Category Archives: excessive secrecy

Well done Eric Pickles – more open government to engulf councils

Posted on 29/08/2012 | 2 comments

By Tony Collins

Few people have noticed but changes to the law next month could force councils to be much more open about big spending decisions including those that involve contracting out IT and other services.

It is a pity though that similar changes will not apply to the NHS.

The Local Government Association says that councils are already more open than Whitehall which is true.

Even so some councils are innately secretive about IT-related spending decisions, and discussions about projects that go wrong. Somerset County Council was notoriously secretive about its Southwest One joint venture with IBM in 2007. The deal has not made the expected savings and has consistently made losses. IBM claims the deal is a success.

Haringey Council’s “Tech refresh” project which went way over budget is another example. Evasive answers to opposition questions and meetings in secret were the norm.

Liverpool City Council was extraordinarily defensive and secretive about progress or otherwise on its Liverpool Direct Ltd joint venture with BT. The deal included giving BT control of IT.

Better public scrutiny

Now Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles has announced that changes to the law will mean that all decisions including those affecting budgets and local services will have to be taken in an open and public forum.

Ministers have put new regulations before Parliament that would come into force next month to extend the rights of people to attend all meetings of a council’s executive, its committees and subcommittees.

Pickles says the changes will result in greater public scrutiny. “The existing media definition will be broadened to cover organisations that provide internet news thereby opening up councils to local online news outlets. Individual councillors will also have stronger rights to scrutinise the actions of their council.

“Any executive decision that would result in the council incurring new spending or savings significantly affecting its budget or where it would affect the communities of two or more council wards will have to be taken in a more transparent way as a result.”

Councils will no longer be able to cite political advice as justification for closing a meeting to the public and press. Any intentional obstruction or refusal to supply certain documents could result in a fine for the individual concerned.

The changes clarify the limited circumstances where meetings can be closed, for example, where it is likely that a public meeting would result in the disclosure of confidential information. Where a meeting is due to be closed to the public, the council must now justify why that meeting is to be closed and give 28 days notice of such decision.

Chris Taggart, of OpenlyLocal.com, which has long championed the need to open council business up to public scrutiny, said

“In a world where hi-definition video cameras are under £100 and hyperlocal bloggers are doing some of the best council reporting in the country, it is crazy that councils are prohibiting members of the public from videoing, tweeting and live-blogging their meetings.”

These are the changes to be made by the  The Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2012 (the 2012 Regulations) which will come into force on 10 September 2012.

– Local authorities will have to provide reasonable facilities for members of the public to report council proceedings (regulation 4). This will make it easier for new ‘social media’ reporting of council executive meetings, opening proceedings to blogging, tweeting and hyper-local news/forum reporting.

– In the past council executives could hold meetings in private without giving public notice. From 10 September 2010 councils must give 28 days notice where a meeting is to be held in private, during which time people may make representations on why the meeting should be held in public. When the council wants to over-ride the notice period, it must publish a notice as soon as reasonably practicable explaining why the meeting is urgent and cannot be deferred (regulation 5).

– A document explaining the key decision to be made, the matter in respect of which a decision would be made, the documents to be considered before the decision is made, and the procedures for requesting details of those documents, has to be published (regulations 9).

– The new regulations create a presumption that all meetings of the executive, its committees and subcommittees are to be held in public (regulation 3) unless a narrowly-defined legal exception applies.

– Where the council has a document that contains materials relating to a business to be discussed at a public meeting, members of the local authority have additional rights to inspect such a document at least five days before the meeting (regulation 16). Previously no timescale existed.

– Where the council decides not to release the whole or part of a document to a member of an overview and scrutiny committee as requested by a councillor, it must provide a written statement to explain the reasons for not releasing such document (regulation 17).

– Documents relating to a key decision including background papers must be on the relevant local authority’s website (regulations 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 14, 15, and 21).

Comment

Well done to Eric Pickles and the coalition. These are important and welcome changes. If council decision-makers know their discussions will be open to scrutiny they may give proper consideration to risks as well as the potential benefits of big IT-related investments. With inadequate scrutiny the potential benefits often drive decisions, which was the case with the flawed setting up of Southwest One. The press office at Liverpool City Council was so used to controlling information that its spokesman was outraged at questions we asked about its outsourcing venture with BT.

But what about the NHS?

