Category Archives: change management

G-Cloud – it’s starting to happen

Posted on 18/01/2012 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

Anti-cloud CIOs should “move on” says Cabinet Office official, “before they have caused too much harm to their business”.

For years Chris Chant, who’s programme director for G Cloud at the Cabinet Office, has campaigned earnestly for lower costs of government IT. Now his work is beginning to pay off.

In a blog post he says that nearly 300 suppliers have submitted offers for about 2,000 separate services, and he is “amazed” at the prices. Departments with conventionally-good rates from suppliers pay about £700-£1,000 a month per server in the IL3 environment, a standard which operates at the “restricted” security level. Average costs to departments are about £1,500-a-month per server, says Chant.

“Cloud prices are coming in 25-50% of that price depending on the capabilities needed.”  He adds:

“IT need no longer be delivered under huge contracts dominated by massive, often foreign-owned, suppliers.  Sure, some of what government does is huge, complicated and unique to government.  But much is available elsewhere, already deployed, already used by thousands of companies and that ought to be the new normal.

“Rather than wait six weeks for a server to be commissioned and ready for use, departments will wait maybe a day – and that’s if they haven’t bought from that supplier before (if they have it will be minutes).  When they’re done using the server, they’ll be done – that’s it.  No more spend, no asset write down, no cost of decommissioning.”

Chant says that some CIOs in post have yet to accept that things need to change; and “even fewer suppliers have got their heads around the magnitude of the change that is starting to unfold”.

“In the first 5 years of this century, we had a massive shift to web-enabled computing; in the next 5 the level of change will be even greater.  CIOs in government need to recognise that, plan for it and make it happen.

“Or move on before they have caused too much harm to their business.”

He adds: “Not long from now, I expect at least one CIO to adopt an entirely cloud-based model.  I expect almost all CIOs to at least try out a cloud service in part of their portfolio.

“Some CIOs across government are already tackling the cloud and figuring out how to harness it to deliver real saves – along with real IT.  Some are yet to start.

“Those that have started need to double their efforts; those that haven’t need to get out of the way.”

Cloud will cut government IT costs by 75% says Chris Chant

Chris Chant’s blog post

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Posted in capacity building, change, change management, CIO, Cloud, Cloud Computing, compliance with spending review, G-Cloud, Government IT, managing change, managing outsourced services, procurement, public sector, public services, reducing cost strategically, reforms, supplier relationships

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Temenos confirms end of T24 IT project with Queensland Treasury Corporation

Posted on 12/01/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

The Swiss banking software supplier Temenos has responded to overnight coverage of the end of an IT project with the Queensland Treasury Corporation in Australia.

Queensland Treasury Corporation said it had changed tack on the T24 project after experiencing problems developing a core banking system.

Temenos said today, “Temenos can confirm that the T24 project at Queensland Treasury Corporation (QTC) has been terminated. This decision was taken by QTC based on a change of requirements, which had become more specific; as a result it wanted an approach that was more in line with these unique requirements.

“It has therefore decided to run its IT upgrade in house. Temenos is pleased to have had the opportunity to assist QTC with their IT renewal project, and has enjoyed a constructive and mutually amicable relationship with the organisation.”

QTC, which manages public sector debt and investments, told the Brisbane Times it was now developing its own system and insisted it would be able to do so within the existing $27 million project budget. The organisation defended its handling of the IT contract, saying it has now acquired additional in-house capabilities.

The story had been extensively covered in the Australian IT and banking press earlier today.

QLD Treasury terminates failed IT overhaul

QLD Treasury Corp abandons core IT project

Queensland Treasury Corporation tears up Temenos T24 contract

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Posted in Campaign4Change, change, change management, IT projects, supplier relationships

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Lifting the lid on Agile development within a public sector IT project

Posted on 11/01/2012 | 2 comments

By David Bicknell

It’s not often that you get an insight into the workings of Agile development within a public sector  IT project.

So the Inspector General’s report into the Sentinel IT project at the FBI that I mentioned a couple of days ago offers a rare and unique picture into how the sprints, story points etc are progressing. This will not be new to Agile exponents – but the detail below may be of interest to those unfamiliar with Agile’s processes.

Transition to an Agile Development Approach

The report’s discussion of Agile within the Sentinel project says this:

“Agile software development is not a set of tools or a single methodology, but an approach that leverages close collaboration between representatives of system users, system developers, and testers to deliver functionality in a compressed timeframe and on a continuous basis. The delivery of working software is the primary measure of progress, and satisfying customers through the delivery of valuable software is treated as the highest priority during development.

