Category Archives: Government IT

Why ignoring the human factor can lead to failed IT projects

Posted on 11/04/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

In a column for the Wall St Journal, Frank Wander, a former CIO of the Guardian Life Insurance Company, has warned that ignoring the human factor is a sure route to the failure of IT projects.

He points out that, “Sixty years into the information economy, information technology projects, especially large ones, still fail, or under-perform, at disheartening rates. Trillions of dollars of collective project experience, and, what long ago, should have become a predictable undertaking, remains an area of dissatisfaction. Yet, the performance of our technology infrastructure (devices, networks, storage) has made quantum leaps forward over that same time period.”

He argues that workers are the most expensive, but least understood tool. In the insurance industry, for example, talent represents 63% of IT cost, according to a 2011 Gartner report.

He concludes: “As an industry, we must remove this blind spot, recruit the best talent, nurture it and unlock the full productivity potential by designing social environments where the chemistry enables IT to flourish. Companies that understand this, and embrace it, will win; the rest will compete in a race to the bottom.”

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Posted in Campaign4Change, change management, CIO, Government IT, IT and the Business, IT projects, project management

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Shining a light into the darkest corners of wasteful IT projects

Posted on 05/04/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

US federal chief information officer (CIO) Steven VanRoekel is adopting a novel approach to Government IT: innovate with less.

In a piece written for the The White House’s Office of Management and Budget, VanRoekel says he has learned lessons from the private sector on helping government learn private sector best practices, and in particular, how to buy IT.

“These agency successes are a good start, but we need to do more. We still face an unacceptable amount of duplicative and low-value IT.  That is why (we are)…. launching a new tool for agencies to use to assess the current maturity of their IT portfolio management process and make decisions on eliminating duplication across their organisations.

“This tool – which we’re calling “PortfolioStat” – gives agencies tools to look into the darkest corners of the organisation to find wasteful and duplicative IT investments.”

VanRoekel says the efforts are paying off.

“Over the past three years, the Federal Government has done much in adopting private sector practices to triage broken IT investments, reduce the IT infrastructure footprint, and innovate with less.

“For example, at today’s President’s Management Advisory Board meeting, the Department of the Interior showed that by modernising IT infrastructure and aligning resources to improve customer service, they will realise $100 million in savings from 2016 to 2020, for a cumulative total of $500 million. To date, there have been $11 million in cost avoidance by updating the scope of projects and $2.2 million in redirection of funds due to IT Spending Reviews.”

Over the next year, says VanRoekel, agency Deputy Secretaries or Chief Operating Officers (COO), must lead agency-wide IT portfolio reviews within their respective organisations, working in coordination with Chief Information Officers, Chief Financial Officers, and Chief Acquisition Officers.

The level of executive sponsorship, VanRoekel says, “is a direct reflection of our belief that IT is a strategic asset that can dramatically improve productivity and the way agencies execute their mission. By June 15, agencies will complete a high-level survey of agency IT portfolio status and a bureau level information request for specific types of commodity IT investments that will used to baseline the maturity of agency portfolios.

“Then, using the portfolio data gathered combined with other data available at the bureau and agency level, COOs will establish targets for commodity IT spending reductions and deadlines for meeting those targets; illustrate how investments within the IT portfolio align with the agency’s mission and business functions; establish criteria for identifying wasteful, “low-value,” or duplicative investments; and improve governance and program management utilising best practices and, where possible, benchmarks.

“Though this process is new for Federal IT, leading private sector companies have been leveraging improved IT portfolio management tools for some time. Private sector organisations that waste millions on duplicative and low value IT are destined to disappear. Competitive pressure has forced change and efficiency.

“Though there are differences between public and private sector work, my time in both makes me extremely confident that the best practices from a well-run company can be applied effectively to the Federal Government.”

According to Nextgov.com, which reported VanRoekel’s attendance at the  FOSE  2012 conference on government technology,  US federal IT spending grew about 7 percent every year during the decade prior to 2009.

Since President Obama took office amid the 2008 financial crisis, federal IT spending has leveled off at about $80 billion annually.

“I’m proud to say that in the last three years on that flat or declining budget we’ve actually innovated a lot,” VanRoekel said.

