General Chat

Reports in recent weeks on several of the governments flagship policies are a sorry indictment of sheer incompetence. They highlight millions of pounds of taxpayers money literally being poured down the drain, this at a time of austerity where we are all being told we need to live within our means, these are only four of the policies where money is being wasted, there are probably many more:-

Royal Mail privatisation - botched-up
Universal Credit - botched-up
Spare Room Subsidy (Bedroom Tax) - botched-up
Armed Services Recruitment Programme - botched-up

We pay Cabinet Ministers around £135,000 a year, excluding all their perks, to oversee the implementation of government policies - yet time after time the implementation of policies are allowed to get out of control and they end up costing the taxpayer millions of pounds, money that was never budgeted for - if this happened in the private sector you would struggle to keep your job.

Over the past week both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have said the government will need to make further cuts to the welfare budget, well I suppose someone has to pay for the botch-ups, because to quote that famous phrase, "we are all in this together" ;-)

They've probably contracted out IT set-ups to the lowest tender - its not unknown for contractors to submit a bare bones quote knowing full well that there will be 'add ons'.

In other instances, one gets the impression that Ministers come up with a bright idea which they push through, even when their Ministry civil servants tell them it will never work.

Reading some reports there seems to be a lot of infighting, not just between the two sides of the coalition government but also between various ministers and between ministers and their senior civil servants - I suppose that is what is called joined up government :-D

Ministers make policy - implementation is the job of the civil service.

When a minister gets too involved with implementation some kind of mess is sure to follow. The current coalition is a good example with projects on the road to hell all over the place.

The civil service otoh were created for another age and do not have the competence required to negotiate large scale procurement projects still less large scale I.T. projects.

The probability of rolling out a very large scale I.T. project anywhere, private or public, is vanishingly small, The high rate of failure is not due to incompetence by government ministers, civil servants or private sector executives. It is simply that current technology simply cannot deliver what it promises.

There are three main reasons.

(a) scaling up - what works ok on a pilot with tens of thousands of cases falls over when it becomes tens of millions ( e.g. NHS )

(b) real life is a great deal more complicated and unpredictable than the analysts imagine - hard wired predictive systems don't work.

(c) ministers, civil service mandarins and private sector CEOs have a very rosy tinted view of what I.T. can accomplish

The first two of these problems may eventually be fixed.

Scaling problems can be fixed through much faster kit, real high speed networks ( other than JANET the UK is nowhere near close ) and devolving a lot of the actual computing to local nodes. Localising computing goes entirely against the centralisation tendencies of UKGov and blue chip companies.

By replacing deterministic, predictive computer systems with those using what is known as fuzzy logic real world performance can improve dramatically. A very quick way of achieving this is to employ human beings who have experience of the relevant industry. This is way unpopular as CEOs and ministers are judged by reducing the head count. However the increasing pile of sacked chief financial officers and soggy share prices / lost elections may eventually cause a rethink.

Nothing will change the determination of prime ministers, the civil service and large companies to believe in the snake oil pedaled by large software corporations.

To be fair most of the voters are no different believing in the same companies no matter what and forking out significant sums of personal income despite years of failed delivery.

THINK! Over the last ten years the UK has enjoyed to most advanced information technology in its history. It spends a high proportion of the GNP on this. Yet the economy remains flat and people unhappy made worse by unsocial IT networking. Snake oil.

Remember that Ministers are unlikely to have any sort of qualification in the subject their department is responsible for and most Civil Servants only have internal training, not professional qualifications .

Brian, I think this is what the Government call "Blue Sky Thinking" in their "Think Tank" :-D

Pie in the sky or Head in the Clouds, more than Blue Sky, I think.

Fed up with the tripe that these government officials utter, most of them don't know what it's like to live in the real world!

Lizx

Why is it all a botch up?

Facts and numbers please.....!

Not just botch ups, the deliberate misuse of public money on acting lessons!!

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/01/12/ministers-acting-lessons_n_4583751.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

Why is it all a botch up?

Royal Mail privatisation - Sold on the cheap losing the treasury a fortune.
Universal Credit - Millions written of in IT costs and a catalogue of delays in implementing it.
Spare Room Subsidy (Bedroom Tax) - thousands of tenants could be due a refund due to a loophole which means they are exempt from having to pay it.
Armed Services Recruitment Programmer - repeated failures of IT systems resulting in targets being met.

correct me if I am wrong, but as taxpayers, and royal mail being in government ownership (ie us) then sold off to (us) on the cheap? and then the big boys getting in on the act..........buying from the lucky small investors,
and the original price almost doubling
A bargain, for some. methinks......

This is the 2nd worse UK govt bungle ever. (*)

Without it the UK could have weathered the recession without QE and avoided all the present cuts. Although the policy was Brown's the Tories made little if any criticism of it.

Brown's Bottom

Between 1999 and 2002 Brown sold 60% of the UK's gold reserves shortly before gold entered a protracted bull market, since nicknamed by dealers as Brown Bottom.

The official reason for selling the gold reserves was to reduce the portfolio risk of the UK's reserves by diversifying away from gold.

The UK eventually sold about 395 tons of gold over 17 auctions from July 1999 to March 2002, at an average price of about US$275 per ounce, raising approximately US$3.5 billion.

By 2011, that quantity of gold would be worth over $19 billion, leading to Brown's decision to sell the gold being widely criticised.

(*) the worse bungle ever was the Act of Union in 1707 where the UK took on board the debts of a bankrupt Scotland. Net payments (adjusted to present value) north of the border since then easily dwarf Brown's Bottom even taking account of tax from oil revenues .

With a bit of luck Alex Salmond will rectify the matter later this year. Odds against though 'cos most Scots gan canny are not as daft as Wee 'Eck.

Another problem with the large IT projects is that those producing them don't talk to those who will use them and you end up with something not fit for purpose. I have been the victim of that more than once!

Suffering with cr*p IT system at the mo. (I work for local government)
One example:
I've got 'basic' word on my home computer - and have the opportunity to pay to upgrade to a more 'usable' system. At work, they've introduced, at great cost, the same as my 'basic' word.
I used to moan at work that it took 2 clicks to print off a document - now it takes 5!! Is that progress?

edit: ...and for some reason, the 'insert' button has been disabled :-S