshire trial. That can't give us any hope. We know that relations with DWP are rocky. Also with the Electoral Commission. We know that the HMRC trial planned for October 2013 didn't take place. And we know that CloudStore keeps falling over ever since GDS took charge of it – we can't have the ID hub falling over, life would stop.

There is one other potential source of hope.

Warwickshire.

Interoperability between central and local government identity assurance schemes

The project highlighted the issue of accurate data matching, specifically the matching of names and addresses originating from different sources. (p.9)

The complexity of data matching may present a significant barrier to implementation by Service Providers. (p.10)

The project has highlighted shortcomings in the user journey arising from the technical implementation of the IDA Scheme. (p.10)

...  considerably more thought needs to be applied in this area [stepping up from LoA1 to LoA2] if it is to become a viable proposition going forward. (p.10)

... at the time of this project, the functionality required to deliver user data directly within the IDA Scheme [to create a new account] had yet to be developed ... The consequence is that the user is faced with a convoluted process when using the IDA Scheme for the first time. (p.11)

User experience testing was performed in a laboratory environment and involved 5 [sic] users on a one-to-one basis with an experienced research facilitator provided by GDS. Each user had extensive experience of online services including internet banking, government services and social media such as Facebook and Twitter ... The feedback from the small sample of users was generally fairly consistent. (p.12)

Most users would be very reluctant to use their social media accounts with a government site, the prevailing view being that their social life is distinctly separate to doing “business” with government. The issue of privacy and the feeling that government would be able to “see my social life”, or that government transactions would appear in their social media profiles, was of concern. (p.12)

The Hub ... users often struggled as they sought to understand how this method of signing in to government services worked. The Hub service provided the user with a link to a video clip that described the scheme and its purpose ... (pp.12-3)

Users were not clear why private sector companies were being used to carry out identity assurance on behalf of government. (p.13)

Some aspects of the registration processes proved annoying to the users ... (p.13)

Warwickshire County Council conducted a trial of IDA – a very limited, primitive trial:

• They worked with GDS and three of GDS's IDPs – Mydex, PayPal and Verizon (p.7). We don't know when this trial took place. It must have been some time before 3 September 2013 when we learned that PayPal are no longer in the IDA "framework", they've pulled out. One other thing we know is that none of these three is certified by tScheme – as Steve Wreyford has warned us, they are therefore not to be trusted.
• P.5 of OIX's report on the trial says: "The IDA Scheme will eventually support the four recognized levels of identity assurance (as set out in GPG45). In most cases in local government, online services will require a Level of Assurance 1 or 2 (LoA1, LoA2). ... LoA2 is significant in that it is a level of assurance that would be expected to stand up in a Civil Court of Law in England and Wales, but not in a Criminal Court". That's all they tested. This trial can tell us nothing about IDA being proof against fraud, a criminal offence, obviously.
• There is some mention of privacy (p.6) but the extent to which users can be confident that they are in control of their own data was not tested. In the absence of any such test users would be well advised to assume that they can have no confidence on that score.
• "The principle [sic] areas of investigation were ... Users’ acceptance of social media IDs as a means of obtaining personal information for transactions requiring low levels of trust" (p.8). As anyone could have predicted, the sensible people of Warwickshire weren't having any of that nonsense.
• The idea was to see what happens if users try to use IDA to avail themselves of services provided by (a) Warwickshire County Council and (b) DVLA, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. But not the real Warwickshire County Council and not the real DVLA: "The project utilised two Service Providers. The first was a mocked-up central government agency, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) and the second a mocked-up WCC site". Again, the results of the trial must be of limited value.

And what were those results?

They are shown in the sidebar alongside. And they are not flattering to IDA.

The Cabinet Office has had since at least 20 September 2010 to work on IDA. Over three years. And there's clearly a long way to go still, before they have a product.

Not a shining example of agile software engineering.

Nor of the "simpler, clearer, faster" motto of GOV.UK – not if users have to stop and watch a video before they can use the ID hub. "The feedback from the small sample of users was generally fairly consistent", we learn. Consistently what? Hostile? Baffled? Incredulous?

Would the Major Projects Authority give IDA an amber/red rating? Or would they go straight to red?

