Category Archives: change management

DWP starts media campaign on Universal Credit IT tomorrow

Posted on 19/09/2012 | Leave a comment

By Tony Collins

The Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has told MPs his department is launching a “major exercise” tomorrow to inform the media about Universal Credit, including progress with the IT project.

The public relations push will include a demonstration to journalists of the Univeral Credit front-end, and an explanation of the ability of “agile” to rectify problems as you go along. Duncan Smith said there is a lot of ignorance in the media, and suppositions, that need tackling head on.

His full statement on the PR campaign is at the foot of this article.

Comment

Iain Duncan Smith’s remarks to MPs sound remarkably like the statements that were made in the early part of the National Programme for IT in the NHS, when DH ministers and senior officials were anxious to correct ignorance and suppositions in the media – and to show journalists the front end of new electronic patient record systems.

Several times journalists were invited to Richmond house in Whitehall, the HQ of the DH, to hear how well the NPfIT was going. So anxious were the minister and leading officials to give a good impression of the programme that, on one occasion, trade journalists who had an insight into the NPfIT’s progress and could ask some awkward questions in front of the general media were barred from attending.

I would like Universal Credit to succeed. In concept it simplifies the excessively complex and costly benefit system. The worrying thing about the scheme, apart from the DWP’s overly sensitive reactions to scepticism in the media, is the way UC seems to be following the path which led to NPfIT’s downfall.

The Secretary of State attacks the media while trying to show UC in a glowing light and at the same time keeps secret all the DWP’s interview reviews and reports on actual progress. Duncan Smith says that the DWP wants to be open on UC but his department is turning down FOI requests.

There is no doubt that Duncan Smith has a conviction that the programme is on course, on budget, and will deliver successfully. But there still a morass of uncertainty for the DWP to contend with, and lessons to be learnt from pilots, some of which could be important enough to require a fundamental re-think. That’s to say nothing of HMRC’s Real-Time Information project which is part of UC.

Duncan Smith says the UC project is not due to be complete until 2017 which gives the DWP ample time to get it right. But ministers and officials in the last administration gave the NPfIT 10 years to complete; and today, nine years later, the scheme is being officially dismantled.

Did NPfIT ministers really know or understand the extent of the project’s true complexities and uncertainties?  Did they fully grasp the limited ability of suppliers to deliver, or the willingness of the NHS to change?  But they were impressed with the patient record front-end system and they organised several Parliamentary events to demonstrate it to MPs.

The NPfIT public relations exercises – which included DH-sponsored DVDs and a board game to market the NPfIT – were all in the end pointless.

Should Duncan Smith be running Universal Credit?

This is another concern. Duncan Smith is much respected and admired in Parliament but he appears too close to UC to be an objective leader. At a hearing of the Work and Pensions this week Duncan Smith took mild criticism of UC as if it were a verbal attack on his child.

It is doubtful anyone working for Duncan Smith would dare give him bad news on UC , though he attends lots of departmental meetings. Doubtless he listens to all those who agree with him, those who are walking press releases on the progress of the UC programme. He’d be a good marketing/PR man on UC. But surely not its leader. Not the one making the most important decisions. For that you would need somebody who’s free from the politics, who is independently minded, and who welcomes informed criticism.

Is there any point in a demo of front-end systems?

Seeing a front-end system means little or nothing. The question is will it work in practice when it is scaled up, when exceptions come to light, and when large numbers of people try to contact the helpdesks because they cannot get to grips with the technology and the interfaces,  or have particular difficulties with their claim.

What will a media campaign achieve?

If the NPfIT experiences are anything to go by, journalists who criticise the UC project will be made to feel stupid or uninformed.

In a totalitarian regime the media could be forced to publish what the government wants people to believe. Will the DWP’s PR campaign be designed to achieve the same end without the slightest attempt at coercion?

Duncan Smith’s comments to MPs

Below is some of what Iain Duncan Smith told Work and Pensions Committee MPs this week. He had been asked by a Committee MP to have a dialogue with the media to ensure that people believe that Universal Credit is a good thing.

Duncan Smith:

“On Thursday we are carrying out a major exercise in informing the median about what we are doing, looking at the system front-end, about budgets and all the elements the committee has been inquiring into.

“We will take them through that, show them that. We are going to open up much more. It is such an important system that I want people to learn what it is all about.  There is a lot of ignorance in the media and suppositions made; things that are important to tackle head on. Everyone says you mustn’t have a big bang; you are not going to be ready in time. The time we deliver this is 2017 when it is complete.  That is over four years…”

Leave a comment

Posted in Agile, Campaign4Change, change, change management, culture, DWP, e-health, excessive secrecy, FOI, Government IT, IT projects, managing change, managing outsourced services, NHS, npfit, Politics, procurement, project management, public sector, public services, Real-Time Information, Universal Credit

Tagged ,

Universal Credit – a chance to do things differently.