It’s a pity the NHS is not subject to the new legal changes. Few trusts are open about their big IT-related investments; and when things go wrong, as has happened with some Cerner implementations, NHS trusts tend to lock all the doors, talk in whispers and instruct their press offices to issue statements that claim “teething troubles” have been largely addressed. The trust and everyone reading the statement know it is disingenuous but the facts to prove it are kept under wraps.

Organisations such as Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust are taking decisions about major IT upgrades that could affect the safety, health and lives of patients without proper scrutiny. Pickles may want to mention his legal innovations to Andrew Lansley.

Eric Pickles announcement on opening up council discussions and decisions 

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Posted in BT Health, Campaign4Change, Cerner, decision-making, e-health, excessive secrecy, health, health records, improving communications, IT-related failures, local government, managing outsourced services, NHS, npfit, openness and transparency, operational issues, outsourcing, Politics, public sector, public services, public-private partnerships, shared services

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Ex Govt CIO speaks – having left the public sector

Posted on 22/08/2012 | 3 comments

By Tony Collins

In November last year we asked “Where is the Government CIO?”

We said that the then Government CIO Joe Harley – amiable, straight-talking and influential – could be the civil service’s ambassador for change.

Like his predecessor John Suffolk he could have used conferences and public events to talk inspirationally about the dystopian costs of government IT and what to do about them.  Why hasn’t he, we asked.

“If the Government CIO has much to say, it is not for the public ear. While there has been talk in recent weeks of how five corporations control GovIT, and how it can cost up to £50,000 to change a line of code, Harley has been silent.

“Where does the Government CIO stand on the need for major reform of the machinery of government, on the sensible risks that could save billions? Is the top man in Government IT inspiring his colleagues and officials in other departments to do things differently?”

Now it’s good to hear Joe Harley has speaking publicly about government IT, and what needs to be done. He has left the public sector though.

He suggested to Computing that there needs to be less strategising and more action.

“The whole emphasis now needs to be on implementation and delivery. There has been enough strategising and there really needs to be execution… [The government must] deliver on the implementation plan that we created and grow the talent with capability for the future.

“When it starts to deliver, we’ll start to see government ICT getting a [better] reputation,” he said.

Comment

Who will do less strategising and focus more on delivery?

As Harley now says, there needs to be individual accountability for decisions rather than a generalised blaming of committees.

“I think we need to be more light-footed and make people more accountable for their decisions and actions rather than [blaming] committees and programme boards,” he said.

No individual in government is going to make the changes that Harley recommends. Any real changes will be effected by committees and programme boards. Which is probably why material change in government administration and IT will happen in geologic periods. Unless an individual with charisma and leadership abilities – and who doesn’t mind talking in public while still in the public sector – is prepared to make the difference.

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Posted in Campaign4Change, CIO, excessive secrecy, Government IT, improving communications

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DWP finds hidden Universal Credit reports – after FOI requests

Posted on 21/08/2012 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

The Department for Work and Pensions has found two reports on Universal Credit reports it commissioned from IBM and McKinsey and did not know existed.

One of the reports was a Universal Credit “end to end technical review” carried out by IBM at a cost of £49,240. Another was a review of the Universal Credit “delivery model assessment phases one and two” carried by McKinsey and Partners at a cost of £350,000.  The assessments were in the first half of 2011.

In March, under the FOI Act, Campaign4Change asked the DWP for a copy of the reports and the Department couldn’t find them.

On 19 July 2012, Julie Kitchin, Senior Business Partner, Operations at the Financial Control Directorate, Risk Management Division, DWP Quarry House, Leeds, said in a letter:

“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.

“To ascertain whether the Department holds these documents I requested a thorough search of the Universal Credit Programme document library.

“Universal Credit Colleagues have confirmed that the Department does not hold documents with these titles or under these names…”

I replied that a mistake appeared to have been made. “The reports I asked for are referred to in this Parliamentary reply, which gives the cost of the reports and the consultants whom the DWP commissioned to produce them. How can the DWP now say they have no record of the reports?” I gave a link to the Parliamentary reply.

Kitchin said she would seek clarification.  Now Martin Dillon of the DWP’s Central FOI Team, says his Department has found the reports. Says Dillon in a letter,

“It has taken time to locate the documents as they are sensitive in nature and held securely and separately from the normal programme library of information – accessible only through a secure authority.

“I can however now confirm that the relevant records have been located and retrieved.”