Homeland Security Department CIO Richard Spires imposed a 10 percent cut in operations and maintenance spending across the department in the administration’s fiscal 2013 budget request to free up money for new initiatives.

VanRoekel said initiatives to consolidate federal data centres, shift more of the IT budget to cloud computing and a “maniacal focus on rooting out duplication” were allowing agencies to invest in new technologies.

The US Defence Department’s 2013 IT budget request, for instance, is down more than $1 billion, largely because the department cut costs associated with maintaining data centres.

PortfolioStat is an opportunity for CIOs and chief operating officers to look horizontally across an agency and identify places where services can more easily be shared,VanRoekel said.

According to Nextgov’s report, the U.S. Agriculture Department has moved from more than 20 separate email systems to only one cloud-based system during the past year and recently consolidated more than 700 mobile phone contracts into three blanket purchase agreements.

US Chief Information Officers Council

Nextgov.com

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Posted in Campaign4Change, CIO, Cloud Computing, Government IT, US Government

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Time for truth on Universal Credit IT

Posted on 03/04/2012 | 5 comments

By Tony Collins

A normally-reliable contact says that the IT project for Universal Credit is in trouble.

A deadline this month to lock-down features in the scheme will not be met, says the contact. This failure will jeopardise the go-live date of October next year for the start of Universal Credit.

The contact also says that the Government will make an announcement on the scheme in September which may refer to a write-off of at least £150m on the IT project. The suggestion is that although the scheme is in trouble officials may be reluctant to impart the whole truth to ministers.

We wonder about the difficulties of agreeing system features when there are so many parties involved in the IT project: HMRC, DWP, local authorities, banks and private sector employers. The contact also says Oracle is having trouble handling functionality.

Officially all is well. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan-Smith, spoke with confidence about the future of the scheme in the House of Commons last week.

That said, he told Parliament on 5 March about the “issues and problems” related to HMRC’s Real-Time Information project which is an essential part of the Universal Credit IT project. He said: 

“HMRC, which is now responsible for this measure, meets me and others in the Department regularly. We have embedded some DWP employees in the HMRC programme; they are locked together. They are, as I understand it, on time, and they are having constant discussions with large and small employers about the issues and the problems, and assessing what needs to be done to make this happen and to make all the changes.

“We must remember that all those firms collect those data anyway; the only question is how they report it back within the monthly cycle. We are on top of that but, obviously, we want to keep our eye on the matter.”

Problems with the IT for Universal Credit – the Government’s leading “agile” software project – may bring a smirk to the faces of those who believe that departments cannot manage agile-based schemes. But agile proponents have long said that Universal Credit is only partially agile – and they have argued that agile should not be mixed with traditional software-writing approaches.

Suppliers on Universal Credit, which include HP, Accenture, IBM,Capgemini and Oracle, are not particularly well known for their love of agile on Government IT projects.

Time for the truth  

The Department for Work and Pensions is refusing to publish any of its reports and assessments on the IT for Universal Credit. The secret reports include:

–   A Project Assessment Review in November 2011

– Universal Credit Delivery Model Assessment Two (McKinsey and Partners)

– Universal Credit end-to-end Technical Review (IBM).

Comment

Officials and ministers speak publicly about the solid progress on Universal Credit IT while refusing to publish their internal reports on progress or otherwise of the scheme.

Past NAO reports have shown that ministers and sometimes senior officials are sometimes kept in the dark when major IT-related projects go wrong. Project steering groups are told what they want to hear. The Programme Board on the NPfIT discussed successes with enthusiasm and hardly mentioned serious problems, judging by minutes of its meetings.

We hope that all is well with Universal Credit IT. The project is, after all,  an advert for innovation in the public sector. If it’s in trouble the truth should come out. Keeping it quiet until September means that suppliers will continue to be paid for several months unnecessarily – perhaps to keep them supportive?

Labour was overly defensive and secretive about its many IT-related failures whereas “openness” is the coalition’s much-favoured word. It’s a pity it has yet to be applied to the Universal Credit IT project.

Secret DWP reports.

Who’ll be responsible if Universal Credit goes wrong?

Banks “unlikely to deliver” Universal Credit

Universal Credit IT plans too optimistic warn MPs.

