Universal benefit - £0.425bn to be written off.

grizzly1911

The implementation of the government's flagship welfare reform has been "extraordinarily poor", with much of the £425m expenditure to date likely to be written off, MPs have said.
The Commons Public Accounts Committee said oversight of the Universal Credit scheme had been "alarmingly weak".



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24839358


Apparently IDS has expressed


"every confidence" in the team now running the programme.


Which in political speak means they will be reorganised shortly.


Anyone know who the IT consultants were?

Loughton_Monkey

Consultants: Accenture

Typical Hodge Bodge of the blind leading the blind.

michaels

Who have thought it? Changing the ministers has no impact on the Public Sector's ability to deliver IT projects.

How come Tesco, Google and Amazon can run web front-end databases but the public sector can not - do they spend more or is it all down to the project managment?

Carl31

michaels wrote: »

Who have thought it? Changing the ministers has no impact on the Public Sector's ability to deliver IT projects.

How come Tesco, Google and Amazon can run front end databases but the public sector can not - do they spend more or is it all down to the project managment?

Accountability isnt it? taxpayers cant vote with their feet if the service is not up to scratch, hence it doesnt really matter what happens with publicly funded projects, as no one will kick up a fuss

Loughton_Monkey

michaels wrote: »

Who have thought it? Changing the ministers has no impact on the Public Sector's ability to deliver IT projects.

How come Tesco, Google and Amazon can run web front-end databases but the public sector can not - do they spend more or is it all down to the project managment?

Reasons include:

The Tesco's and Amazon's of this world know exactly what they want their IT systems to do, and can articulate this clearly to designers.

They will have recruited very competent Systems Analysts & Programmers who know the business well.

They will have properly tendered cometitively for any outside consultancy help.

They will use well trained and experienced project managers to ensure delivery.

Look at MOD for the worst possible examples of procurement and changes to requirements without understanding (or caring) the cost implications.

antrobus

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Consultants: Accenture
....

Or as they were once known as; Arthur Andersen. Now whatever happened to them?

Graham_Devon

michaels wrote: »

How come Tesco, Google and Amazon can run web front-end databases but the public sector can not - do they spend more or is it all down to the project managment?

The public sector can run decent databases. They run thousands of the things. Council tax databases etc for instance run absolutely fine. Hundreds of NHS databases run without a hitch.

The problem with all the others is that they are never thought out. These are the "politics driven" databases. The databases that are created on the back of a sudden policy. To create a successful database you need to know what data is required and what output is required.

As we are all aware, policies seem to change at the drop of a hat, and therefore the IT systems also have to change to encompass that.

You end up with a database that started life meaning to carry out function C, but actually carrying out function Y with loads of other useless functions in the middle that were required at some point.

The databases are not really the problem. It's short term politics thats the issue where something is simply invented by a politician and then changed ocntinually from that point onwards.

There have been private database issues. Many of them. G4S is one example. Ryanairs database and software has had numerous hiccups. Hell, even the banks have trouble at times. Npower recently had problems with their databases when upgrading. It's not unique to the public sector, though thr public sector has far more "at a whim" databases created due to politics.

kabayiri

Pride is a big problem when it comes to major IT spend.

It's very difficult for people to admit they got it wrong.

Personally, I don't mind. They could throw 400 million away quite happily for me if they spent a few months working out their mistakes and fixing things. It would be cheaper in the long run.

Unfortunately, learning the lessons of past mistakes is not a commonplace activity.

Google are interesting. The Mountain view lot have been known to try new projects and dump those which don't bear fruit.

[Deleted User]

I am currently writing some software for the NHS. It was due to be delivered today. It connects two of their software packages together to make them work seamlessly. I completed my testing on Tuesday.

TODAY - I get sent a set of new specifications and have re-evaluate all my work. It was all due to be completed for handover today.

Bloody public service... I can just imagine how the Universal credit system become unworkable after a typical 'design by committee' process

grizzly1911

Graham_Devon wrote: »

The public sector can run decent databases. They run thousands of the things. Council tax databases etc for instance run absolutely fine. Hundreds of NHS databases run without a hitch.

The problem with all the others is that they are never thought out. These are the "politics driven" databases. The databases that are created on the back of a sudden policy. To create a successful database you need to know what data is required and what output is required.

As we are all aware, policies seem to change at the drop of a hat, and therefore the IT systems also have to change to encompass that.

You end up with a database that started life meaning to carry out function C, but actually carrying out function Y with loads of other useless functions in the middle that were required at some point.

The databases are not really the problem. It's short term politics thats the issue where something is simply invented by a politician and then changed ocntinually from that point onwards.

There have been private database issues. Many of them. G4S is one example. Ryanairs database and software has had numerous hiccups. Hell, even the banks have trouble at times. Npower recently had problems with their databases when upgrading. It's not unique to the public sector, though thr public sector has far more "at a whim" databases created due to politics.

No doubt having databases C-Y isn't a problem in themselves it is then how the interact with all the other legacy databases built and designed at different times for a multitude of different owners, purposes with disparate support functions.

Some that will be held together with selotape and string and formatted on slate.

No doubt your Tescos and Amazons have a clearer evolving design from relatively modern or virgin platforms that are more "plug and play."

michaels

grizzly1911 wrote: »

No doubt having databases C-Y isn't a problem in themselves it is then how the interact with all the other legacy databases built and designed at different times for a multitude of different owners, purposes with disparate support functions.

Some that will be held together with selotape and string and formatted on slate.

No doubt your Tescos and Amazons have a clearer evolving design from relatively modern or virgin platforms that are more "plug and play."

But a lot of banks don't and yet they seem to manage to get different legacy systems to work together after mergers and add a web front end that appears to make all the bits work together like a seamless whole. (98% of the time anyway).

I wonder if a big issue is the difference between making a system work for everybody, rather than just everybody who chooses to use it (with a selection bias working against Govt IT, those who are unabel to use IT are probably over-represented in those who qualify for universal credit).

Also of course with private sector IT, people chose to use it and thus are happy to fit in with the supplier's process where as with govt IT there is a perception that the IT should support the process the customer knows (and loves?!)