Posted on 13/09/2012 | 2 comments

By Tony Collins

Comment

In his comment on the article “Is Univeral Credit really on track – the DWP hides the facts”  Nik Silver asks in essence: why shouldn’t progress reports by IBM and McKinsey on Universal Credit be kept between the parties and not made public?

He says that criticism is usually helpful if the two parties can speak frankly without external interference.

It’s a reasonable point – if you are judging the public sector by the private sector’s standards. A private company would not make public consultancy reports it has commissioned on the progress or otherwise of a particularly costly project. Why should it?

Private v public sector approaches on big projects

But if the project goes wrong the private sector board will be accountable for the loss of money, or opportunity, or both. A private company’s board cares about a failed project because it cares about the bottom line.  If there is cogent criticism in a consultancy report, it will ignore that criticism at its peril.

Those standards don’t always apply in the public sector. There is no bottom line to worry about, no individual responsibility. What matters is reputation. We have seen too many public sector failed projects where the desire to maintain face, politically and internally, distorts the truth on projects.

Several ministers were proclaiming the £11bn NHS IT plan, the NPfIT, to be a success while it was going disastrously wrong. On the Rural Payment Agency’s IT-based Single Payment Scheme Parliament discovered that bad news was covered up. Ministers Lord Bach and Lord Whitty said they were misled by their officials.

When the truth financially came out it was too late to turn around the project cheaply and easily. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee said that if such a failure had happened at a major plc, the board would have faced dismissal.

Cover up when a project goes wrong also happens in the private sector. But case studies indicate that when a private sector board finds out it has been lied to, it does its utmost to put things right. The bottom line is the motivation.

In the public sector it sometimes happens that nothing is done to put serious problems right because there is no acceptance there are any serious problems. Nobody is allowed to accept internally that things are going wrong. A state of unreality exists. Some know the project is doomed.  Some at the top think it’s on track. The truth in the consultancy reports remains hidden, even internally. [The DWP couldn’t find the IBM and McKinsey reports when we first asked for them.]

Like Nik Silver, we would like Universal Credit to succeed. We are not sure it will, because the truth is not coming out. Unless serious problems are admitted they cannot be tackled.

Public sector

In the public sector a disaster does not usually become apparent until things are so bad the seriousness of the problems cannot be denied. It may be that Universal Credit will be a success if it is delayed or changed substantially in scope. That won’t be possible without reports such as IBM’s and McKinsey’s being published.  In the meantime Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, will  continue to be given papers showing that all is well.  If the IBM and McKinsey reports are published now, and they contain some serious high-level criticisms, perhaps impinging on policy and excessive complexity, the ills may be cured or at least tackled. If these and other progress reports are made public now the corrigible criticisms could create a political climate to address those ills.

At present Universal Credit looks like so many IT-based change programmes of the past.  One side says the project is becoming a disaster and the other side says all is well.  The truth I am sure is that some things look good and some things bad. The bad probably won’t be addressed unless Parliament, together with all those who have a professional interest in the project – and the public – know about it.

The way of the past is to keep everything hushed up until it’s too late. Now there’s a chance to do things differently.

Is Universal Credit really on track? – The DWP hides the facts.

Nik Silver’s website

2 Comments

Posted in Agile, Campaign4Change, change management, Government IT, IBM, IT projects, npfit, openness and transparency, operational issues, private sector lessons for the public sector, project management, public sector, public services, Universal Credit

Tagged ,

Is Universal Credit really on track? The DWP hides the facts.

Posted on 11/09/2012 | 6 comments

By Tony Collins

The Department for Work and Pensions has told Campaign4Change that consultancy reports it commissioned on Universal Credit would, if disclosed under FOI, cause “inappropriate concern”.

Who’s to say the concern would be inappropriate?

At the weekend a spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions told the BBC: “Liam Byrne (Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary) is quite simply wrong. Universal Credit is on track and on budget. To suggest anything else is incorrect.”

But the DWP has decided not to disclose reports by consultants IBM and McKinsey that could throw light on whether the department is telling the truth. Though the reports cost taxpayers nearly £400,000, the public has no right to see them.

The DWP told us: “Disclosure [under FOI] would … give the general public an unbalanced understanding of the [Universal Credit] Programme and potentially undermine policy outcomes, cause inappropriate concern (which in turn would need to be managed) and damage progress to the detriment of the Government’s key welfare reform and the wider UK economy.”

Comment

In refusing to publish the costly reports from IBM and McKinsey the Department for Work and Pensions makes the  assumption that the Universal Credit IT programme will be better off without disclosure. But does the  DWP know what is best for the Universal Credit project?  Is the DWP’s own record on project delivery exemplary? Some possible answers:

–  The DWP has a history of big IT project failures, some of which pre-date the “Operational Strategy” project in the 1980s to computerise benefit systems. MPs were told the Operational Strategy, as it was called, would cost about £70om; it cost at least £2.6bn.  Today, decades later, the DWP still has separate benefit systems and relies on “VME” mainframe software that dates back decades.