Universal Credit latest

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Posted in excessive secrecy, Freedom of Information, Government IT, innovation, managing change, managing outsourced services, npfit, openness and transparency, operational issues, Real-Time Information, software development, Universal Credit

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HMRC picks an SME – and saves itself £50m

Posted on 03/04/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) cut the cost of an Internet Explorer upgrade by up to £50m by awarding a contract to an SME, instead of a major systems integrator.

According to an article by Bill Goodwin on Computer Weekly, HMRC chose a small US company to upgrade from Internet Explorer 6 to IE9, after it found that large IT suppliers were unable to offer a cost-effective solution.

The Redmond-based company, Browsium, managed to complete the work for £1.28m, against quotes of £35m to £50m from much bigger companies.

Goodwin reports that HMRC CIO Phil Pavitt believes the contract will act as a proof of concept for other government departments facing similar IE6 upgrade problems.

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Posted in Campaign4Change, Government IT, HMRC, IT projects, procurement, SME

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Is Choose and Book failing?

Posted on 30/03/2012 | 2 comments

By Tony Collins

Choose and Book, which is one of the limited successes of the NHS National Programme for IT, may be “withering on the vine” says Pulse.

It reports that the Department of Health is investigating a fall in the proportion of GP referrals made through Choose and Book. Several PCTs have described Choose and Book as “failing”.

Pulse says that the Government’s notional target is for 90% of GP referrals to be made through Choose and Book, but the latest figures indicate usage has fallen from a high two years ago of 57%, to around 50% in January 2012

Initiated in 2004, Choose and Book is now in use in every PCT and provider organisation across the NHS in England, including many independent sector organisations that deliver services to the NHS under a standard, national contract.

Choose and Book provides patients with the offer of choice of hospital and clinic and a booked appointment.

The Department of Health told Pulse that there have been falls in use in some areas but it was committed to ‘embed Choose and Book into daily clinical practice’.

Choose and Book was classified as ‘failing and worsening’ in February board papers from Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire PCTs, says Pulse.

DH press release in 2003

A Department of Health press release on the award of a contract for an electronic booking system to Atos said in October 2003 said

“By the end of 2005, every hospital appointment will be booked for the convenience of the patient, making it easier for patients and their GPs to choose the hospital and consultant that best meets their needs.”

Pulse suggests the drop in interest may be because GP practices are no longer paid to use Choose and Book.

Through “local enhanced service” payments to GPs, primary care trusts have given family doctors a strong reason to use Choose and Book. The payments to GPs have ranged from about 50p to about £4 for every patient booked through Choose and Book. That funding is drying up.

A locum GP who commented on Pulse’s website suggests that Choose and Book will fall into disuse without financial incentives: “I couldn’t fit it [a Choose and Book appointment] into a ten minute consult what with QOF [quality and outcomes framework, part of the GP contract] the patient’s list etc – had to do referrals at the end of the day, so never used it.”

Comment

The failure of Choose and Book to reach anything like the original target of 100% use throughout the NHS shows the fallacy of paying people, in this case GPs, to use national IT systems.

New IT should be so needed that its use doesn’t depend on special payments to the end-users. Choose and Book was trumpeted by some major suppliers as a simple and obvious solution – rather like an airline reservation system; and after years of bedding down the technology works. But GPs cannot be forced to use it.

The Department of Health had considered the NPfIT  to be the centre of universe, and that doctors would want to use it for the common good.

The fact is that GPs  care only about their patients – which is as it should be – and if they consider the system detracts from the time spent with their patients the common good becomes an abstract, indeed meaningless, concept.

Choose and Book was always a good idea, a fun thing to work on. But does a 50% take-up after nine years justify the hundreds of millions spent on it? The Department of Health is hopeful the scheme will eventually succeed. But then the DH has always been confident the NPfIT would succeed.

DH to investigate fall in the use of Choose and Book – Pulse.

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Posted in Choose and Book, Government IT, IT projects, IT-related failures, managing change, NHS, npfit, operational issues, public services

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How the Government plans to ensure IT projects have a lifetime cost of under £100m

Posted on 29/03/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

The Government has issued a Procurement Policy Note that sets out its thinking behind the policy that individual ICT contracts or projects should have a lifetime cost of less than £100m.