What is it with GDS and data-matching? Why can't they do it? That was one of the problems they had working with the Electoral Commission.

Warwickshire County Council were hoping that IDA would help them to save money, in view of the cuts being made to local government budgets. In the event, they can have no idea how much IDA would cost to operate. For all they know after this trial, it might be cheaper for DWP staff, for example, to visit people at home.

"Cuts in numbers and pay restraints have combined with mounting evidence of unfitness, for example in commissioning and contracting, together with the profound unwillingness of serving civil servants to think outside the Whitehall box – which increasingly resembles a coffin". That was David Walker writing in the Guardian yesterday.

Coffin?

We've got just the man.

RIP IDA – Warwickshire County Council

No need to say it, it goes without saying, it should be obvious to all but, just in case it isn't obvious to all, IDA is dead.

IDA is the Cabinet Office Identity Assurance programme. And it's dead.

----------

"Happy new you", says Steve Wreyford.

He's the Government Digital Service man (GDS), you'll remember, the sexton, digging the grave for IDA, GDS's identity assurance programme.

"Identity Assurance gets closer to market", he told us over 18 months ago, on 25 May 2012. Four days later we learned from him that "Identity Assurance goes to Washington", which is all very well, but was IDA coming to the UK?

The answer wasn't clear but, next best thing, OIX – "Cabinet Office joins the Open Identity Exchange". That was 14 June 2012. Then there were months of silence before Mr Wreyford claimed that IDA was "Less About Identity, More About Trust" (4 October 2012). Our privacy would be respected by IDA and we would be in control of our data. How? No answer.

Agile is the opposite of waterfall – no

The Iguazu Falls (healthy/agile)

The Department for Work and Pensions have written off millions of pounds spent on developing IT for Universal Credit and we expect the write-off to rise into the hundreds of millions.

How can we stop intelligent organisations from wasting money like this?

Over and over again we are told that the answer is "agile".

Use "agile" software engineering methods and the waste will be minimised.

How? What problem is "agile" solving?

Over and over again we are told that "agile" is to be contrasted with "waterfall". Waste is endemic in "waterfall" software engineering methods. That's the problem. And "agile" will solve it – that's the suggestion.

That's the suggestion made by ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken CBE, for example, when he was over in the US telling the Americans how to do government IT last October:

What is your reaction to HealthCare.gov and what you're reading and seeing regarding failures of what was meant to be an Expedia shopping for health coverage? Yeah ... I'll say this with no sense of enjoyment whatsoever, but it feels a bit like Groundhog Day to where we were three or four years ago. Hundreds of millions of dollars, large-scale IT enterprise technology, no real user testing, no real focus on end users, all done behind a black box, and not in an agile way but in a big waterfall way, which is a software methodology. And basically not proven good value, and I'm afraid to say I've got example after example in the U.K. in the past where we've had that experience. So it looks just like one of those.

As a further example, that's the suggestion in Richard Bacon MP and Christopher Hope's Conundrum: Why every government gets things wrong and what we can do about it, pp.240-1:

The traditional approach to software development is often known as 'waterfall' development: that is, you plan, build, test, review and then deploy, in a relentless cascade. But some IT industry players regard this practice as the chief problem ...A rather different answer which has emerged in the last ten to fifteen years has been what are called 'Agile Systems', perhaps best described as a philosophical movement in action within the software industry.

Niagara Falls, January 2014 (unhealthy/DWP)

The suggestion is nonsense. There's nothing wrong with the "waterfall" method. You can't get away from the "waterfall" method. All the "waterfall" method says is that you can't deploy a system until you've coded and tested it and you can't code and test it until you've designed it and you can't design it until you've analysed the requirements.

If you reject the "waterfall" method, you must believe that you should start designing a system before you know what's required and if you believe that then you're no use to the benefit claimants who need Universal Credit.

All that its proponents tell us about "agile" is that it's not "waterfall". But the "waterfall" method is right. It's the only method there is. It must be. There it is right bang in the middle of the "agile" method professed by ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken CBE's Government Digital Service – first you have a discovery phase, then an alpha and a beta, then you go live. That's a waterfall.