– NAO reports regularly criticise the DWP’s management of projects, programmes or  suppliers. One of the latest NAO reports on the DWP was about its poor management of a contract with Atos , which does fit-to-work medical assessments.

– The DWP hasn’t broken with tradition on the awarding of megadeals to the same familiar names. Though Universal Credit is said to be based, in part, on agile principles, Accenture and IBM are largely in control of the scheme and the department continues to award big contracts to a small number of large companies. HP, Accenture, IBM and Capgemini are safe in the DWP’s hands.

–  The NAO has qualified the accounts of the DWP for 23 years in a row because of “material” levels of fraud and error.

So is the DWP in an authoritative position to say that the taxpayer and the Universal Credit IT project are better off without disclosure of consultancy reports when the DWP has never done it differently; in other words it has never disclosed its consultancy reports?

Can we trust what DWP says?

Without those reports being put in the public domain can we trust what the DWP says on the success so far of the Universal Credit programme?

Unfortunately departments cannot always be trusted to tell the truth to the media, or Parliament, on the state of major projects.

In 2006 the then health minister Liam Byrne praised the progress of the NHS National Programme for IT, NPfIT. He told the House of Commons that the NPfIT had delivered new systems to thousands of locations in the NHS. “Progress is within budget, ahead of schedule in some areas and, in the context of a 10-year programme, broadly on track in others.”

That was incorrect. But it was what the Department of Health wanted to tell Parliament.

Now it is the DWP that is praising Universal Credit and it is Liam Byrne criticising the programme. This time Byrne may have a point. The problem is we don’t know; the DWP may or may not be telling the truth – even to its Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith.

It would not be the first time ministers were kept in the dark about the real state of big IT projects: ministers were among the last to know when the Rural Payment Agency’s Single Payment Scheme went awry.

And while the NPfIT was going disastrously wrong, progress on the programme was being praised by ministers who included Caroline Flint, Lord Hunt, Lord Warner, John Reid, Andy Burnham, Ivan Lewis and several others. Even a current minister, Simon Burns, gave Parliament a positive story on the NPfIT while the programme was dying.

So while DWP spokespeople and Iain Duncan Smith praise the Universal Credit IT programme can anyone trust what they say? Though Duncan Smith sits on an important DWP steering group on Universal Credit, does he know enough to know whether he is telling the truth when he says the programme is on track and on budget?

At arm’s length to ministers, officialdom owns and controls the facts on the state of all of the government’s biggest projects – and the facts on Universal Credit’s IT programme will continue to stay in locked cupboards unless the Information Commissioner rules otherwise, and even then the DWP will doubtless put up a fight against disclosure.

The IBM and McKinsey reports were so well hidden by the DWP that, for a time, it didn’t know it had them.

The DWP gave the reasons below for rejecting our appeal against the decision not to publish. The DWP’s arguments against publishing the reports on Universal Credit are the same ones that, hundreds of years ago, were used to ban the publication of Parliamentary proceedings: that reporting would affect the candour of what needed to be said. That proved to be nonsense.

By hiding the reports the DWP gives the impression it doesn’t want the truth about Universal Credit to come out – leaving the department and Iain Duncan Smith free to continue saying that the scheme is on track. Indeed Duncan Smith said yesterday that he “has nothing to hide here”. That is evidently not true.

The reports we’d requested were:

– Universal Credit end-to-end technical review” (IBM – cost £49240).
– Universal Credit delivery model assessment phases one and two. ( McKinsey and Partners – cost £350,000).

DWP’s letter to us:

7 September 2012
Dear Mr Collins,

…You asked for a copy of the Universal Credit Delivery Model Assessment Phase 1 and 2, and the Universal Credit End to End Technical Review.

I am writing to advise you that the Department has decided not to disclose the information you requested.

The department has conducted an internal review and the information you requested is being withheld as it falls under the exemptions at section 35(1)(a) and (formulation of Government policy) and Section 36 (2) (b) and (c) (prejudice to the effective conduct of public affairs) of the Freedom of Information Act. These exemptions require the public interest for and against disclosure to be balanced.

These reports from external consultants discuss the merits or drawbacks of the UC delivery model and an assessment of whether the IT architecture is fit for purpose. This must be candid otherwise; the Department and the taxpayer will not secure value for money. Such reports can therefore be negative by nature in their outlook.

The Department considers that premature disclosure of these reports could lead to future consultants’ reports being less frank. In addition, there is a risk that this may lead to an absence of a recorded audit trail of the more candid elements. This is not in the public interest. Similarly, key staff selected to be interviewed by consultants are likely to be inhibited if they think their candour is likely to be recorded and released.