It says the £100m limit will apply to all future ICT projects, “unless a strong case can be made that doing so increases the overall cost to the taxpayer, notably increases the risk of failure or increases the security threat to the public body or Government as a whole.”

It adds that in future, “government IT contracts will be more flexible, starting with two areas (application software and infrastructure IT). The Government is introducing set breakpoints in IT contracts so there is less money locked into large lengthy contracts. The Government will look to disaggregate future contracts and deliver more flexible, cheaper solutions. This opens up opportunities for SMEs and reduces the cost to taxpayers.”

Its guidance, which takes effect from 1st April, applies to all central government departments, their agencies and non departmental public bodies and is particularly intended for those with a purchasing role.

In background notes, the briefing says:

  • The £100m threshold relates to all ICT contracts or projects where the total value over the life of the contract exceeds £100m regardless of how the contract is funded. It includes frameworks as well as individual call offs from frameworks. A case may be made for exemption from this policy on the grounds of national security or continuity of a critical Government service.

Based on this, the policy aims are as follows:

  • To reduce the risk of single supplier failure within a large project;
  • To increase competition and innovation by enabling more suppliers to bid and take part in projects, thereby increasing value to the taxpayer;
  • To procure contracts in a way which ensures maximum possible benefit to the maximum number of parties – for example, ensuring that infrastructure/services which are procured can be used by more than one department.

In a foreword, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude says:

“The Government believes that business is the driver of economic growth and innovation, and that we need to take urgent action to boost enterprise and build a new and more responsible economic model. We want to create a fairer and more balanced economy, where we are not so dependent on a narrow range of economic sectors, and where new businesses and economic opportunities are more evenly shared between regions and industries. This guidance is founded on a desire to minimise the risk around high value contracts and ensure that Government always seeks the best possible value for money when procuring large ICT contracts.

“In the Coalition Programme the Government made a commitment to promote small business procurement in particular by introducing an aspiration that 25% of government contracts should be awarded to small and medium sized businesses. To deliver this aspiration the Prime Minister and The Minister for the Cabinet Office announced, on the 11th February 2011, a far reaching package of measures to open up public procurement to small and medium sized enterprises. The Government ICT Strategy, published at the end of March 2011 outlined a new approach to ICT procurement that improves contract delivery timelines and reduces the risk of project failure, enables greater use of SMEs, a much shorter timescale and lower costs to all parties.

“We will end the practice of attempting to cover every requirement in great detail and cover every legal eventuality in every project and contract, thereby increasing the procurement cost and timescales to all parties to unacceptable levels. We will do this by focusing on the 80/20 rule, simplifying to the core components of the requirements at every level and at every stage of a project.

On SMEs, G-Cloud and Open Systems, the policy note says procurement will:

  • Ensure value for money, competition and innovation by ensuring that small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are freely able to bid. Ensuring that any procurement process we use does not unnecessarily exclude them due to price, risk or resource associated with bidding activity. This includes reviewing our criteria and evidence required as part of the contract award process for items that might be relevant to a large company only. However, SMEs will be treated no differently in evaluation of capability, financial stability, or their ability to provide ongoing support, etc.
  • Ensure visibility of innovation and encourage mass purchasing of solutions available from both within the public sector and the private sector by creating a quality assured Government Cloud based procurement vehicle for Government, which enables all sizes of organisations to showcase their products, services, solutions etc. This service would also enable government to market and sell any unwanted assets it might own.
  • Encourage and maximise the use of Open Source/Open Standards whenever possible and where it represents a value for money solution, allowing department to re-use code, designs, templates etc. ensuring that work is not duplicated.

Comment

The Government’s aspiration to have individual ICT contracts or projects with a lifetime cost of less than £100m is a worthy one. But the proof of the pudding, as always, is in the eating. And we haven’t seen the pudding yet.

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Posted in Campaign4Change, Cloud, G-Cloud, government, Government IT, IT projects, open source, SME

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Millions of pounds of secret DWP reports

Posted on 29/03/2012 | 10 comments

By Tony Collins

The Department for Work and Pensions is keeping secret – as a matter of course – millions of pounds worth of reports it has commissioned on a wide range of IT and other projects including Universal Credit.

A DWP spokesperson, confirming that all the reports (below) are not published, told Campaign4Change that the reports have limited distribution after commitments and assurances were given to their “authors”.