You can iterate, of course. You can have one release/deployment after another as the system is maintained and enhanced. But what you're iterating is a waterfall. There is no escape from the waterfall. And no need to escape from it. What would you be escaping from? From the belief that you must analyse before you design? But that's madness.

Madness won't solve DWP's problems. And those problems are not diagnosed simply by saying "waterfall" as though that's all bad and "agile", whatever it is, as though that's all good.

This distinction being touted between "agile" and "waterfall" is false.

----------

The picture of Mr Boehm's spiral has been added, as have the hyperlinks in the four citations at the end. but otherwise unchanged here's an extract from someone's essay written 12 years ago in February 2002 as part of his MSc in software engineering taken after 25 years of doing the job. For what it's worth:

Waterfall ... After that, it is pleasant to come back to the chirpy school magazine style of Requirenautics Quarterly [[1]]. There is not a megalomaniac or religious fanatic in sight and it is packed with sensible articles: a quick review by Ian Alexander of Barry Boehm's WinWin including a copy of every IT man's favourite cartoon; a long article by Ralph Young on how to help everyone; a good contrarian contribution by Richard Veryard in praise of scope creep; some helpful thoughts on abstraction and scenario-building by Ian Alexander; and a long series of book reviews contributed by the same man. One of the book reviews covers Ralph Young's book, Effective Requirements Practices. The review is witty, sensible, fair and acute but there is one sore thumb sticking out of it. Quite out of the blue, Mr Alexander writes (p.12): ... Something that they both agree on [Michael Jackson and Ralph Young] is that the waterfall model is inadequate: engineering development certainly does not follow a straight line path. Why does he say this? It adds nothing to his review. It is gratuitous cruelty. The waterfall model is like some unfortunate dog that no-one can pass without kicking. Some people will even go to the trouble of crossing the road just so that they can kick it: Mr Alexander, for example; and Messrs Bowen and Hinchey in their Ten Commandments of Formal Methods [[2]] – you would think that they had enough on their plate but, no (8th commandment): ... System development is by no means a straight-forward one-pass process. Royce's 'Waterfall' model of system development [[3]] was abandoned because of the simplistic view it held of system development .... People have been kicking it for years; kicking it seems to be an 11th commandment; but there's something funny about this dog – it's still there, it's always there, it doesn't matter how much you kick it, it just won't go away. Why? The waterfall method is supposed to be all wrong. How silly to think that a specification can ever be finished or that development can ever end! Well, yes, it is silly, but who ever thought that? The merest charwoman knows that she must dust over and over again, the dust keeps coming and she must keep dusting it away. Are we to suppose that once upon a time, in some dark age or some foreign country, users and system developers didn't realise this, unlike charwomen, and thought that requirements could be fixed finally and forever? Show me one of these system developers. Introduce me to one of these mythical users who would sign off a specification and then wait patiently and confidently for six years to have the perfect system delivered. I don't think they ever existed. Attacks on the waterfall method are attacks on an Aunt Sally. "What about Government contracts, then", you may ask? "They always insist on quoting a fixed fee for a fixed specification." Do they? Show me. I'd be interested. I've never seen a government contract. Perhaps they are as stupid as you suggest. Silly old government. But perhaps they aren't. Perhaps the contracts do allow for change. If you attack the waterfall method, does that mean that you think that you shouldn't analyse and design before you start coding? No, it is generally recognised that actually that is a rather sensible order to perform these tasks in. You can play games with the topology, of course: ·  You can say that the evolutionary method is better than the waterfall method. But all you've done then is to string out system development into a long series of ... waterfall cycles, each iteration with a bit of requirements capture followed by a bit of design followed by a bit of implementation and, yes, we'd probably better have a spot of acceptance testing before going into production. You're still using the waterfall method and, frankly, it would be surprising if you weren't. ·  Alternatively, if you really can't stand straight lines, spirals may be more your bag, with quick access from one iteration to the next, optionally cutting out a few phases of the waterfall cycle. But you're still actually acknowledging that the waterfall model is there, wrapped up in one of Mr Boehm's spirals. You can't get away from it and there is no reason to try. What does this achieve? It reinforces the point that all the processes involved in system development have to be performed iteratively and that progress is incremental. That should always have been clear anyway. It doesn't add anything to the original model and it doesn't make the original model wrong. So, I think that it may be time now for us to stop kicking the poor old dog. We should give it a shower, start feeding it properly and take it out for walks with us. The waterfall model should be treated as the long-suffering, worthy and faithful member of the software engineering family that it has always been. This dog deserves our warm regard and respect. After 30 years of this sort of vilification Mr Royce, the dog's breeder, has probably suffered his own Darkness At Noon [[4]] and brain-washed himself into believing that the waterfall model is a legitimate target for any passing boot. He should be rehabilitated. [1] Requirenautics Quarterly, BCS RESG, Issue 24, July 2001. [2]Bowen, Jonathan P. & Hinchey, Michael G., Ten Commandments of Formal Methods. [3]Royce, W.W., "Managing the Development of Large Software Systems", Proc. WESTCON'70, August 1970. [4]Koestler, Arthur, Darkness At Noon, Jonathon Cape, 1940. __________________________________________________________________