“While an Agile methodology can be implemented in a variety of ways, the FBI is implementing a variation called Scrum, an iterative methodology which breaks the development effort into increments called sprints, each of which the FBI decided would last 2 weeks.

“At the conclusion of each sprint, User Stories – functions that a system user would typically perform – along with Architecture Stories – qualities that define the system software architecture and configuration – are planned and completed, and it is the successful completion of these stories that is measured as progress for the project.”

Development Progress

“As of August 26, 2011, the FBI had completed 22 of 24 planned sprints. Under the Scrum approach, a project’s progress and amount of work remaining is measured using a burndown chart, which depicts how factors such as the rate at which a development team completes work (a team’s velocity) and changes in a project’s scope affect its likelihood of staying on schedule and within budget over time.

“This information can be used by project management and project stakeholders to estimate the duration of the project or the amount of work that can be completed within an identified amount of time.

“During the first 22 sprints (Sprint 0 through Sprint 21), the FBI had completed 1,545 of the 3,093 story points (1,548 remaining) that it identified at the beginning of the project, or about 50 percent.  As of December 2, 2011, the FBI reported that it had completed 28 of 33 planned sprints ….It had also completed 2,345 story points  – 748 remained to be completed.”

Velocity

The Report says this of the Agile team’s velocity:

“According to FBI officials, after five sprints have been completed, the velocity, or rate at which an Agile team completes story points, can be used to project the completion rate of future work. During Sprints 5 through 21, the Sentinel team’s average velocity was 80 story points per sprint.

“During our review, we estimated that if the team’s velocity remained at 80 story points per sprint, the FBI would complete about 55 percent of the intended functionality by the end of the project’s originally planned 24 sprints on September 23, 2011. At that rate of development we estimated that Sentinel will be completed in June 2012.

“On September 6, 2011, the FBI CIO stated that the FBI had added six development sprints to Sentinel’s development schedule and that the FBI then planned to end development on December 16, 2011, after 30 sprints. After development ended, the FBI planned to test Sentinel for about 6 weeks and then deploy the system to all users in January 2012. During the additional development sprints, the FBI planned to finish the functionality work that it previously planned to complete by September 23, 2011.

“Based on the average velocity of 80 story points per sprint, and the number of remaining story points to be completed (1,548) we estimated that the FBI would complete about 71 percent of the intended functionality by the end of the project’s 30 development sprints on December 16, 2011.

“On December 1, 2011, the FBI again extended the schedule for the completion of Sentinel. The CTO stated that the FBI had added four development sprints to Sentinel’s development schedule and that the FBI now plans to end development in February 2012, after 34 sprints. After development, the FBI plans to test Sentinel for about 12 weeks and then deploy the system to all users in May 2012. During this testing period, the FBI plans to test Sentinel’s hardware and execute a test of all major Sentinel functionality that will involve personnel from across the FBI.

“Also in December 2011, after the FBI received a copy of our draft report, the FBI reported to us that during Sprints 5 through 28 it had completed 2,167 story points, an average of 90 story points per sprint – 10 more story points than its average rate as of September 2011.

“Based on this average velocity and the number of remaining story points to be completed (748) during the final 5 sprints under this plan, the Sentinel team must increase its average velocity to approximately 150 story points per sprint.

“However, the six sprints between the end of development and deployment – during which the FBI will test Sentinel – could also have story points assigned to them that the FBI is not accounting for at this time, and as a result the total number of story points to complete the project could increase. Without including such an increase, the FBI would need to average about 68 story points per sprint over the total 11 sprints remaining before the planned May 2012 deployment.”

Sentinel Agile Development Approach

The report’s Appendix says this about the FBI’s approach to its Agile development for Sentinel:

“In October 2010 the FBI identified a total of 670 stories for the Sentinel Product Backlog, or the compilation of all of the project’s stories. The FBI has mapped the Product Backlog to each of the requirements in Sentinel’s Systems Requirements Specification (SRS), which serves as an important control to ensure that the backlog, and the stories it contains, cover all of Sentinel’s requirements. The FBI also assigned weighted amounts, or “story points,” to each story in the Product Backlog based on the difficulty of the work associated with each story. The FBI assigned a total of 3,093 story points to its 670 stories in the Sentinel Product Backlog.”