It is vital that the Department’s ability effectively to identify, assess and manage its key risks to delivery is not compromised. The willingness of senior managers to fully engage in a timely manner and support consultants assessment and assurance of key IT projects in an unrestrained, frank and candid way is vital to the effectiveness of the process.

Disclosure would also give the general public an unbalanced understanding of the Programme and potentially undermine policy outcomes, cause inappropriate concern (which in turn would need to be managed) and damage progress to the detriment of the Government’s key welfare reform and the wider UK economy.

While we recognise that the publication of the information requested could provide an independent assessment of the key issues and risks, we have to balance this against the fact that these reports includes details of ongoing policy formulation and sensitive information the publication of which would be likely to prejudice the effective conduct of public affairs.

The Department periodically publishes information about the introduction of Universal Credit, and this can be found on the Departments website here http://www.dwp.gov.uk/policy/welfare-reform/universal-credit/

Yours sincerely
Ethna Harnett

We have appealed the DWP’s refusal so the matter is now before the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Universal  Credit programme on course for disaster – Frank Field

Has the DWP lost £400,000 of reports it commissioned on Universal Credit?

Millions of pounds of secret DWP reports

NAO criticises Atos benefits contract

DWP scraps £141m IT project three months after assurance to MPs

6 Comments

Posted in Agile, Campaign4Change, change, change management, DWP, excessive secrecy, Freedom of Information, Government IT, HMRC, IBM, IT projects, managing outsourced services, npfit, outsourcing, Universal Credit

Tagged ,

IBM in dispute with its joint venture partners on £585m contract

Posted on 31/08/2012 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

IBM says it is currently in dispute with the joint venture partners on a number of contractual matters relating to South West One, a joint venture between IBM and three public authorities. IBM owns the joint venture company.

South West One’s annual report says that a mediation was held on 4 and 5 July 2012 between IBM and Somerset County Council, which is the main public authority partner, on a confidential basis.

“No settlement has been reached and accordingly the board [of South West One] will be reviewing which of the remaining options in the contractual procedure should now be pursued,” says SW1’s annual report.

South West One’s report doesn’t give any detail on the “contractual matters” in dispute.

Possible matters under discussion might have included a withholding of money (the councils are expected to pay IBM about £585m over 10 years, from 2007),  contention over KPIs (IBM did not meet all of its key performance indicators and indeed met fewer of Somerset’s KPIs in 2011 than in 2010), changes to the contract which is being re-negotiated, a lack of remedial action over accounting problems in Somerset’s finance department following a major SAP implementation , a shortfall in expected savings, and the council’s extra costs of working around SAP-related problems .

It is known that a contract renegotiation has been underway for some time.

The contract was subjected to review after the Conservatives took control of Somerset County Council from the Liberal Democrats in May 2009.

The review in June 2010 found that some aspects of the contract had been successful but “figures provided do, however, tend to indicate that the anticipated procurement savings are currently falling short of projections”.

On service delivery the review said there had been “major and minor system problems and difficulties in implementation have been experienced which have often involved Somerset County Council staff in additional time and effort in working around these issues”.

It said that a “significant area of difficulty has been in relation to financial and processing components of SAP which have also had a serious effect on others outside Somerset County Council.

“As a result, there appears to have been substantial but unquantified additional direct and indirect costs incurred by the County Council and others in resolving the various difficulties encountered.

“Southwest One has also provided intensive additional resources at its own expense, notably in addressing the issues that arose in relation to the SAP phase one roll out where lessons have clearly been learned and applied to the more successful phase two implementation. More work is, however, still required as a priority in some key areas where concerns remain around the efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery and financial systems.”

South West One is dependent on the financial support of IBM to continue trading, says  company’s annual report. It adds that the “difficult political and economic environments in which the company has been operating have not shown any signs of easing”. Somerset has taken back from South West One finance, an HR advisory service, design and print.

“The difficult environment for business, both public and private, will continue to place strains upon opportunities for South West One,” said the annual report.

“There will be specific challenges in the forthcoming year due to the implementation of Universal Credit, the requirements of the Winsor report and changes in regard to the move from Police Authorities to Police Crime Commissioners.”

South West One made a loss in 2011 of £6.8m (a loss of £22.7m in 2010) and has accumulated net liabilities of £43.2m. The company can continue trading, in part because it has the support of IBM UK’s parent:  International Business Machines Corporation based at Armonk New York.

IBM owns 75% of the shares in South West One. Somerset owns 11.75%, Avon and Somerset Police Authority 8.25%, and Taunton Deane Borough Council 5%.

This article owes much to Dave Orr who has campaigned tenaciously for the facts of the South West One deal to be made known.  

Comment

The unsettled dispute suggests that the “partnership” aspect of the contract between IBM and the three public authorities – Somerset County Council, Taunton Deane Borough Council and Avon and Somerset Police Authority –  is at an end. A partnership normally implies a harmonious relationship between the parties.