Agile is the opposite of waterfall – no

The Iguazu Falls (healthy/agile)

The Department for Work and Pensions have written off millions of pounds spent on developing IT for Universal Credit and we expect the write-off to rise into the hundreds of millions.

How can we stop intelligent organisations from wasting money like this?

Over and over again we are told that the answer is "agile".

Use "agile" software engineering methods and the waste will be minimised.

How? What problem is "agile" solving?

Over and over again we are told that "agile" is to be contrasted with "waterfall". Waste is endemic in "waterfall" software engineering methods. That's the problem. And "agile" will solve it – that's the suggestion.

What do you think about Parliament holding the government to account? It would be a good idea

The Blunders of Our Governments by Anthony King and Ivor Crewe

If you have to choose between reading this book and Conundrum by Richard Bacon and Christopher Hope, don't. Read them both.

Messrs King and Crewe start, like Bacon and Hope, with the descriptions of a dozen examples of UK government blunders. They then diagnose the problems and write out their eminently sensible prescriptions.

Private Eye get just one citation in Blunders and no citation at all in Conundrum. Which is odd – not much seems to get past Private Eye. If there's a bit of public maladministration going on, they seem to hear about it and they report it.

The same cannot be said of other media outlets, whether printed, broadcast or on-line. Many blunders simply do not get picked up. They fail to become scandals, as Messrs King and Crewe point out, even when they're huge.

Parisians call it the "Metro" and new Yorkers call it the "Subway". We Londoners call it the "tube". And when Labour came to power in 1997 the tube was falling to pieces. Gordon Brown and John Prescott set about fixing it.

They wanted to outsource the risk to the private sector. And they didn't want the cost appearing in the national accounts. "The magic you want in that case", they were told, "is a public-private partnership, a PPP". They were told this by armies of bankers and lawyers and accountants and consultants and contractors, all of whom proceeded to run rings round Brown and Prescott and, as Messrs King and Crewe tell us in Chapter 14, Down the tubes (p.221):

Although the figures are open to dispute ..., the PPP blunder certainly cost UK taxpayers not less than about £2.5 billion and probably far, far more, possibly in the region of £20-£30 billion.

£30 billion (maybe), and the media never got this scandal – the Metronet scandal – into the public consciousness.

But so what? You don't imagine that the perpetrators suffer, do you, even if their blunder does become a scandal? Surely you don't still believe that the buck must stop somewhere, mustn't it? With Whitehall officials, whose job it is to advise ministers and to implement policy? Or with ministers?

No. There's a lot of talk about accountability and responsibility. Baroness Jay once managed to lay on two hours of entertainment provided by not one, not two, not three but four former Cabinet Secretaries talking about these strange private sector concepts. And only the other day the current Cabinet Secretary said it was "unfair" to blame the Permanent Secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions for the Universal Credit blunders and what's more it was "harming civil service morale".