The Report’s Conclusion

Although it appears that the FBI has made good progress with its Agile development, adopting Agile may not be enough to get the project exactly on track, with some testing issues and hardware problems discussed in the report.

“It is too early to judge whether the FBI’s Agile development of Sentinel will meet its newly revised budget and completion goals and the needs of FBI agents and analysts.

“While the Sentinel Advisory Group responded positively to the version of Sentinel it tested, results from wider testing were not as positive. Also, none of the Agile-developed Sentinel has been deployed to all users to give them the ability to enter actual case data and assist FBI agents and analysts in more efficiently performing their jobs.

“Despite the FBI’s self-reported progress in developing Sentinel, we are concerned that the FBI is not documenting that the functionality developed during each sprint has met the FBI’s acceptance criteria. Our concerns about the lack of transparency of Sentinel’s progress are magnified by the apparent lack of comprehensive and timely system testing.

“Our concerns about the lack of transparency also extend to Sentinel’s cooperation with internal and external oversight entities, to which Sentinel did not provide the necessary system documentation for them to perform their critical oversight and reporting functions.

“We believe that this issue could be resolved, at least in part, with a revision to the FBI’s Life Cycle Management Directive to include standards for Agile development methodologies.

“….Sentinel experienced significant performance problems during the Sentinel Functional Exercise. The FBI attributed these performance problems to either the system architecture or the computer hardware.

“According to the FBI, subsequent operational testing confirmed the inadequacy of the legacy hardware and the requirement to significantly expand the infrastructure before the system could be deployed to all users. In November 2011, the FBI requested that Lockheed Martin provide a cost proposal for this additional hardware.”

The FBI’s Response

In its response to the report, the FBI says:

 “….we are mindful of the short delay we have recently encountered under our new” Agile” approach. The Sentinel development schedule has recently been extended by two months (from December 2011 to February 2012), and the FBI-wide deployment is now scheduled for May 2012, as described in this Report.

“This modest extension is due primarily to the need to implement a standard  five-year “refresh” of computer hardware, so the Sentinel software will provide the required functionality as intended. Indeed, you have determined that, given the pace at which the program has proceeded under the Agile approach over the time period you reviewed, your estimate for completion is essentially the same – June 2012.

“We have one concern with the current draft of the Report. We request that you note that the hardware we are acquiring for the refresh, which is being purchased using fiscal year 2012 operations and maintenance funds, is separate from the development activities being carried out by the Agile team under the development budget.

“The refresh is part of the normal and expected operations and maintenance activities of the FBI, and such a refresh is a common maintenance activity where hardware has reached its expected replacement threshold. We do not agree that the FBI is using operations and maintenance funds for the development of Sentinel…and we ask that you make this revision.”

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Posted in Agile, Campaign4Change, change management, IT projects, managing change, project management

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NPfIT Cerner go-live at Bristol has “more problems than anticipated”

Posted on 11/01/2012 | 7 comments

By Tony Collins

The BBC reports that there are “more problems than anticipated” with a patient-booking system at two Bristol hospitals run by North Bristol NHS Trust.

The trust describes the problems as “teething”.  Consultants say the problems are “potentially dangerous”.

Last month North Bristol went live with the Cerner Millennium system under an NPfIT contract with BT. The Trust says problems are due to software being used incorrectly. They have led to some patients missing their operations and the wrong patients being booked for operations, says the BBC.

Emails from executives at Frenchay and Southmead hospitals, seen by the BBC, said staff should be “vigilant” to check lists were “completely accurate”.

BBC Points West’s health correspondent Matthew Hill said emails sent by consultants to hospital bosses claimed operation lists printed by the system were “complete fiction” and “potentially dangerous”.

One consultant told the BBC he had been put down to operate on patients from a completely different speciality.

The trust said there had been “teething problems” and that there had been “more problems than anticipated”.

In an email to staff the trust said the change of system had been “a very big change” so there was “no surprise” there had been difficulties.

A trust spokesman said there were a series of problems around outpatients and the associated clinics and some of the data moved from old systems had not migrated as planned.

“We need to ensure that we rebuild and recreate the clinics to match what people expect them to be on the ground,” he said.

“In theatres we have had some issues but have absolutely ensured from the outset that clinical safety has been at the top and have ensured any risks and issues have been mitigated.”

Conservative MP Richard Bacon, a member of the Public Accounts Committee, has established through a Parliamentary question that the cost of the North Bristol Cerner implementation is much higher than for a non-NPfIT installation in the same city.