Comment

So will the DWP now release the Universal Credit reports?

Not a chance.   The DWP does not publish any consultancy reports, especially external assessments of Universal Credit. Indeed it appears to be so innately, instinctively and culturally secretive that it hides from its own staff independent  assessments of its projects.

Could it be that the DWP is in part PR-driven, to the extent that it commissions tens of millions of pounds worth of external reviews of projects, which ministers and officials can quote from selectively in case a project such as Universal Credit is criticised in Parliament, but which remain hidden so that anything negative is always kept from public and Parliamentary scrutiny?

In defence of the DH’s decision to pay generous sums to BT for Rio and Cerner deployments under the NPfIT, the department quoted selectively from a series of consultancy reports which it refused to publish.

Officially the DWP has not made up its mind on whether to publish the Universal credit reports. In private its officials know there is no way it will publish them.

This is the official DWP response to Campaign4Change on the reports requested under FOI:

“It is occasionally necessary to extend the time limit for issuing a response. In the case of your request, we need to extend the time limit because the information requested must be considered under one of the exemptions to which the public interest test applies.

“This extra time is needed in order to make a determination as to the public interest. Accordingly, we hope to let you have a response by 13 September.”

Universal Credit is one of the government’s biggest IT-related projects. Ministers say that all is going well. But what if the plans are to go live with a tiny proportion of claimants in October next year, with most of the remainder to follow after the next general election, if at all? Is that a PR success or a postponed disaster? It’s certainly a good reason to keep independent assessments of the project secret.

“If people don’t know what you’re doing, they don’t know what you’re doing wrong.” – Yes Minister.

Has DWP lost £400,000 worth of Universal Credit studies it commissioned?

DWP hides already published report on Universal Credit

Millions of secret DWP reports.

Time for truth on Universal Credit IT

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Posted in DWP, excessive secrecy, FOI, Freedom of Information, Gateway reviews, governance, Government IT, openness and transparency

Maude gives up on plan to publish regular reports on major projects

Posted on 09/08/2012 | 6 comments

By Tony Collins

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has given up on publishing regular “Gateway” reports on the progress or otherwise of big IT and construction projects.

Publication of the independent reviews has proved a step too far towards open government.  Were Maude to insist on publishing Major Projects Authority “Gateway” review reports, it would alienate too many influential senior civil servants whose support Maude needs to implement the Civil Service Reform Plan of June 2012.

Gateway reviews are independent reports on medium and high-risk projects at important stages of their lifecycle.  If current and topical the reviews are always kept secret. One copy is given to the project’s senior responsible owner and the Cabinet Office’s Major Projects Authority keeps another. Other copies have limited distribution.

In opposition Maude said he would publish the reviews; and when in power Maude took the necessary steps: the Cabinet Office’s “Structural Reform Plan Monthly Implementation Updates” included an undertaking to publish Gateway reviews by December 2011 .

When some officials, particularly those who had worked at the Office of Government Commerce, objected strongly to publishing the reports (for reasons set out below), the undertaking  to publish them vanished from further Structural Reform Plan Monthly Implementation Updates.  When asked why, a spokesman for the Cabinet Office said the plan to publish Gateway reviews had only ever been a “draft” proposal.

The anti-publication officials have thwarted even Sir Bob Kerslake, head of the Home Civil Service, who replaced Sir Gus O’Donnell.  When in May 2012 Conservative MP Richard Bacon asked Kerslake about publishing Gateway reviews, Kerslake replied:

“Yes, actually we are looking at this specific issue as part of the Civil Service Reform Plan….I cannot say exactly what will be in the plan because we have not finalised it yet, but it is due in June and my expectation is that I am very sympathetic to publication of the RAG [red, amber, green] ratings.”

Inexplicably there was a change of plan. The Civil Service Reform Plan in fact said nothing about Gateway reports. It made no mention of RAG ratings. What the Plan offered on openness over major projects was an undertaking that “Government will publish an annual report on major projects by July 2012, which will cover the first full year’s operation of the Major Projects Authority.”  (This is a far cry from publishing regular independent Gateway assessments on major projects such as the IT for Universal Credit.)

Even that promise has yet to materialise: no annual report has been published. The Cabinet Office originally promised Parliament an annual report on the Major Projects Authority by December 2011. The Cabinet Office says that the annual MPA report has been delayed because the “team is now clear that it makes sense to include a full financial year’s worth of data and analysis in its first report”.