Is it any surprise that things have come to this?

The South West One contract was signed in 2007, in the early hours, at a weekend, amid great haste and secrecy.  The deal was driven by a senior official at Somerset who wanted to take the council “beyond excellence”. But the joint venture had little support from many of the council staff who were seconded to South West One. Most councillors took little interest in the setting up of South West One.

IBM has found to its cost that signing a major contract with just an inner circle of enthusiasts is not enough to make such a deal work. Though some have changed many of Somerset’s councillors remain. It could be said that they deserve the deal they have got, given that so few of them took any interest in the negotiations in 2007.

Besides, it is unlikely that any joint venture which doesn’t have the support of most staff will work, which makes mutuals a potentially better shared-services option.

IBM struggles with SAP two years on – a shared services warning?

IBM-led model partnership based on SAP makes loss

1 Comment

Posted in Campaign4Change, change, change management, cost reduction, culture, IBM, IT-related failures, legal disputes, local government, managing outsourced services, mutuals, openness and transparency, operational issues, outsourcing, Politics, procurement, public-private partnerships, SAP, shared services, Universal Credit

Tagged

More agile-thinkers like Roo Reynolds please

Posted on 15/08/2012 | Leave a comment

By Tony Collins

There’s a useful “keep-it-simple” article on agile software development principles by Roo Reynolds who a product manager at the Government Digital Service.

Reynolds quotes Marissa Mayer, former Google product manager, now Yahoo CEO, who said that there are two types of developer: those who seek perfection and those who seek something working today that they can improve on tomorrow.

“You probably want to work with the second sort of developer as much as possible,” says Reynolds. He quotes Voltaire as saying ‘the best is the enemy of the good’.  From Reynolds’ article:

“We start with a Minimum Viable Product, asking ourselves, what’s the simplest thing that could possibly work? We aim to have a working product, albeit a limited one, within a week or two.

“Having something you can point at and get feedback on as soon as possible is definitely better than attempting to polish something to perfection without anyone being able to tell you whether what you’re making is actually what they need.”

He warns against using made-up data, such as Lorem Ipsum text, because:

– it causes existing assumptions to be reinforced rather than challenged

– it lazily misses an opportunity to iron out any difficulties in getting hold of the real data

He concludes that “nothing beats feedback from real users”.

“Testing products with real users is vital. We always start with user needs (generally captured as user stories) and in meeting those needs I’ve learned not to get too comfortable with any implementation until we’ve tried it with a range of real people. Best of all, it’s ok to be wrong. The best way of getting closer to being right is to test real ideas with real people.”

Comment

If these principles had been applied to the NPfIT it might never have been started.  The NPfIT launched with the principle: what’s the most complicated thing that could possibly work?

Too often assumptions were made on the basis of unrepresentative data such as patient records that were up-to-date, accurate and not duplicated. The NPfIT was tested on real users – but then the bad news was all but ignored.

If Reynolds had been advising on the NPfIT, and Tony Blair hadn’t been so gung-ho when he chaired a discussion on NHS IT at a meeting in Downing Street on 18 February 2002, perhaps billions would not have been wasted on the programme.

More like Roo Reynolds in government please.

@rooreynolds

Reynolds’ article, Government Digital Service.

Leave a comment

Posted in Agile, Campaign4Change, change management, cost reduction, e-health, Government IT, health records, IT-related failures, npfit, private sector lessons for the public sector, reducing cost strategically

Tagged , ,

All change at the DH, CfH and on NPfIT – or not?

Posted on 11/07/2012 | Leave a comment

By Tony Collins

Katie Davis is to leave as interim Managing Director of NHS Informatics, says eHealth Insider which has seen an internal memo.

.The memo indicates that Davis “intends to focus on being a full-time mother to her two children”.

She joined the Department of Health on 1 July 2011, on loan from the Cabinet Office where she was Executive Director, Operational Excellence, in the Efficiency and Reform Group.

Before that she was Executive Director of Strategy at the Identity and Passport Service in the Home Office.

The memo indicates that the director responsible for the day-to-day delivery of NHS programmes and services, Tim Donohoe, will take-over Davis’ role until NHS Connecting for Health shuts down at the end of March 2013.

CfH’s national projects look set to move to the NHS Commissioning Board in Leeds, while its delivery functions will move to the Health and Social Care Information Centre.

Davis had told eHeath Insider that her priorities included concluding a piece of unfinished business on the NPfIT – the future of the [CSC] local service provider deal for the North, Midlands and East.

Comment:

Davis has been a strong independent voice at the Department of Health. Partly under her influence buying decisions have passed to NHS trusts without penalties being paid by the NHS to NPfIT local service provider CSC.