Health Minister Simon Burns told Bacon that the costs of a Cerner Millennium deployment at the North Bristol NHS Trust were £15.2m for deployment and an annual service charge of £2m.

This brought the total cost of the Cerner system over seven years to about £29m, which was more than three times the £8.2m price of a similar deployment outside of the NPfIT at University Hospitals Bristol Foundation Trust.

Comment

Several Cerner implementations under the NPfIT have gone awry but the problems have eventually been resolved. The question is whether patient care and treatment is affected in the meantime. The lack of openness over problems with patient care in the NHS mean that the answer will probably never be known, which underlines the need for better regulation of hospital IT implementations.

Does hospital IT need airline-style safety certification?

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Posted in Campaign4Change, change management, Government IT, health, improving communications, IT projects, managing change, managing outsourced services, NHS, npfit, openness and transparency, operational issues, outsourcing, private sector lessons for the public sector, project management, public sector, public services, risk

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CSC to change hands in 2012?

Posted on 03/01/2012 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

Techmarketview analyst Tola Sargeant who has followed the NPfIT closely, and particularly the ups and downs of CSC, says the implications for CSC of the government’s tough stance against the company are “dire”. She adds:

“Indeed, we wouldn’t be at all surprised to see CSC change hands in 2012 as a result”.

Maude gets tough 

Within the Department of Health and CSC in May last year executives were confident a new memorandum of understanding under the NPfIT would be signed.

Now the Government, in the form of the Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude, has declined so far to sign any new deal with CSC. This is the way CSC put it in a filing to the SEC, the US regulators, on 27 December 2011:

“… Since mid-November 2011, the parties [Department of Health, Cabinet Office and CSC) have been engaged in further discussions relating to the MOU [Memorandum of Understanding], which have included discussions regarding a proposed contract amendment with different scope modifications and contract value reductions than those contemplated by the MOU.

“However, CSC recently was informed that neither the MOU nor the contract amendment then under discussion would be approved by the government.

“Notwithstanding the failure to reach agreement, CSC anticipates that the parties will continue discussions in January 2012 regarding proposals advanced by both parties reflecting scope modifications and contract value reductions that differ materially from those contemplated by the MOU.

“As a result of the circumstances described above, CSC has concluded, as of the date of this filing, that it will be required to recognize a material impairment of its net investment in the contract in the third quarter of fiscal year 2012.

“Until CSC and NHS conclude their on-going discussions concerning a possible contract amendment, including any scope modifications and contract value reductions that might be part of any such amendment, the Company is unable to estimate the amount of such impairment.

“However, depending on the terms of such an amendment or if no amendment is concluded, such impairment could be equal to the Company’s net investment in the contract, which, as of November 30, 2011, was approximately £943m ($1.5bn).

“Additional costs could be incurred by CSC depending on the nature of such an amendment, or if no amendment is concluded. The Company is unable to estimate the amount of such additional costs; however, such costs could be material.”

Why the Cabinet Office has left draft MoU unsigned?

The non-signing of a new deal with CSC is the firmest indication so far that the Cabinet Office is prepared to bring a rigorous, independent scrutiny to big IT projects and contracts.

Though the DH had wanted to sign a new deal with CSC, at least to assure continued support and upgrades to the few NHS trusts that have installed CSC and iSoft’s “Lorenzo” patient records system,  Maude is said to have seen a new deal with CSC as rewarding the company for failings in the past.

Also Cabinet Office officials regarded the terms of a new deal with CSC as unattractive. One Cabinet Office official wrote in a memo dated March 2011 that CSC’s proposals would mean a reduction in Trusts using CSC IT from the original number of 220 Trusts to 80.

 “My view is that, on the face of it, while the additional savings are appealing, the offer is unattractive. This is because the unit price of deployment (per Trust) under offer roughly doubles the cost of each deployment from the original contract.

“Ultimately, we [Cabinet Office] are not convinced the [Department of] Health commercial team are approaching this in the best way.”

It is possible that a new deal for signing was put before Maude – and went unsigned. Had any appeal gone to the Prime Minister David Cameron it is highly likely he would have given his full backing to Maude.

David Cameron’s view?

Cameron may be delighted that at least £2bn remains uncommitted to the NPfIT and could be saved by not signing a new deal with CSC.