These authors include Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Capgemini, KPMG, Gartner, McKinsey, Atkins, Tribal, Compass and IBM.

In the past, when the DWP has told the Information Commissioner that reports needed to be kept confidential because of commitments to suppliers, the Commissioner has found that the suppliers were content to have the reports published.

A spokesman for the DWP told us: “Consultants’ reports provide additional, often expert, information for the DWP to consider and have a limited distribution following commitments and assurances on disclosure with the authors.”

Lack of accountability

While the reports remain hidden the companies producing them will remain unaccountable for their contents. In our view the excessive and automatic secrecy brings a risk that taxpayers will end up paying millions of pounds for consultancy reports that tell the DWP what it wants to hear.

Would a consultancy be re-hired if its reports were sharply critical of the DWP and its projects?

And is the DWP’s instinctive secrecy appropriate in an era of so-called open government? The reports are not about Britain’s nuclear secrets. In the case of Universal Credit, reports on the progress or otherwise of the programme could be of interest to thousands of people whose benefits will be affected by the scheme.

We believe the DWP should be open by default, but will that ever happen? Epsom MP Chris Grayling is the current DWP minister responsible for the secret reports.

The reports

Below is a list of some of the unpublished consultancy reports produced for the DWP in 2010 and 2011:

Contract title Supplier Value (£)
Resource Management IT Healthcheck NSG 90,000
Jobcentre Plus Financial Information System Capability Review Capgemini 25,000
Olympic and Paralympic Legacy Plan Atkins 25,000
Undertake a Review of Data Centre Migration Approach PricewaterhouseCoopers 20,000
Organisational Design Project Deloitte 543,000
Developing a Business Intelligence Operating Model Deloitte 185,672
CIT Software Project Discovery Phase Deloitte 195,528
Support to CIT Improvement Programmes Tribal 760,000
Information Security Assurance Project Atkins 49,950
Assistance with Resource Management System Improvement Plan   Programme Phase 2 Atkins 72,690
Office for Disability Issues TrailBlazer Support—Housing Sitra 51,300
Office for Disability Issues—Trailblazer Resource Allocation for   Work Choice In-Control 11,750
Call Off Framework Agreement for Right to Control TrailBlazers PricewaterhouseCoopers 97,902
Commercial Assurance—Automated Delivery Service—Jobseekers   Allowance Atkins 47,300
Corporate Services Division Cost Optimisation Programme Network   and Telephony Xantus 94,370
National Registration Authority Audit (tScheme Audit) KPMG 10,727
Shingo Prize Pilot The Manufacturing   Institute—TMI Pract. Services 11,000
Business Control Strategic Improvements PricewaterhouseCoopers 750,000
A review of DWP Vendor Management Activities Procurement   Excellence 52,250
Assistance with Resource Management System Improvement Plan   Programme Phase 3 Atkins 94,050
Pension Reform Delivery Programme Closure Activity PricewaterhouseCoopers 100,000
Benchmarking Hosting Services Gartner 23,456
Application Delivery Centre (ADC) Validation Services Requests Atkins 97,500
Additional Modelling Support for Dynamic Benefits Oliver Wyman 19,500
Strategic Financial Consultancy Support to Help deliver Work   Programme KPMG 362,000
Shared Services Resource   Management Contract (RMOC) Benchmarking Compass 15,000
Final   assurance of DWP IT Strategy Capgemini 20,000
Research   into the Capacity of the Health Care Professional Market Deloitte 48,678
Commercial   support to the Work Programme Richard   Aitken-Davies 45,000
Support   to DWP Finance and Commercial Function (Organisation Design Review) PricewaterhouseCoopers 20,000
Support   to DWP CJT Cost Reduction Programme Bramble 1,065,000
DWP   Shared Services Delivery Model Options appraisal Deloitte 225,000
Benchmarking   of DWP Shared Services PricewaterhouseCoopers 19,000
Universal   Credit Delivery Model Assessment Phase 2 McKinsey and Partners 350,000
Universal   Credit Strategic Support Capgemini 505,000
Review   of Transforming Letters Project Deloitte 19,550
Application   Delivery Project Independent Market Assessment Compass 19,000
Universal   Credit End to End Technical Review IBM 49,240
Digital   Customer Total Experience Design Requirement Deloitte 16,667
Universal   Credit Supplier Workshop-Facilitation Xantus 11,399
Consultancy   Support to develop Flexible New Deal Exit Strategy KPMG 12,000
Support   of CIT Improvement Initiatives KPMG 250,000
Risk   Assurance Division Strategic Partner PricewaterhouseCoopers 1,000,000
Benchmarking   of the HPES Hosting Contract Compass 172,105
Compensating   People with Occupational Mesothelioma Deloitte 25,616
Specialist   tScheme Annual Audit of DWPs National Registration Authority KPMG 33,000