It is a little worrying, though, that high-level responsibility for the rump of the NPfIT – CSC’s contracts, Choose and Book, the Spine, Summary Care Record and other centrally-managed projects and programmes – may fall to David Nicholson, Chief Executive of the NHS.

Labour appointed Nicholson in 2006 with a brief that included making a success of the NPfIT. He has been the NPfIT’s strongest advocate.

Indeed a confidential briefing paper from the Department of Health to the then PM Tony Blair in 2007 on the progress of the NPfIT said:

“… much of the programme is complete with software delivered to time and to budget.”

It is difficult to see the NPfIT being completely dismantled under David Nicholson. It’s probable that CfH will be shut down in name but recreated in other parts of the NHS, while the NPfIT programmes and projects run down very slowly.  It’s even conceivable that CSC’s and BT’s local service provider contracts will be extended before they are due to expire in 2015/16.

A comment on eHealth Insider says:

“My understanding is that NPfIT is leaving us with a legacy of ancient PAS systems barely fit for purpose which cost a fortune to operate and which will transfer to a massive service charge once national contracts end. That’s if you don’t count the most expensive PACS system in the universe. And I wonder what Lorenzo cost?”

It’s hard to argue with that. Meanwhile the costly NPfIT go-lives are due to continue, at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, for example.

End game for Davis and CfH announced.

Leave a comment

Posted in Campaign4Change, change management, health records, IT-related failures, managing outsourced services, NHS, npfit, public sector, public services, reducing cost strategically

Tagged , , , ,

IBM won bid without lowest-price – council gives detail under FOI

Posted on 10/07/2012 | Leave a comment

By Tony Collins

Excessive secrecy has characterised a deal between IBM and Somerset County Council which was signed in 2007.

Indeed I once went to the council’s offices in Taunton, on behalf of Computer Weekly, for a pre-arranged meeting to ask questions about the IBM contract. A council lawyer refused to answer most of my questions because I did not live locally.

Now (five years later) Somerset’s Corporate Information Governance Officer Peter Grogan at County Hall, Taunton, has shown that the council can be surprisingly open.

He has overturned a refusal of the council to give the bid prices. Suppliers sometimes complain that the public sector awards contracts to the lowest-price bidder. But …

Supplier / Bid Total cost over 10 years
BT Standard bid £220.552M
BT Variant Bid £248.055M
Capita Standard Bid £256.671M
Capita Variant Bid £267.687M
IBM Standard Bid £253.820M
IBM Variant Bid £253.820M

The FOI request was made by former council employee Dave Orr who has, more than anyone, sought to hold Somerset and IBM to account for what has turned out to be a questionable deal.

Under the FOI Act, Orr asked Somerset County Council for the bid totals. It refused saying the suppliers had given the information  in confidence. Orr appealed. In granting the appeal Grogan said:

“I would also consider that the passage of time has a significant impact here as the figures included under the exemption are now some 5 years old and their commercial sensitivity is somewhat eroded.

“Whilst, at the time those companies tendering for the contract would justifiably expect the information to be confidential and that they could rely upon confidentiality clauses, I am not able to support the non-disclosure due the fact that the FOI Act creates a significant argument for disclosure that outweighs the confidentiality agreement once the tender exercise is complete and a reasonable amount of time has passed.

“I therefore do not consider this exemption [section 41] to be engaged. Please find the information you requested below…”

[In my FOI experience – making requests to central government departments – the internal review process has always proved pointless. So all credit to Peter Grogan for not taking the easy route, in this case at least.]

MP Ian Liddell-Grainger ‘s website on the “Southwest One” IBM deal.

IBM struggles with SAP two years on – a shared services warning.

Council accepts IBM deal as failing.

Was Audit Commission Somerset and IBM’s unofficial PR agents?

Leave a comment

Posted in Campaign4Change, change, change management, excessive secrecy, Freedom of Information, governance, IBM, IT-related failures, managing change, managing outsourced services, SAP, shared services, software quality, supplier relationships

Tagged ,

Medical dictionary should help prevent medication mistakes

Posted on 03/07/2012 | Leave a comment

By Tony Collins

The Department of Health says that a medicines dictionary, which is approved today, will make medical errors less likely by ensuring all staff who work in the NHS and healthcare use the same terminology when referring to medicines.

The Information Standards Board for Health and Social Care has approved the NHS dictionary of medicines and devices – called “dm+d” –  as a standard which, says the Department of Health,  “must be used by all staff”.

The DH says that “all doctors, nurses and pharmacists should move towards using the common medicines dictionary so that information exchanged electronically is accurate and safe”.

Using a single drug terminology will “enable information about patients’ medicines to transfer more effectively between different healthcare settings, reducing the risk of medication mistakes caused by human error”.

The NHS dictionary of medicines and devices is already used in the UK for the exchange of clinical information, including the Electronic Prescription Service and for patients’ Summary Care Records.