There's a lot of talk but as things stand Whitehall officials can't be penalised effectively and neither can their ministers, however much their blunders cost the taxpayer. Messrs King and Crewe are adamant (p.348):

... the idea that individual ministers should be held accountable still has a hold on the British psyche. People want to believe it. They half do believe it. They imagine that from time to time, even if not often, ministers who make serious mistakes are held accountable and are punished accordingly. Whenever a cabinet minister is in trouble, the House of Commons resounds with opposition cries of "Resign!", and editorials in newspapers often call for resignations. Whenever an individual minister has signally failed in either policy or administrative terms, it is somehow felt that he or she ought to resign, that he or she might possibly do the honourable thing and actually choose to resign. It is also felt that, if the individual in question does not resign voluntarily then the prime minister should step in and sack him or her. Sadly, our study of blunders points in the opposite direction. It suggests that the doctrine of individual ministerial responsibility is even more mythical than most people realise. It suggests that ministers guilty of even the grossest biunders are almost never held to account or punished in any way. On the contrary, most minister-blunderers, even if they can be clearly identified, survive politically and prosper ...

... and, à propos, Gordon Brown put in ten years as Chancellor of the Exchequer and three years as Prime Minister despite Metronet.

What do you think about Parliament holding the government to account? It would be a good idea. As Messrs King and Crewe say, Parliament has become "peripheral" and (p.366):

More MPs could usefully see themselves as real legislators and not just as social workers, cheerleaders, askers of questions and occasionally – once blunders have already been committed – conductors of belated post-mortem inquests.

Their book is a plea for Parliament to do its job of deliberation properly. At the moment, too often, unnecessarily and expensively, it fails. That's the final point they make in the main body of the book before a Postscript covering the coalition government to date, deliberation – there are more effective ways of deliberating than are currently used at Westminster or in Whitehall.

One quibble.

The notion of ministers, officials and their consultants and contractors being accountable the way the rest of us are does not exist solely in the "British psyche". It's also on the statute book. There is an offence known as "misfeasance in public office".

There are sound arguments that you don't want to push this sort of thing too far because democracy might shatter. Be careful what you wish for, and all that.

There are also sound arguments that in a democracy no-one is above the law. Not even the legislators.

Suppose that, in connection with Universal Credit, someone brought a charge of misfeasance in public office against Iain Duncan Smith, Robert Devereux and the UK heads of Accenture, IBM, HP and BT. Would democracy shatter, do you think, and let in some latter-day Stalin? Or would the effect of the law being enforced be more likely to cause Parliament in future to deliberate more effectively?

Answers in the second edition of this excellent book, please.

----------

Updated 13.1.14
DMossEsq, the lawyer? No.

Misfeasance in public office is not on the statute book. Joshua Rozenberg tells us that: "Misfeasance in public office is a tort - a civil claim that does not rely on the existence of a contract between the parties. It was not created by legislation: instead, it forms part of the common law, the distilled wisdom of judges through the ages".

In The English Law, chapter 6 of his England: An Elegy, Roger Scruton argues that common law is distinctive of the peculiar English character, it is an expression of the national psyche. To describe the idea of individual ministerial responsibility as having a hold on the British psyche, as Messrs King and Crewe do, is in that case profoundly accurate. No quibble there after all.

Further, as Duncan Fairgrieve tells us: "Misfeasance in public office is the only specifically ‘public law’ tort, and provides a remedy for citizens who have suffered loss due to the abuse of power by a public officer acting in bad faith". Since the UK heads of Accenture, IBM, HP and BT aren't public officers, even if they are the agents of public officers, it might be hard to bring a case of misfeasance in public office against them.

That said, there remains in this British psyche, at least, an ineradicable belief that there's something wrong with government being a responsibility-free zone.


Updated 13.1.17

RIP:
• Times obituary
• Telegraph

What do you think about Parliament holding the government to account? It would be a good idea

The Blunders of Our Governments by Anthony King and Ivor Crewe

If you have to choose between reading this book and Conundrum by Richard Bacon and Christopher Hope, don't. Read them both.

Messrs King and Crewe start, like Bacon and Hope, with the descriptions of a dozen examples of UK government blunders. They then diagnose the problems and write out their eminently sensible prescriptions.

Private Eye get just one citation in Blunders and no citation at all in Conundrum. Which is odd – not much seems to get past Private Eye. If there's a bit of public maladministration going on, they seem to hear about it and they report it.