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Posted in Campaign4Change, Deloitte, DWP, excessive secrecy, Government IT, IBM, openness and transparency, Politics, Universal Credit

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Coalition responds to Administration committee’s “Recipe for rip-offs” criticism of Government IT

Posted on 28/03/2012 | 2 comments

By David Bicknell 

The Coalition has responded to the Public Administration Committee’s January follow up to its report  “Government and IT – “A recipe for rip-offs: time for a new approach” which was published in July 2011. 

In a Memorandum to the Committee, the Government said it welcomed its interest in and support for government Information and Communication Technology (ICT). It insisted that “ICT is vital for the delivery of efficient, cost-effective public services which are responsive to the needs of citizens and businesses.

“The Government’s ICT Strategy set out how the Government ICT landscape would change over the current spending review period, and included 30 actions which form the foundation activities for achieving the Strategy’s core objectives of: reducing waste and project failure, and stimulating economic growth; creating a common ICT infrastructure; using ICT to enable and deliver change; and strengthening governance.”

It its responses to the Committee’s recommendations, the Government said the following:

Oligopoly of large suppliers and benchmarking

Committee Recommendation:

The Cabinet Office’s commitment to benchmarking through transparent data, as outlined in the Government’s response, will help to quantify the gap between high and low cost products and services, but without the independent external advice which we recommended to identify reliable cost comparisons, the overall outcome will not change, and the Government will not achieve its cost reduction agenda.

Government Response:

Government is committed to creating a fairer, more competitive and open marketplace from which it buys its ICT services and solutions. Government is in the process of breaking the contractual lock-in which places the majority of government ICT business with a small group of major systems integrators.

This process will remove exclusivity from the contracts, and rigorously record every contractual breach. It will also gather data centrally on the performance and pricing of all suppliers to provide a consolidated view of their competitiveness and performance.

In parallel, Government is consulting on new frameworks that will enable more agile procurement, and open the market to more Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Some existing frameworks are not in alignment with government policy, and are limited to existing large suppliers.

These frameworks will be deprecated in favour of new frameworks that support re-introducing greater competition into the provision of ICT goods and services. Doing so will remove the current advantage enjoyed by the existing large supplier base in order to re-establish a truly level playing field.

The recent work to restructure the current ASPIRE contract demonstrates how government is working to ensure better value for taxpayers, break up large contracts and create opportunities for new, smaller companies to enter the market.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and the Cabinet Office negotiated with the IT supplier, Capgemini, to deliver a significant restructure of the current ASPIRE contract and savings for HMRC. The new deal reached will lead to a diverse supply chain with transparent pricing (removal of the current exclusivity agreement), open choice for HMRC and significantly enhanced value for money. By 2017 the new deal will help deliver:

  • Cost savings: £200 million saved by paying less per unit of IT services provided and potential for further savings by open competition, volume reductions and direct relationships between HMRC and subcontractors;
  • More freedom: HMRC will now have more control to run open competitions for its IT needs, enabling more opportunities for innovative SME suppliers and greater control over the volume of work going through the contract;
  • Greater transparency: transparency in pricing is enhanced further to assist with value for money comparisons; and
  • Future Model – a future model that breaks lock-ins and gives HMRC the flexibility and control to drive its own savings and innovation.

Government is working to improve the quality of its ICT management information. One example of substantive progress is the recent G-Cloud framework which requires all suppliers to openly publish full details of their pricing (see http://www.govstore.net/).

In addition to this transparency, the pricing levels achieved for provision of these services are being used as benchmarks against which incumbent suppliers are being measured. Government expects all supplier costs to be reduced to match or better these benchmarks, producing substantial cost reductions.