Dr Charles Gutteridge, National Clinical Director for Informatics at the Department of Health and Medical Director, Barts and the London NHS Trust said

“The adoption of dm+d is an important milestone. It will mean clearer and consistent communication throughout the NHS ensuring health professionals in all care settings …. I encourage all clinicians to accelerate their use of this common medical dictionary for the benefit of the patients we care for.”

Heidi Wright, from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) said “The Royal Pharmaceutical Society supports the need for a single terminology to facilitate interoperability and to enable such initiatives as the Electronic prescription Service (EPS). We believe that the opportunities created for using dm+d are substantial in terms of interoperability, opportunities for comparison and reducing variation, enhancing patient safety i.e. reducing risks associated with system interfaces and providing links to clinical systems such as the British National Formulary .”

The dictionary contains unique identifiers and associated textual descriptions for medicines and medical devices.  It was developed and delivered through a partnership between the Department of Health Informatics Directorate  and the NHS Business Services Authority.

The DH Information Strategy says that  reducing the number of inconsistent or incompatible terminologies will allow better integration between systems and across health and social care, and better information to support care and improvement of care.

Leave a comment

Posted in change, change management, data sharing, Government IT, health, health records, NHS

Timetable for HMRC’s work on Universal Credit is “challenging” says NAO

Posted on 28/06/2012 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

Today’s report of the National Audit Office on the accounts of HMRC is, perhaps diplomatically, silent on the performance of HMRC’s work so far on Universal Credit, other than to say the timetable for roll-out beginning in October next year is “challenging”.

There have been internal assessments of HMRC’s “Real Time Information” [RTI] project, on which the success of Universal Credit is dependent, but none has been published other than the “Starting Gate”.

Today’s NAO report on HMRC says the “timetable for implementation of RTI is challenging”. It adds:

“The Department for Work and Pension’s timetable to implement Universal Credit is driving the timetable to roll-out RTI. The Department for Work and Pensions requires real time PAYE information on employment and pension income to award and adjust Universal Credit.

“It is rolling out Universal Credit from October 2013 to 2017. All employers and pension providers need to be using RTI by October 2013 to meet this timetable.

“The Department met its milestone to start its RTI pilot in April 2012 with ten employers. By July 2012, it expects a further 310 employers will be using RTI. At 31 May 2012, 209 PAYE schemes covering 1.5 million individual records were using RTI.”

NAO report on HMRC’s 2011/12 accounts

HMRC still plagued by IT problems.

Time for truth on Universal Credit

1 Comment

Posted in Campaign4Change, change management, excessive secrecy, Government IT, HMRC, IT projects, outsourcing, Real-Time Information

Tagged ,

How CIOs and IT suppliers view GovIT change

Posted on 25/06/2012 | 3 comments

By Tony Collins

CIOs and IT suppliers give their views on Government ICT in an authoritative report published today by the Institute for Government

Inside the wrapper of generally positive words, a report published today on government ICT by the Institute for Government suggests that major change is unlikely to happen, despite the best efforts of  CIOs and the Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude.

The report “System upgrade? The first year of the Government’s ICT strategy”  says progress has been made. But its messages suggest that reforms are unlikely to  amount to more than tweaks.

These are some of the key messages in the report:

If the minister and CIOs cannot direct change who can?

–          “… while the Minister for the Cabinet Office and government CIO are viewed as being responsible for delivering the ICT strategy (for example by the Public Accounts Committee) they currently lack the full authority to direct change.”

Not so agile

–           “While just over half of government departments may be running an agile project, there were concerns that these were often very minor projects running on the fringe of the departments.”

–          “We heard concerns from the supplier community and those inside government that in some areas projects may be being labelled as ‘agile’ without having really changed the way in which they were run.”

–          “CIOs should question whether they are genuinely improving the ways that they are working in areas such as agile, or whether they are just attaching a label to projects to get a tick in the box,” says the Institute for Government.

Savings not real?

–          “There was also an element of challenge to the savings figures provided by government. For example, some from government and the supplier community questioned whether the numbers represented genuine savings or just cuts in the services provided or deferred expenditure. “

–          “Others … cautioned that project scope creep or change requests could reduce actual savings in time. It was pointed out that the NAO [National Audit Office] will scrutinise whether savings have been achieved in future, which was seen as a clear incentive for accuracy – but there were, nonetheless, concerns that pressure to provide large savings figures meant that inadequate attention might be paid to verifying the savings …”

CIOs want faster ICT progress

–          “Among the CIOs we interviewed, there was a clear recognition that government ICT needed to improve.  ‘You expect an Amazon experience from a government department…’ ”

Lack of money good for change

–          “As one ICT lead noted, a lack of money was ‘always helpful’ in driving change as it promoted cross-government solution-sharing and led to more rigour in approving new spend.”

–          “Both ICT leaders and suppliers felt that the ICT moratorium had been a helpful stimulus for increased focus on value for money.”