When eventually published the annual report will, says the Cabinet Office,  “make for a far more informative and comprehensive piece, and will include analysis of data up to 31 March 2012. This will be the first time the UK government has reported on its major projects in such a coherent and transparent way.”

Even so it’s now clear that the Cabinet Office is discarding its plans to publish regular Gateway review reports. Maude wants cooperation with officials, not confrontation.  He made this clear in the reform plan in which he said:

“Some may caricature this action plan as an attack on the Civil Service. It isn’t. It would be just as wrong to caricature the attitude of the Civil Service as one of unyielding resistance to change. Many of the most substantive ideas in this paper have come out of the work led by Permanent Secretaries themselves.”

But Maude is also frustrated at the quiet recalcitrance of some officials.  To a Lords committee that was inquiring into the accountability of civil servants, he said

“The thing for me that is absolutely fundamental in civil servants is that they should feel wholly uninhibited in challenging, advising and pushing back and then when a decision is made they should be wholly clear about implementing it.

“For me the sin against the holy ghost is to not push back and then not do it – that is what really enrages ministers, certainly in talking to ministers in the last government and in the current government. It is by no mean universal, but it is far more widespread than is desirable.”

It’s likely that Maude will keep Gateway reports secret so long as he has the cooperation of officials on civil service reforms.

Why officials oppose publication

The reasons for opposing publication were set out in the OGC’s evidence to an Information Tribunal on the Information Commissioner’s ruling in 2006 that the OGC publish two Gateway reports on the ID Cards scheme.

Below are some of the OGC’s arguments (all of which the Tribunal rejected).  The OGC went to the High Court to stop two early ID Cards Gateway reports being published, at which time OGC lawyers cited the 1689 Bill of Rights. The ID Cards gateway reports were eventually published (and the world didn’t end).

The OGC had argued that publishing Gateway reports would mean that:

–  Interviewees in Gateway reviews gave their time voluntarily and may refuse to cooperate.  (The Information Commissioner did not accept that officials would cease to perform their duties on the grounds the information may be disclosed.)

– Interviewees would be guarded in what they said;  reviewers would be less inclined to cooperate; and disclosure would result in anodyne reports. These three arguments were given in evidence by Sir Peter Gershon, the first Chief Executive of the OGC.

– Civil servants would be reluctant to take on the role of senior responsible owner of a project.

– Critics of a project would have ammunition which could discourage other departments and agencies from participating in the scheme.

– Cabinet collective responsibility could be undermined if Ministers were interviewed for a review.

– Criticisms in the reviews could be “in the newspapers within a very short time”, and the media could misrepresent the review’s findings. (The Tribunal discovered that those involved in the reviews were generally more concerned with their programme than possible adverse publicity.)

– Reports would take longer to write.

– The public would not understand the complexities in the reports.

Why Gateway reports should be published

The Tribunal found that OGC fears about publishing were speculative and that disclosure would contribute to a public debate about the merits of ID Cards, and provide some insight into the decision-making which underlay the scheme. Disclosure would ensure that a complex and sensitive scheme was “properly scrutinised and implemented”, said the Tribunal.

Was OGC evidence to Tribunal fixed?

The Tribunal was also suspicious that the OGC had submitted several witness statements that used identical wording. The Tribunal said the witnesses should have expressed views in their own words.

It found that disclosure could make Gateway reviewers more candid because they would know that their recommendations and findings would be subject to public scrutiny; and criticisms in the reports, if made public, could strengthen the assurance process.

Importantly, the Tribunal said the disclosure would help people judge whether the Gateway process itself works.

Comment

Hundreds of Gateway reports are carried out by former civil servants who can earn more than £1,000 a day for doing a review (although note Peter Smith’s comment below). As the reports are to remain secret how will the reviewers be held properly accountable for their assessments? No wonder officials don’t want the reports published.

Any idea how many projects we have and what they’ll cost? – Cabinet Office.

Whitehall cost cutting saves £5.5bn

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Posted in excessive secrecy, FOI, Freedom of Information, Gateway reviews, governance, Government IT, IT-related failures, Major Projects Authority, openness and transparency, project management, public sector, Universal Credit

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Has DWP lost £400,000 worth of Universal Credit studies it commissioned?