A project is also beginning to gather information on contracts data for all current ICT suppliers and departmental benchmarking of ICT unit price data. The unit price benchmarking will build on a tool established within HMRC which, following a year of use, provided HMRC with a detailed breakdown of costs relating to IT and helped the department realise many benefits including £24m savings and a 30% reduction in the number of confidential desktops.

The National Audit Office has recommended that the tool be rolled out further across government. This project will provide the opportunity to benchmark across government, and also enable external independent reviews to measure comparability with private sector peers.

The Government’s intention is also to publish as much of this data for public scrutiny as possible. It is looking to embed this approach in its handling of all its large suppliers, including software developers.

The Government will also shortly be announcing a new memorandum of understanding with Oracle that will show how its new, commercially aware, intelligent customer approach will deliver financial and significant operational benefits.

Legacy systems

Committee Recommendation:

We are not convinced that the Government‘s approach to legacy systems properly addresses the underlying issues. At the very least, the Government should produce a long term risk-register identifying where and when investment will be needed to migrate and replace existing legacy systems.

Government Response:

The Government has recognised the challenge it faces in delivering services with both new and older systems. It is right to ensure that departments have a range of credible options regarding the choices they make about their legacy systems. Different circumstances will require different options.

Departments, which understand in detail both the business functions provided by their systems and the technical constraints that act upon them, are best placed to determine the appropriate option. All departments will be producing plans to show how their systems will conform over time to the Government’s ICT Strategy principles, objectives and standards. These will be subject to challenge and co-ordination to ensure that they result in a viable plan for Government as a whole.

All major commitments to expenditure, whether in “wrapping” legacy systems to enable their continued use or in implementing new systems to provide the necessary business functions, will be subject to appropriate spending controls and approvals.

Assessments at this stage will take account of relevant factors including value, cost, budgetary constraints and risk.

Capability within Government

Committee Recommendation:

We welcome and endorse the Government’s acknowledgement of the need to grow its capacity in commercial skills of procuring and managing contracts, not just technical IT skills, in order to become an ‘intelligent customer’. Specific training for the Senior Civil Service in technology policy will also be welcome, as will the growth of a network of ‘champions’ of agile development. However, it is not clear from the Government’s response to our report that its actions will be adequate to cope with the scale of behavioural and process change required across the whole of Government, nor that the agile ‘champions’ will have sufficient seniority, expertise or support.

Government Response:

The Government recognises that raising commissioning and procurement skills is vitally important to get better outcomes for the taxpayer and to stimulate growth through public procurements, including greater use of SMEs.

It has already developed new LEAN standard operating procedures for central government underpinned by training available for all civil servants. It is now working on similar improvements for contract and supplier management and commissioning.

The Cabinet Office has also been piloting a two-way commercial interchange programme with industry to bring private sector expertise into Government. Civil Service Learning (CSL) is currently developing a suite of training on commercial awareness which will be available to all Civil Servants via the CSL portal in spring/summer 2012.

In parallel, the Government is determined to return world-class Project Leadership capability to Whitehall to improve the delivery of the Government’s £400 billion portfolio of Major Projects, which includes ICT projects.

In order to achieve this, the Major Projects Authority has established the UK Major Projects Leadership Academy (MPLA), in partnership with Oxford Saïd Business School, to target the SROs and Project Directors leading the Government’s Portfolio. The key focus of the MPLA will be on leadership, business acumen and commercial expertise from both an academic and practical angle and will include lessons learned from previous major projects including ICT projects.

Part of the Academy programme will involve an assessment of capability and previous experience of Project Leaders, with a tailored development plan designed for each individual. This will ensure that there is a clear picture of the capability within the Civil Service and inform decisions of where to best deploy their expertise.

The Government fully recognises the point that Agile “champions” may not have sufficient seniority, expertise or support and are working on identifying and putting in place senior Agile Leads within departments to drive and embed the behavioural and process change required to make this a success.

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Posted in Campaign4Change, government, Government IT

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CIO behind FBI’s Agile-developed Sentinel IT project to leave his post

Posted on 28/03/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

The US CIO behind one of the world’s highest profile public sector Agile IT projects is to leave his post and return to the private sector.