Conservative MP Richard Bacon, a member of the Public Accounts Committee who has become an authority on the NPfIT, said of CSC’s warning of write-offs on the Programme:

“It was always a worry that the Department of Health was initially keen to sign a new deal with CSC that would have been poor value. Now it seems the Cabinet Office has done its job as an independent scrutineer and has made sure the interests of taxpayers are protected.

“This shows how important it is for the Cabinet Office to have the final say on big Government IT-based projects.”

What does CSC’s plight mean for the NHS?

NHS trusts have long wanted open competitive tendering and now, to a large extent, they have it. More than a dozen acute trusts are likely to tender for major systems replacements this year which is a big increase on the annual rate for past years.

Some iSoft and Cerner sites may also seek to renew contracts or find replacement systems. CSC, which may be lifted of the burden of meeting high-priced NPfIT commitments, may be a strong competitor in the UK health market.

One problem for NHS trusts will be finding enough strong candidates for their shortlists. They may look to the US market – but end up with products that need anglicising, which will be risky process.

Techmarketview says that what is doom and gloom for CSC is an opportunity for others. Rival suppliers “will be cheered by the prospect of more NHS Trusts procuring systems that CSC should have delivered by now”.

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Posted in Campaign4Change, change, change management, Government IT, health, IT projects, managing change, managing outsourced services, NHS, npfit, outsourcing, procurement, project management, public sector, public services, reducing cost strategically, supplier relationships

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School report on Govt ICT Strategy – a good start

Posted on 21/12/2011 | Leave a comment

By Tony Collins

In a review of progress on the Government’s ICT Strategy after six months, the National Audit Office says that the Cabinet Office has made a “positive and productive start to implementing the Strategy”.

The NAO says that at least 70 people from the public sector have worked on the Strategy in the first six months though the public sector will need “at least another 84 people to deliver projects in the Plan”.

The UK Government’s ICT Strategy is more ambitious than the strategies in the US, Australia, Netherlands and Denmark, because it sets out three main aims:

– reducing waste and project failure

– building a common ICT infrastructure

– using ICT to enable and deliver change

The US Government’s ICT Strategy, in contrast, encompasses plans for a common infrastructure only – and these plans have not produced the expected savings, says the NAO.

In a paragraph that may be little noticed in the report, the NAO says that senior managers in central government have plans to award new ICT contracts (perhaps along the pre-coalition lines) in case the common solutions developed for the ICT Strategy are “not available in time”.

The NAO report also says that “suppliers were cautious about investing in new products and services because of government’s poor progress in implementing previous strategies”.

Of 17 actions in the Strategy that were due by September 2011, seven were delivered on time. Work on most of the other actions is underway and a “small number” are still behind schedule says the NAO.

The NAO calls on government to “broaden the focus to driving business change”.

Some successes of the UK’s ICT Strategy as identified by the NAO:

* The Cabinet Office has set up a small CIO Delivery Board led by the Government CIO Joe Harley to implement the ICT Strategy. The Board’s members include the Corporate IT Director at the DWP, CIOs at the Home Office, MoD, HMRC, Ministry of Justice and Department for Health, together with key officials at the Cabinet Office. The departmental CIOs on the Board are responsible directly to Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office, for implementing the ICT Strategy in their departments and are accountable to their own minister. No conflicts have arisen

* Senior managers in central government and the ICT industry are willing to align their strategies for ICT with new cross-government solutions and standards but need more detail.

*  Some suppliers have offered help to government to develop its thinking and help accelerate the pace of change in ICT in government.

* The Cabinet Office intended that delivering the Strategy would be resourced from existing budgets. Staff have been redirected from other tasks to work on implementing the Strategy. “We have found collaborative working across departmental boundaries. For example HMRC and the MoD have combined resources to develop a strategy for greener ICT. Teams producing the strategies for cloud computing and common desktops and mobile devices have worked together to reduce the risk of overlap and gaps.

* The BBC has shown the way in managing dozens of suppliers rather than relying on one big company. For BBC’s digital media initiative, the Corporation manages 47 separate suppliers, says the NAO.

* The Cabinet Office intends that departments will buy components of ICT infrastructure from a range of suppliers rather than signing a small number of long-term contracts; and to make sure different systems share data the Cabinet Office is agreeing a set of open technical standards.

* Some of the larger departments have already started to consolidate data centres, though the NAO said that the programme as a whole is moving slowly and no robust business case is yet in place.

* The Cabinet Office is starting to involve SMEs. It has established a baseline of current procurement spending with SMEs – 6.5% of total government spend – and hopes that the amount of work awarded to SMEs will increase to 25%. Government has started talking “directly to SMEs”, says the NAO.