Posted on 24/07/2012 | 4 comments

By Tony Collins

On 12 March 2012, Chris Grayling, a minister at the Department for Work and Pensions, published a list of the DWP’s consultancy contracts.

Soon afterwards the question was asked: has the DWP published any of the consultants’ reports – nearly 50 of them commissioned from companies that included PricewaterCoopers, Atkins, Capgemini, IBM, Compass,  KPMG, Deloitte, Xantus, Gartner and Tribal?

No, said the DWP.

So I made an FOI request for two of the reports, on Universal Credit:

– Universal Credit Delivery Model Assessment Phase 1 and 2, and

– the Universal Credit End to End Technical Review.

The DWP could not find them. It didn’t even have a record of them.

Julie Kitchin, Senior Business Partner Operations at the DWP’s Financial Control Directorate, Risk Management Division at Leeds, said she requested a “thorough search of the Universal Credit Programme document library”.

And …

“Universal Credit Colleagues have confirmed that the Department does not hold documents with these titles or under these names.”

But Chris Grayling, a DWP minister, told the House of Commons that the reports exist. His written answer on 12 March 2012 referred to:

Universal Credit End to End Technical Review IBM £49,240
Universal Credit Delivery Model Assessment Phase 2 McKinsey and Partners £350,000

Julie Kitchin said she would check again and reply within 20 working days. “In the light of the additional information you have provided, I have asked the Universal Credit Programme to conduct a further search for the reports you have highlighted. ”

Comment:

Since the FOI Act came into force on 1 January 2005, the DWP has at no point granted any of my FOI requests or appeals. Its replies could be modelled on electronic birthday cards that play the same automated message every time you open them.

Perhaps the DWP could be the first department to use software to generate FOI replies without human involvement.

DWP hides already published Universal Credit report.

Chris Grayling’s written answer on DWP’s consultancy contracts

Millions of pounds of secret DWP reports

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Posted in Campaign4Change, consultants, Deloitte, DWP, excessive secrecy, FOI, Freedom of Information, Government IT, openness and transparency, Universal Credit

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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?

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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

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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

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

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Is internal audit a waste of money?

Posted on 20/06/2012 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

Today’s National Audit Office report “The effectiveness of internal audit in central government” raises questions about whether the £70m cost of internal auditors is a pointless expense.

Internal auditors are supposed to be the “eyes and ears” in the organisation to highlight what is going wrong.  But their reports are kept secret – so why should civil servants take any notice of them, and what incentive do the internal auditors have to blow the whistle on failing schemes if they are going to be ignored?

The NAO suggests that internal audit has not been helpful in providing early warning of IT-repeated disasters such as Firecontrol. But it does not recommend that internal audit reports are published. Neither does yesterday’s Civil Service Reform Plan.

The NAO says

“Our value-for-money studies, such as the procurement of Type 45 destroyers and the development of new fire and rescue regional control centres, have identified many instances where there has been poor value for money because core systems have not provided sufficiently realistic, robust or comprehensive information to allow effective oversight and decision-making.

“In many cases these weaknesses have not been identified by internal audit.”

The NAO concludes in today’s report that the £70m spent annually on internal audit is “poor value for money”. Internal audit in central government employs 1,000 people says the NAO.

The effectiveness of internal audit in central government – today’s NAO report

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Posted in excessive secrecy, Government IT, IT projects, IT-related failures

Gateway reports on major projects to remain secret?

Posted on 20/06/2012 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

Comment

The civil service reform plan, which was published yesterday, is disappointing. It is so consensual that it has nothing particularly punchy to offer. It reads like the report of a tennis club match in which the finalists were such good friends that neither wanted to win; and each surrendered alternate points until those watching drifted into the bar.

The reform plan has been approved by senior civil servants and even former Labour ministers. In the House of Commons yesterday Labour’s spokesmen reacted with indifference and unions too have said little.

One reason, perhaps, is that the plan is full of good intentions that promise further documents and consultations that are full of good intentions. In short there’s nothing for potential opponents to worry about.

On improving the delivery of major projects, the reform plan is vague to the point of being self-mocking. It proposes:

– Requiring greater testing and scrutiny of major projects by departmental boards and the [Cabinet Office’s] Major Projects Authority before they move to full implementation;

– Regular publication of project progress and the production of an annual report on progress, scrutinised by the Departmental Board;

–  Commencing training of all leaders of major projects through the Major Projects Leadership Academy by the end of 2014; and

– Significantly reducing the turnover of Senior Responsible Officers.