The same cannot be said of other media outlets, whether printed, broadcast or on-line. Many blunders simply do not get picked up. They fail to become scandals, as Messrs King and Crewe point out, even when they're huge.

Parisians call it the "Metro" and new Yorkers call it the "Subway". We Londoners call it the "tube". And when Labour came to power in 1997 the tube was falling to pieces. Gordon Brown and John Prescott set about fixing it.

A Conundrum for the Electoral Commission

This morning the UK woke up to be told that the Electoral Commission proposes to introduce photo-ID for voting. It's one of those ideas that sound sensible until you investigate them.

How best to get this point across?

What better than a gift to the Chair of the Commission?

A gift with a message: "Dear Ms Watson Re PhotoID to vote, to avoid starring rôle in 2nd edition of Bacon&Hope's Conundrum (attached, pls enjoy), suggest large-scale independent trial first before reluctantly abandoning apparently good idea. Best wishes, DMossEsq".

---

From: auto-confirm@amazon.co.uk [mailto:auto-confirm@amazon.co.uk]
Sent: 08 January 2014 16:34
To: David Moss
Subject: Your Amazon.co.uk order

January Deals | Your Account | Amazon.co.uk Order Confirmation Order #204-7077346-0733905 Hello, Thanks for your order. We’ll let you know once your item(s) have dispatched. Your estimated delivery date is indicated below. You can view the status of your order or make changes to it by visiting Your Orders on Amazon.co.uk. Your estimated delivery date is: Tuesday, January 14, 2014 - Thursday, January 16, 2014 Your delivery option: Super Saver Delivery Your order will be sent to: Jenny Watson Chair Electoral Commission 3 Bunhill Row London, EC1Y 8YZ United Kingdom This order contains one or more items that you've marked as a gift. Order Details Order #204-7077346-0733905 Placed on January 08, 2014 Conundrum: Why every government gets things wrong and what we can do about it Sold by Amazon EU S.a.r.L. Gift wrap: No Gift Message: Dear Ms Watson Re PhotoID to vote, to avoid starring rôle in 2nd edition of Bacon&Hope's Conundrum (attached, pls enjoy), suggest large-scale independent trial first before reluctantly abandoning apparently good idea. Best wishes, DMossEsq £12.23 Item Subtotal: £12.23 Delivery & Handling: £0.00 Order Total: £12.23 Selected Payment Method: Visa Need to make changes to your order? Visit our Help page for more information and video guides. We hope to see you again soon. Amazon.co.uk Unless otherwise noted, items sold by Amazon EU Sarl are subject to Value Added Tax based on country of delivery in accordance with the EU laws on distance selling. If your order contains one or more items from a seller other than Amazon EU Sarl, it may also be subject to VAT, depending upon the seller's business policies and the location of their operations. Learn more about VAT and seller information. This e-mail is only an acknowledgement of receipt of your order. Your contract to purchase these items is not complete until we send you an e-mail notifying you that the items have been dispatched. Please note: This e-mail was sent from a notification-only address that can't accept incoming e-mail. Please do not reply to this message.

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Dispatched:

From: Amazon.co.uk [mailto:auto-shipping@amazon.co.uk]
Sent: 08 January 2014 22:53
To: David Moss
Subject: Your Amazon.co.uk order of "Conundrum: Why every..." has been dispatched

January Deals | Your Orders | Amazon.co.uk Dispatch Confirmation Order #204-7077346-0733905 Hello, We thought you'd like to know that we've dispatched your item(s). Your gift order is on the way, and can no longer be changed. If you need to return an item or manage other orders, please visit Your Orders on Amazon.co.uk. Your estimated delivery date is: Tuesday, January 14, 2014 No tracking information. Why? Your order was sent to: Jenny Watson Chair Electoral Commission 3 Bunhill Row London, EC1Y 8YZ United Kingdom This delivery contains one or more items that you've marked as a gift Your item(s) is (are) being sent by Royal Mail. This order does not have an associated tracking number.

A Conundrum for the Electoral Commission

This morning the UK woke up to be told that the Electoral Commission proposes to introduce photo-ID for voting. It's one of those ideas that sound sensible until you investigate them.

How best to get this point across?