Some problems identified in the NAO report:

* Cloud computing and agile skills are lacking. “Government also lacks key business skills. Although it has ouitsourced ICT systems development and services for many years, our reports have often stated that government is not good at managing commercial relationships and contracts or procurement.”

* Suppliers doubt real change will happen. The NAO says that suppliers doubted whether “government had the appropriate skills to move from using one major supplier to deliver ICT solutions and services, to managing many suppliers of different sizes providing different services”.

* The Government CIO Joe Harley, who promoted collaboration, is leaving in early 2012, as is his deputy Bill McCluggage. The NAO suggests their departures may “adversely affect” new ways of working.

* The NAO interviewed people from departments, agencies and ICT suppliers whose concern was that “short-term financial pressure conflicted with the need for the longer-term reform of public services”.

* The culture change required to implement the Strategy “may be a significant barrier”.

* The Cabinet Office acknowledges that the government does not have a definitive record of ICT spend in central government (which would make it difficult to have a baseline against which cuts could be shown).

* The Cabinet Office has not yet defined how reform and improved efficiency in public services will be measured across central government, as business outcomes against an agreed baseline.

**

Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, said today: ” ICT is going to play an increasingly important role in changing how government works and how services are provided.

“The Government’s ICT Strategy is in its early days and initial signs are good. However, new ways of working are as dependent on developing the skills of people in the public sector as they are on changes to technology and processes; the big challenge is to ensure that the Strategy delivers value in each of these areas.”

NAO report:  Implementing the Government ICT Strategy: six-month review of progress.

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Posted in Campaign4Change, capacity building, change, change management, Cloud, Cloud Computing, collaboration, compliance with spending review, EU procurement, G-Cloud, government, Government IT, Green IT, improving communications, innovation, Lean, managing change, managing outsourced services, open source, operational issues, outsourcing, procurement, project management, public sector, public services, recruitment freeze, reducing cost strategically, reforms, SME, supplier relationships

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HM Courts Service hides “Libra” IT’s new shortcomings

Posted on 15/12/2011 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

A report published today by the National Audit Office highlights how limitations in Libra, a case management IT system in use across magistrates’ courts, has contributed towards  HM Courts Service’s inability to provide basic financial information to support the accounts.

HM Courts Service claimed a success for the troubled Libra system in 2008 – but the failure of the system was more enduring and deep-rooted than thought. The problems were kept hidden until today’s NAO report because the present and past governments have kept “Gateway” progress reports on IT-based projects confidential.

In an unusual step, the head of the NAO, Amyas Morse, has “disclaimed” his audit opinion on the accounts of the HM Courts Service, largely because of a lack of financial information.

Disclaiming an audit opinion is more serious than qualifying the accounts of a government department or agency. Qualifying the accounts means that Morse has reservations on whether figures presented to the NAO are accurate. Disclaiming an audit opinion means that Morse lacks the basic information on which to give any opinion on the accounts.

MP Richard Bacon, a member of the Public Accounts Committee, says that disclaiming an audit opinion is the “auditor’s nuclear button”.

The NAO report today puts the focus on inadequacies in the “Libra” system which is supplied by Fujitsu and STL, with integration work by Accenture.

Fujitsu originally estimated the cost of Libra, a case management system for magistrates’ courts, at £146m. By March the estimated costs were £447m and were expected to rise further. The Libra project took 16 years to complete.

Problems and cost increases on the Libra system were well known in 2003 when the NAO criticised the management of the project. After that all went quiet until in 2008 when HM Courts Service declared Libra a success.

Now the NAO’s Morse says:

“Because of limitations in the underlying systems, HM Courts Service has not been able to provide me with proper accounting records relating to the collection of fines, confiscation orders and penalties. I have therefore disclaimed my audit opinion on its Trust Statement accounts.”

In a statement the NAO criticises the Libra system directly:

“Today’s report highlights how limitations in Libra, the case management IT system in use across magistrates’ courts, and similar systems have contributed towards  HM Courts Service’s inability to provide information at an individual transactions level to support the accounts.”

The NAO says that the Ministry of Justice plans to investigate further the functionality of Libra to determine whether it is possible to provide evidence to support accruals-based financial reporting.

Says the NAO:

“In particular, the Ministry and HMCTS [HM Courts and Tribunals Service] believe that it may be possible to obtain evidence over fines and confiscation orders if a suitable report is run shortly after the month end.

