Update On IT Incinerator

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 02, 2009

Update On IT Incinerator

The Times/Computer Weekly have produced an update on the government's ongoing IT fiascos. BOM readers will be familiar with all of them, but to see them added together still brings on a scream:

• Over-runs on the 8 largest projects now total £18.6bn - about £750 for every single British household


• NHS supercomputer - when last sighted its initial budget had ballooned nearly sixfold to £12.7bn; it's nowhere near finished and one of its key objectives - that all NHS facilities should be forced to use the same patient record system - has been abandoned; as a result, two of the main contractors are threatening to walk away, and an ex-contractor is suing for £600m compensation


• HMRC tax credit system has already over-run threefold to £8.5bn


• Despite its manifest and repeated failure to manage big IT projects, HMG still plans to spend £102.3bn over the next five years; nobody seriously believes it will deliver anything like what it says on the tin

Given such an appalling record, what on earth can be done? Tony Collins, the redoubtable Editor of Computer Weekly, says Parliament should get more involved at an early stage:

"MPs should scrutinise IT projects and programmes before they are approved formally, instead of when constituents complain.

MPs are not computer experts. But they don’t need to be. They could challenge assumptions about costs and time frames, and test whether officials understand fully the commitments they are about to make. They could soon discover whether the complexity has been underestimated.

The preference of government, however, is for continued secrecy over its biggest schemes — what it calls “mission-critical” projects. The Government is even willing to go to the High Court to stop the publication of early “gateway” reviews — which assess risky projects — on the ID cards scheme. This culture of secrecy and lack of parliamentary scrutiny before a project starts to implode can only contribute to the cycle of failure."

It sounds like sensible advice, and he's spot on about the damage we suffer because of HMG's obsessive secrecy (the crazy ID cards project being a prime example).

But the key problem here - the key reason these mega-projects burn so much of our cash - is the simple fact that Big Government simply doesn't do competence and efficiency.

During our trip to Bicester Village, Tyler picked up a remaindered copy of Paul Ormerod's splendid book Why Most Things Fail. We've blogged his ideas before (see here).

In essence what he says is that, just like in evolution, in economic life most things end in failure. Failure is virtually universal, whereas success is rare and totally unpredictable. Which means that to thrive as a society, we need diversity and experimentation. We need to ensure that despite the huge preponderance of failure, we still get enough successes to move forward.

Compare and contrast with Big Government's top-down one-size-fits-all IT projects. Does anyone seriously believe that a combination of here today gone tomorrow politicos, cult-of-the-amateur mandarins, and blood-sucking consultants, will somehow be able to hit on the magic formula that delivers success in the face of almost universal failure?

We know the real solution.

But we still haven't discovered how to get those turkeys voting for it.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 01, 2009

News From BOM Correspondents - 14

Latest news and links:

International Aid Gravy Train

We've blogged the outrageous aid quango CDC (the old Commonwealth Development Corporation) many times (eg see here). It's wholly owned by us, has a woolly mandate to spray around billions of our cash pretty well as it pleases, and pays its top executives up to £1m pa. Nice work if you can get it, especially now such work has dried up in the real world.

In the real world, we taxpayers are struggling to clear up the gigantic mess left by our "financial engineers", but CDC has decided it's a good time to slosh another $30m of our cash into a private fund which will engineer mezzanine debt and small company buy-outs in south-east Asia.

On top of that, it's putting $10m of our friggin' cash into small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Kazakhstan. Yes, that's Kazakhstan, as in "corruption in Kazakhstan is systemic, even within the country's anti-corruption agency, and no public office is free... corruption is a serious problem for SMEs... in 2006 alone, SMEs spent between USD 1.3 billion and USD 2 billion on corruption".

So that's another $10m in bribes. And like we've said before, we've yet to see anyserious evidence that the billions we spend on so-called development aid does any good whatsoever... except, that is, to those employed in the aid industry. (One of Tyler's Xmas pressie books was William Easterley's The White Man's Burden - once read we will report back).

(HTP Joan W)

British Council Gravy Train

David Blackie's excellent blog The Language Business remains the definitive commentary on how Lord Kinnockio's BC manages to squander hundreds of millions of our cash every year.

Last week, for example, he highlighted how the BC has blown £7m on some half-baked project in Sierra Leone. The project was supposedly teaching grateful natives about "justice", but it's so far involved £200 grand being siphoned out of the accounts - possibly by the local Director - and another BC "expert" reportedly evading local taxes on his luxury imported 4x4.

Being a member of the Lords, my Lord K knows all about pits of incompetence and corruption, but this sounds like a humdinger.

Andif you want to get really REALLY ANGRY about how the BC wastes YOURmoney, A Reader suggests you take a look at this job ad from the British Council Canada. For $60K pa they want to employ a Climate Change Programme Manager.