The phrase “significantly reducing” means nothing in practice; and does the promise of “regular publication of project progress reports” mean anything in practice, other than, perhaps, the publication of press releases on project progress written by the PR departments of HMRC, the DWP and the MoJ?.

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude could have confronted permanent secretaries with an important policy change that required the civil service to publish independent Gateway review reports on the progress or otherwise of major IT and construction projects. Perhaps Maude has not done so because he wanted consensus. But he has probably ended up with a reform plan that nobody believes in and to which nobody objects.

The Cabinet Office’s Major Projects Authority will do its best to stop IT-related project failures but it has limited control and civil service secrecy working against it. The reform plan changes none of this.

Doubtless the disasters will continue.

Civil Service Reform Plan

Useful critique of Civil Service Reform Plan by Institute for Government.

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Posted in change management, excessive secrecy, Freedom of Information, Gateway reviews, Government IT, IT projects, IT-related failures

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Cabinet Office promises unprecedented openness on risky projects

Posted on 13/06/2012 | 2 comments

By Tony Collins

The Cabinet Office has defended its decision not to publish “Gateway” review reports on the progress or otherwise of large and risky IT and construction projects.

Gateway reviews are regular, short and independent audits on the state of medium and high-risk projects. Their publication would allow  MPs and the public to have an early warning of a major project in trouble – rather than know of a project failure only after it has happened.

Campaigners have sought for a decade to have the review reports published; and the  Information Commissioner, in requiring the publishing of ID Card gateway reviews under FOI,  dismissed the generalised arguments put forward by officials for Gateway reviews to remain confidential.

The Conservatives, when in opposition, promised to publish Gateway review reports if they came to power. But departmental heads and senior officials have stopped this happening.

Now the Cabinet Office, in a statement to The Guardian, has suggested that the first annual report of the Major Projects Authority will more than compensate for the non-publication of Gateway review reports.

The statement says that the Authority’s ( delayed)  first annual report will “bring unprecedented scrutiny and transparency to our most expensive and highest risk programmes, changing forever the culture of secrecy that has allowed failure to be swept under the carpet”.

The statement continues:

“Historically, fewer than a third of government major projects have delivered to original estimates of time, cost and quality. Since April 2011 the Major Projects Authority has enforced a tough new assurance regime and begun raising leadership standards within the Civil Service.”

The Guardian asked the Cabinet Office whether the traffic light red/amber/green status of Gateway reviews will be published.  The spokesman replied:

“The annual report will contain details of the status of major projects.“

Comment:

We applaud the Major Projects Authority in scrutinising, and in rare cases helping to stop,  departmental projects that don’t have adequate business cases. The Authority’s work is vital in pre-empting ridiculous schemes such as the NPfIT.

But project  disasters that rely on  IT continue, at the Ministry of Justice for example.  Like the National Audit Office, the  Major Projects Authority has limited resources and cannot scrutinise everything. Even if it could, the system of government is not set up in such a way as to allow the Authority to have final say over whether a project is stopped, curbed or re-negotiated.

Preventing failure

Gateway review reports are a critical component in preventing IT-related project failures. If officials know the whistle is going to be authoritatively blown on their failing schemes they are likely to do all they can to avoid failure in the first place. If they know that nobody will be aware of doomed schemes until those involved have left or moved, they will have less incentive to make projects a success.

An annual report is no substitute for the contemporaneous publishing of Gateway review reports. Each Gateway review is several pages and puts into context the traffic light red/amber/green status of the project. An annual report will not contain every Gateway review report. If just the traffic light status is published that will be a start, but without the context of the report what will it mean?

[And it’s worth bearing in mind that the first annual report of the Major Projects Authority is already six months late.]

The non-publication of Gateway review reports is  a victory by senior officials over ministerial promises.  How can we believe that the coalition is committed to unprecedented openness when the final say remains with Sir Humphrey?

Cabinet Office promises to challenge culture of secrecy on IT projects.

Whitehall to relent on secrecy over mega projects?

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Posted in change, change management, cost avoidance, cost reduction, excessive secrecy, Freedom of Information, Gateway reviews, government, Government IT, IT projects, IT-related failures, openness and transparency, operational issues, Politics, reducing cost strategically

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