“ However, the Ministry and HMCTS have informed me that they may not be able to address these fundamental issues until Libra is significantly enhanced or replaced with a new case management and accounting system. The timing of this enhancement or replacement is currently uncertain. However, the Ministry have committed to ensuring that any replacement for Libra includes accounting functionality to enable financial reporting.”

MP Richard Bacon, who has followed the Libra project for many years, says:

“This is a disgraceful position for the Courts Service to have reached.  It is true that the Libra computer system is both expensive and useless but we have known this for many years (Cost of Courts’ IT system triples) and public bodies still have a duty to keep proper records.

“We are now looking at a possible £1.4 billion loss in uncollected fines and penalties partly because of the longstanding shambles that passes for record-keeping in the courts service.

“For centuries, people have kept accurate records and accounts using pen and paper. This could still be done now if needed and if there were sufficient will to do it.”

Margaret Hodge MP, Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts, said:

“It is really worrying that HM Courts and Tribunals Service can’t produce basic financial records.  HM Courts Service is responsible for collecting fines and penalties, but we can’t tell if this money is accounted for properly.

“The Comptroller and Auditor General has taken the rare step of disclaiming his audit opinion – the Committee will be looking for HM Courts and Tribunals Service to improve.”

Comment:

It is astonishing that HM Courts Service has been able to continue in operation without MPs having idea until today that the costly Libra computer system was unable to provide basic financial information.

Parliament was kept in the dark about Libra’s new shortcomings because “Gateway” review reports in IT-based projects and programmes are kept confidential. It is a pity for taxpayers and accountability on major projects that ministers are surrendering to the wishes of civil servants who want Gateway reports kept confidential.

NAO report on Courts Service.

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Posted in Campaign4Change, change management, Gateway reviews, Government IT, IT projects, managing outsourced services, openness and transparency, private sector lessons for the public sector, project management, public sector, public services, supplier relationships

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CSC criticised again in The Times

Posted on 09/12/2011 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

The Times has followed up its three pages of coverage of the NPfIT yesterday with an article in which the chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Labour MP Margaret Hodge, criticises one of the programme’s main suppliers CSC.

Hodge tells The Times she was surprised to learn that CSC was hoping for a revised NHS deal – worth about £2bn – after it failed to deliver fully functional software to any of 166 NHS trusts in England.

CSC has said in a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission that, based on events to date, it does not does not anticipate that the NHS will terminate its contract.

CSC gave a series of reasons in its SEC filing why the UK Government may retain CSC and its NPfIT contracts, though it conceded that the outcome of its talks with the Department of Health, is uncertain.

CSC also said it has cured or is in the process of curing the alleged events of default. It asserted that failures and breaches of contract on the part of NHS have caused delays and issues; and it said that if the NHS wrongfully terminated the contract on the basis of alleged material breach, CSC could recover substantial damages.

Hodge told The Times:

“Any private sector company that cares so little about the public interest that they are prepared to extract this kind of money from the public purse should not be given the right to work for the Government again.

“If they are going to take such a private sector attitude to it that they don’t give a toss about the public interest they should be treated like a cowboy builder.”

CSC says it has made a significant investment in developing systems for the NHS and has demonstrated a strong and continuing commitment to improving the quality of healthcare in England. It says it has a demonstrable track record of successful and widescale delivery to NHS within the National Programme and beyond.

The Times also reported that Christine Connelly, the Department of Health’s former CIO,  was bought a £416 first-class train ticket for a visit to a hospital at Morecambe, and was flown to San Francisco and Seattle at a business-class rate costing £8,278.80.

American “cowboys” blamed for NHS fiasco – The Times

CSC confident on £2bn deal says The Times

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CSC confident on £2bn NPfIT deal says The Times

Posted on 08/12/2011 | 9 comments

The Times reports today that CSC is confident that the Department of Health will not terminate the supplier’s contracts despite the Government’s pledge to dismantle the national programme.

The paper says that “taxpayers will foot the bill for a further £2bn on a failed NHS IT project even though the Government has already pulled the plug on it”.

It adds that the “American technology company Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) has boasted to Wall Street that it expects an extension of its contract to provide electronic patient records despite failing to deliver a fully functional version of its software”.

In a series of articles on the NPfIT, The Times suggests that the Government is locked into CSC, at least until 2017.

“The Government’s pledge to dismantle the failed NHS programme to computerise patient records is in tatters because it cannot afford to break its contractual commitments and start a search for alternative suppliers”.