Apparently, climate change - or rather, climate change propaganda - forms an important part of BC's work in Canada. EG: "Cape Farewell is aimed at raising awareness about climate change by bringing together artists, educators and scientists on a voyage through the Norwegian Arctic... The International Climate Champions (ICCs) are helping young people and their communities tackle climate change."

So we British taxpayers are not only being forced to fund the BBC's eco propaganda here at home*, but we're also having to fund it in Canada. WTF! (* The excellent Mr Booker has another good piece today savaging the £3.5bn pa tax-funded BBC's eco propaganda, and news that it has explicitly rejected balanced and objective reporting in this area - a jaw-dropping point already blogged by us - ahem -nearly two years ago).


Temping Quangocrats Gravy Train

We've blogged the comically named NHS Professionals before. Back in 2006 we explained how it was a quango set up specifically to reduce the huge amount of money (at that time £800m pa) the NHS spends on expensive temporary agency nurses. And how its female head put us in mind of an operative from Nails4U in Basildon.

Well, guess what - this quango set up specifically to reduce the amount spent on expensive temps actually hired expensive temps to manage itself:

"It cost taxpayers £1,700 a day to secure the services of John Faraguna as chief executive of NHS Professionals, and £1,150 a day to employ Stephen Dangerfield as director of operations.

Their salaries came via contracts which cost the taxpayer almost £750,000 in one year."

Gah!

(HTP Steve)


ACPO Gravy Train

We've blogged the various police associations a few times, pointing out that even though they are staff associations, they are effectively quangos almost entirely funded by taxpayers.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) is a particularly high profile association, and is wholly funded by us. Clearly, there's sense in Chief Police Officers having a regular forum for sharing ideas, but what does it cost us? Unlike most quangos we have no idea: ACPO's website is silent.

Now Bambibasher highlights some recent discussion on the Army Rumour Service! which explains why. Apparently, because ACPO is constituted as a limited company, it's exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. So the only way of finding out what it costs is to FOI the people who fund it - ie all the individual police authorities and the Home Office.

Frankly, life's too short for that, but BB FOI'd his own authority Sussex, and they said £800 grand pa. Which, if you scale it up for the 40 odd authorities in E&W and add a bit for the Home Office gives us perhaps £40m pa.

So what do they do with all that dosh? And what dark purpose is served by making them exempt from FOI?

Doubtless you can draw your own conclusions.

(HTP Tim C)


Digital Gravy Train

Pete S highlights the proposed new digital rights quango. It will be funded by a new £20 pa licence fee on broadband connections. Pete comments:

"Internet companies are ALREADY required to hand over information about copyright-breakers to film and music companies if they obtain a court order. So what is taxing us for this additional pointless unelected quango going to achieve?

Whilst the rest of Europe slashes broadband costs and increases bandwidth to consumers, our costs in UK are increasing …

This is the beginning of an internet licence which will run alongside the tv licence."

We fear he's absolutely right.


Their Lordships' Gravy Train

A Tory presents the House of Lords Screwing The Taxpayer Awards 2009. Just as a taster, the coveted Overnight Subsistence Award is won this year by Baroness Bonham-Carter, who claimed £30,524 for accommodation.

AT comments "The House of Lords might not get the same degree of publicity or fame as the House of Commons, but that doesn’t stop its moral, decent and entirely ethical members making their lives as comfortable as possible at the taxpayers’ expense."

The good news of course is that their Lordships now seem to have bought themselves a one-way ticket to oblivion.

And good riddance. It is bizarre and entirely unacceptable for a 21st century democracy to have a legislative chamber comprised of unelected placemen. And yes, we do realise their Lordships include some perfectly decent and able coves. And yes we do realise that elected representatives are not invariably honourable or even competent. But come on.


Horribly Derailed Gravy Train

Finally, A Reader reckons Tyler's posts about the economic crisis have got far too upbeat. He suggests BOM readers should take a reality check with US commentator Karl "You Can't Help Laughing" Denninger. Here's a sample:

"The Fed... would have to print up literally $20 trillion dollars to halt the collapse and should they attempt it the dollar would collapse instead... This would produce a monetary and market implosion twice as bad as what occurred in Iceland overnight.

... When regulation of credit is abdicated to the degree we have seen in the last five years the resulting credit collapse cannot be avoided...

We stand on the edge of the failure of all of American's retirement assets. Literally all of them... If the Treasury and Stock market both sell off as I believe both can and is likely to happen if the current policies are continued essentially ALL American Retirement Assets will be destroyed. Total losses through these systems is likely to reach 80-90%, and the Boomers start retiring "en-masse" just a few years from now.

In short, if policies are not changed now there will be no retirement for Americans and the currently-retired who rely on these funds will find them gone and be forced back into the workplace. Unemployment in that scenario is likely to reach and may exceed 20%, and what's worse, Medicare funding will be severely curtailed at the same time due to the inability of the government to fund it."

So if you think BOM is depressing, think on.