Chad Fulgham, CIO at the FBI will leave next month having overseen the creation of the FBI’s Sentinel case management system. Sentinel replaces the FBI’s outdated Automated Case Support system, with the hope that it will transform the way the FBI does business by moving it from a primarily paper-based case management system to an electronic work flow-based management system of record with enhanced data sharing capabilities.

“When I was hired as the CIO, it was understood Sentinel was going to be one of my top priorities,” said Fulgham. “Today, I can tell you the software coding is done, the new hardware is in place, and it has been quite impressive during initial performance testing. We have trained hundreds of FBI special agents and employees, and it will have a lasting impact on this organisation.”

In a press release announcing Fulgham’s departure, the FBI said that “using a progressive Agile software development methodology, partnering with industry, and employing an aggressive deployment schedule, Sentinel is scheduled to be implemented in summer of 2012.”

The US Inspector General recently issued a report into the use of Agile in the Sentinel project. You can read the report here

The US magazine Information Week has also covered the story

Lifting the lid on Agile within a public sector IT project

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Posted in Agile, Campaign4Change, CIO, Gateway reviews, Government IT, IT projects

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Universal Credit: who’ll be responsible if it goes wrong?

Posted on 27/03/2012 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

When asked whether Universal Credit will work, be on budget and on time, Ian Watmore, Permanent Secretary, Cabinet Office, gave a deft reply. He told Conservative MP Charlie Elphicke on 13 March 2012:

“From where I sit today, I think all the signs are very positive. I am never going to predict that something is going to be on time and on budget until it is.”

If the plans do not fall into place who, if anyone, will be responsible? In theory it’ll be Iain Duncan Smith, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. But as Watmore told the Public Administration Committee, there are several other organisations involved. Although the DWP and HMRC are building the IT systems, the success of Universal Credit also relies on local authorities, which are overseen by the Department for Communities and Local Government.

There are also the Cabinet Office and the Treasury whose officials seek to “ensure that what is going on is appropriate” said Watmore.

If Univeral Credit goes awry all the departments may be able to blame the private sector: the employers that must pass PAYE information to HMRC so that the Revenue’s Real-Time Information element of Universal Credit can work.

David Gauke is the minister responsible for HMRC so would he take some of the blame if Real-Time Information didn’t work, or was not on budget, or was delayed?

Or would the main IT suppliers Accenture and IBM take any of the blame? Highly unlikely, whatever the circumstances.

There is also a dependency on the banks.

But nothing is wrong … is it?

All those putatively responsible for Universal Credit continue to say that all is going well.

Duncan Smith told the House of Commons on 5 March 2012:

“We are making good progress towards the delivery of universal credit in 2013, and I have fortnightly progress meetings with officials and weekly reports from my office. I also chair the universal credit senior sponsorship group, which brings together all Government Departments and agencies that are relevant to the delivery of universal credit.

“Design work is well under way and is being continually tested with staff and claimants, and the development of the necessary IT systems will continue in parallel.”

He said that universal credit will reduce complexity by putting together all the benefits that are relevant to people going back to work – though benefit systems that are not relevant to the coalition’s “Work programme” will not be included in the DWP’s Universal Credit IT consolidation.

To reduce risks Universal Credit will be phased in over four years from October 2013, each stage bringing in a different group of claimants.

But …

Campaign4Change has asked the DWP to publish its various reports on the progress of Universal Credit and it has refused, even under the Freedom of Information Act. It seems the DWP’s secretiveness is partly because all of the risks related to Universal Credit have not been mitigated. We will report more on this in the next few days.

Meanwhile to try and answer the question in our headline: who’ll be responsible if Universal Credit goes wrong? The answer is: the private sector probably. Or rather nobody in the public sector.

Can hundreds of millions be spent on Universal Credit in an agile way?

Universal Credit suppliers Accenture and IBM look to India for skills.

Is Universal Credit a brilliant idea that’s bound to fail?

Universal Credit latest

Universal Credit and the banks.

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Posted in Agile, Campaign4Change, capacity building, change, change management, Freedom of Information, Government IT, IBM, India, IT projects, local government, managing change, managing outsourced services, openness and transparency, outsourcing, oversight, Politics, procurement, project management, public sector, Real-Time Information, reducing cost strategically, risk, Universal Credit

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