The Times quotes a CSC filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission in November which says: “Based upon events to date, the Company does not anticipate that the NHS will terminate the contract.”

CSC, the Department of Health and the Cabinet Office are still discussing a memorandum of understanding which may end with the supplier’s cutting £764m from its NPfIT contracts, leaving about £2.1bn in place.

CSC discloses in its SEC filing that the Memorandum of Understanding anticipates that the contract term will be extended one year to June 2017 and that CSC anticipates revenue of £1.5bn to £2bn over the remaining term.

With certain amendments “ the contract remains profitable and the Company would recover its investment,” says CSC in its filing.

But MP Richard Bacon, a member of the Public Accounts Committee, has received Parliamentary replies to his questions on the costs of NPfIT deployments at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust and North Bristol NHS Trust which show that the costs of installing and maintaining a system under national programme contracts are more than twice that of systems bought by trusts outside of the NPfIT.

Health Minister Simon Burns said in a reply to Bacon that the costs of a Cerner Millennium deployment at the North Bristol NHS Trust are £15.2m for deployment and an annual service charge of £2m. This brings the total cost of the Cerner system over seven years to about £29m, which is more than three times the £8.2m price of a similar deployment outside of the NPfIT at University Hospitals Bristol Foundation Trust.

At Morecambe Bay, the trust’s costs of being involved with the NPfIT (including the deployment of CSC’s Lorenzo 1.9 system) are £6.2m, according to Burns in his reply to Bacon, whereas the typical internal trust costs of deploying of a non-NPfIT system, excluding the cost of the system itself but including training, project management and additional corporate reporting tools, are about £1m-£2m.

Is the Department of Health locked into CSC?

CSC in its filing to the SEC says that the NHS, when considering its options of maintaining or terminating the contract, will “consider costs and risks that NHS may incur over and above those related to termination fees”.

These include:

– damages and costs that may be payable to CSC

– the cost of initiating and managing a public tender, procedure or procedures to obtain one or more suitable replacement suppliers

– the operational risk of switching suppliers at this stage in the contract with CSC

– the cost of alternative suppliers

– the cost of obtaining exit management services from CSC to ensure an orderly transition to one or more replacement suppliers.

In addition, said CSC in its filing, if the NHS terminated the contract for convenience, possible claims that the Company has against NHS include “claims for compensation due to delays and excess costs caused by NHS or for contractual deployment delay remedies or for costs associated with change.

If the NHS had terminated the entire contract for convenience with immediate effect at September 30, 2011, the termination fee would have been capped at approximately £430m.

CSC would also be entitled by way of termination fee to a sum to compensate for the profit that CSC would have earned over the following 12 months had the contract not been terminated.

CSC recognised in the filing, however, that the signing of a new NPfIT deal was uncertain.

Lorenzo “not right yet”

The Times quotes Dr Simon Eccles, the medical director of Connecting for Health, as saying “Lorenzo has had an extremely painful gestation. Lorenzo may yet be a great success because it is a brilliant bit of software but they haven’t got it right yet.”

In an editorial on its NPfIT investigations, The Times said that government IT failures have in common the fact that “we don’t really know who was to blame”. It says:

“Nobody took responsibility and nobody apologised. It is perhaps too much to hope that there will not be more disasters. But if there are, someone must carry the can.”

NPfIT to be dismantled – brick by brick

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Posted in Campaign4Change, change management, Government IT, IT projects, legal disputes, managing outsourced services, NHS, npfit, outsourcing, procurement, public sector, public services, reducing cost strategically, supplier relationships

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Dedicated Cloud servers make a difference says Puma

Posted on 01/12/2011 | Leave a comment

By Tony Collins

Jay Basnight, the head of digital strategy at sports shoe and sportswear manufacturer Puma, has told CIO how his company moved from four cloud suppliers – Amazon, Computer Sciences Corporation, Rackspace and Slicehost (now part of Rackspace) –  to cloud supplier Eucalyptus.

Eucalyptus provides Puma with dedicated servers rather than spreading the company’s data and applications across servers used by other businesses, as is the case at Amazon, says Basnight. That helps make privacy audits easier because he can point to a specific server where data resides.

“This allows you peace of mind that you’re not sharing infrastructure with anyone else.”

Consolidating clouds saves “significant” money says Basnight – as much as 50 percent per hour due to better contract terms and economies of scale.

CIO article.

 

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