–          “Though some of the larger suppliers felt bruised by the ‘smash and grab’ of initial interactions with the Coalition government, there was a recognition that the moratorium had been about ‘stopping things which were inappropriate’”.

GDS challenges norms

–          “New ways of working in the new Government Digital Service and the opening up of government through the Transparency agenda were also seen as providing a challenge to existing norms.”

–          The new Government Digital Service (GDS) is providing an example of a new way of doing things, and was pointed to by those inside and outside of government as embodying mould-breaking attitudes, using innovative techniques and … delivering results on very short timescales. Several interviews mentioned being invigorated by the positive approach of the GDS and their focus on delivering services to meet end-user needs.

ICT so poor staff circumvent it

–          “Public servants are increasingly frustrated that the ICT they use in their private lives appears to be far more advanced than the tools available to them at work. Indeed, there are already examples of employees circumventing the ICT that government provides them as they attempt to perform their job more effectively: creating what is known as a system of ‘shadow ICT’ that creates significant challenges for maintaining government security, collaborative working and government knowledge management.”

Joined-up Govt impossible?

–          “The possibility that departmental incentives continue to trump corporate contributions is further suggested by our survey results. Individuals do not yet feel that corporate contributions are valued or rewarded … elements of the [ICT] strategy call for departments to give up an element of autonomy and choice for the ‘greater good’. Several CIOs expressed concerns that by adopting elements of the strategy that were being developed or delivered by another department, they would end up having to accept a service that had been designed  around the needs of a different department.”

–          “Similarly, there were concerns that the host department would be at the top priority in the event of any problems or opportunities to develop services further. This speaks to a strongly department-centric culture. Suppliers noted, for example, that certain parts of government were still happy to ‘pay a premium for their autonomy’.”

–          “… the vast majority of those we spoke to suggested that departmental interests would almost always ultimately trump cross-government interests in the current government culture and context.”

–          “CIOs felt that they would be rewarded for delivery of departmental priorities – not pan-government work …”

CIO Council frustrations

“CIOs noted that there could be a discrepancy between what got agreed at the old CIO Council meetings and what people actually went away and did. Larger department CIOs also expressed frustration that – despite holding the largest budgets and carrying the largest delivery risks – their voices could easily be outweighed by the multitude of other people round the table.”

“The delivery board model [which has superseded CIO Council] has been recognised by both big and small departments as pragmatically dealing with both sides of this issue. Larger departments now form part of an inner-leadership circle, but with this recognition of their clout comes additional responsibility to own and drive through parts of the strategy… the challenge will now be to ensure that the ICT strategy doesn’t become a ‘large department-only’ affair and that other ICT leads can be effectively engaged.”

Canny suppliers?

–          The majority of ICT leads …stated that they believed the ICT strategy would benefit their department and government as a whole. This confidence was less apparent in the attitudes of suppliers who were, on the whole, more sceptical of government’s ability to drive change, though again generally supportive of the direction of travel.

A toothless ICT Strategy is of little value?

–          “…There was also a lack of clarity on how different elements of the [ICT] strategy would be enforced. As one ICT leader commented … ‘Is this a mandatable strategy or a reference document?’ ”

–          … “there are risks that the strategy could be delivered in a way that still doesn’t transform ICT performance.”

Francis Maude an asset

–          “Government ICT has also been a priority of the Minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude – giving the [change] agenda unprecedented ministerial impetus. He has been a visible face of ICT to many inside and outside of government, from demanding departmental data on ICT to being heavily involved in negotiations with ICT suppliers. Though few of his ministerial colleagues appear as passionate about improving government ICT, the CIOs we interviewed overwhelmingly expressed confidence that they would receive the support they needed to implement the changes in ICT.”

Smaller-budget CIOs out of the loop?

–          “With the CIO Council in hiatus for most of the last year, the CIOs of smaller departments felt out of the loop …”

Most ICT spending is outside SW1

–          “Suppliers and other ICT leaders pointed out, rightly, that the vast majority of ICT expenditure happens outside SW1 – with agencies, local government and organisations like primary care trusts and police forces still determining much of the citizen and workforce experience of ICT.”

SMEs still left out?

–          “Smaller suppliers … were generally encouraged that government was trying to use more contractual vehicles which would be open to them – but noted that it was ‘still extremely difficult to get close to government as an SME’.”

Who knows if use of ICT is improving?

–          “Government still lacks the information it needs to judge whether use of ICT across government is improving.”

System upgrade? The first year of the Government’s ICT Strategy.

Too early to claim success on GovIT – Institute for Government

3 Comments

Posted in Campaign4Change, capacity building, change, change management, CIO, cost reduction, culture, efficiency savings, governance, Government IT, IT projects, IT-related failures, Major Projects Authority, managing change, managing outsourced services, procurement, reducing cost strategically

Tagged , , , , , ,