Bacon and Hope's faith is a mystery

Conundrum: Why every government gets things wrong and what we can do about it
by Richard Bacon MP and Christopher Hope

As a member of the Public Accounts Committee, Richard Bacon has been an observer for years of the scandalous failures of our government in the UK. Not just an observer. An energetic and noble investigator as well.

In the first 12 chapters, he and Mr Hope tackle the gruesome Child Support Agency, the UK Passport Agency that couldn't issue passports, HM Treasury's tax credits fiasco, and nine more government failures.

They write clearly and authoritatively and it would be a pleasure to read their prose if it weren't for the fact that what we're reading is the story of how billions of pounds of public money have been wasted by the Executive – by Whitehall and the Ministers in political charge of Whitehall.

With 12 sets of raw material to work on, they then give themselves five chapters to do what it says in the title. That is, to explain why governments get things wrong and to suggest what we can do about it.

Messrs Bacon and Hope quote from a large number of studies of the problem. Again, they write very well. And it's a valuable service, hugely appreciated, to bring together so much of the literature in one place.

The many solutions proposed over the past 30 years or so are analysed with philosophical rigour, touching on the constraints of politics in a democracy. None of these proposals has worked – the same lurid mistakes carry on being made, Whitehall remains too often unbusinesslike and irresponsible.

Can Messrs Bacon and Hope succeed where everyone else has failed?

No. Regrettably.

In Chapter 13, which is devoted specifically to the failures of government IT, they tentatively suggest that "agile" software engineering methods might work better than "waterfall" methods. No. They might do better to consider Professor Sir Martyn Thomas's advice to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee – formalised languages.

And at the end of their tether , in Chapter 17, they assert that advances in behavioural psychology will improve the record of delivery by government. This desperate gesture is based on the fact that we humans share 98 percent of our DNA with chimpanzees and on the success of Whitehall's Behavioural Insights Team in improving the rate at which people in Devon pay tax by "nudging" them.

The Behavioural Insights Team (RIP) have made no suggestions what to do about the 12 chapters of Whitehall's delivery failures. No suggestions, at least, recorded by Messrs Bacon and Hope. Nor have any of the other behavioural psychologists they cite, the Thalers, Sunsteins and Kahnemans of this world. Bacon and Hope's faith is a mystery.

The National Audit Office reported that Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs pay their contractors' invoices on the ASPIRE project even though they often don't know what the invoices are for. The contractors have been asked for a breakdown but they refuse to provide it. You don't need to be a behavioural psychologist nor a Nobel Prize-winning economist to know that this practice is unbusinesslike and irresponsible.

Arguably this practice, like the scores of derelictions in Bacon and Hope's first 12 chapters, amounts to misfeasance in public office. That is an offence. And prosecuting one or two of these offences might have a salutary effect while we're waiting to see what the chimpanzees can teach us.

Bacon and Hope's faith is a mystery

Conundrum: Why every government gets things wrong and what we can do about it
by Richard Bacon MP and Christopher Hope

As a member of the Public Accounts Committee, Richard Bacon has been an observer for years of the scandalous failures of our government in the UK. Not just an observer. An energetic and noble investigator as well.

In the first 12 chapters, he and Mr Hope tackle the gruesome Child Support Agency, the UK Passport Agency that couldn't issue passports, HM Treasury's tax credits fiasco, and nine more government failures.

They write clearly and authoritatively and it would be a pleasure to read their prose if it weren't for the fact that what we're reading is the story of how billions of pounds of public money have been wasted by the Executive – by Whitehall and the Ministers in political charge of Whitehall.

With 12 sets of raw material to work on, they then give themselves five chapters to do what it says in the title. That is, to explain why governments get things wrong and to suggest what we can do about it.

Messrs Bacon and Hope quote from a large number of studies of the problem. Again, they write very well. And it's a valuable service, hugely appreciated, to bring together so much of the literature in one place.

The many solutions proposed over the past 30 years or so are analysed with philosophical rigour, touching on the constraints of politics in a democracy. None of these proposals has worked – the same lurid mistakes carry on being made, Whitehall remains too often unbusinesslike and irresponsible.

Can Messrs Bacon and Hope succeed where everyone else has failed?