Category Archives: Government IT

Shared services disaster: a gain for some officials and ERP suppliers?

Posted on 07/03/2012 | 3 comments

By Tony Collins

Today an impressive report by the National Audit Office shows in detail how various shared services ventures in central government have, over time, cost rather than saved money.

Five shared services centres studied by the NAO have cost £1.4bn so far; they were supposed to have saved £159m by 2010-11 but the net cost has been £255m. Setting up the centres since 2004 has been good, though, for some suppliers (and officials who wanted to gain new skills in Oracle and SAP enterprise resource planning systems).

The Cabinet Office has now intervened and plans a new shared services strategy, based on the DWP [Oracle v11i ERP) and Department for Transport [SAP ERP] offering independent major shared service centres to departments and agencies.

One of the urgent drivers for the Cabinet Office’s publishing a new strategy in July 2011 was that three shared service centres face an investment of £47m to upgrade their Oracle ERP systems before November 2013, says the NAO.

“The current version of Oracle will not be supported by the manufacturer past this date,” says the NAO. “This means that if their core system fails, there is a high risk that they would not be able to re-instate it quickly. This gave the Cabinet Office an opportunity to see if it could derive better value-for-money options for shared services.”

Saving £32m on Oracle upgrade costs?

The Cabinet Office expects its new plans to save £32m on Oracle upgrade costs, says the NAO. Indeed the Cabinet Office has questioned whether departments need to use large ERP systems. It acknowledges that smaller, simpler software solutions may be appropriate, says the NAO.

Civil servants in search of new ERP skills rather than saving money?

The NAO report hints that civil servants at the five service centres might have wanted to implement new Oracle or SAP ERP software more than to save money.

Says the NAO: “The [shared service] Centres have prioritised increasing the number of customers or implementing new software, rather than working with existing customers to drive efficiency… There are other options to reduce costs in addition to increasing the number of customers or implementing a new ERP system.”

Indeed the NAO questions why the service centres bought big and expensive ERP systems that are now under-used, without looking at smaller and simpler accounting packages.

“These ERP systems [installed at five shared service centres studied by the NAO] are complex and it is not easy to modify them when needs change, such as when an organisation is restructured or processes are redesigned.

“We found the Centres are only using a small part of the capability their ERP systems provide. The systems are capable of handling larger volumes of transactions and more services and it is not clear why such expensive solutions were bought. Other smaller and simpler accounting packages were not looked at to see if they may have provided the required functionality.”

Concludes the NAO:

“The shared services initiative has not so far delivered value for money for the taxpayer. Since the Gershon Review recommended the creation of shared services in 2004, the Government has spent £1.4 billion against a planned £0.9 billion on the five Centres we examined.

“By creating complex services that are overly tailored to individual departments, government has increased costs and reduced flexibility. In addition, it has failed to develop the necessary benchmarks against which it could measure performance. The Cabinet Office has issued an ambitious new shared services strategy to address these issues.”

Failing to standardise ways of working

Shared services are about standardising ways of working, not running separate services for every client but the NAO found that the five centres replicated old ways of working.

“The services provided are overly customised. We found shared services to be more complex than we expected. They are overly tailored to meet customer needs. This limits the ability for the Centres to make efficiencies as they have an overhead of running multiple systems and processes.”

Big cheques to big ERP suppliers?

The NAO said departments have wasted money on ERP systems – and now plan to spend more on DRP systems.:

“The software systems used in the Centres have added complexity and cost. All the Centres we visited use Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software systems. These are complex and have proven to be expensive. They are designed to manage all the information generated by an organisation by using standard processes. These systems work most effectively with large volumes of heavily automated transactions.

“With a lack of scale and usage in some Centres, limited standardisation and low levels of automation, the cost to establish, maintain and upgrade these systems is high. As a result two Centres intend to totally re-implement their existing systems with simpler, standard ERP software, despite the significant investment already made.

“All the Centres acknowledge they need to simplify and standardise their systems and reduce customisation.”

Cabinet Office took a back seat instead of driving sensible change

Says the NAO: “The Cabinet Office and Civil Service Steering Board could have done more to ensure shared services were implemented appropriately. While the Cabinet Office led by example in initiating their own shared service arrangements, more could have been done to challenge the performance achieved by customers and providers.

“They could have established reliable cost and performance benchmarks and done more to document best practice and lessons learned for customers. Also, they could have done more to remove the barriers to departments and agencies joining shared services.

“The Cabinet Office relied on a collaborative model of governance, which was consistent with the role of central government at the time. Under this model it was left to individual departments to implement shared services and eight shared services have been established. There has been little actual sharing of services between departments…”

Should officials have been forced to take part in shared services?

“Departments have struggled to fully roll-out shared services across all their business units and arm’s-length bodies,” says the NAO. “This is because participation has largely been voluntary. Of the five Centres we examined, three had not attracted the customers they had expected and two had potential spare capacity of 50 per cent.”

Cabinet Office is trying to repair the damage

Using DWP and DfT centres the Cabinet Office plans to have two independent shared service centres and a host of sub centres. But the NAO suggests the strategy may fail unless the Cabinet Office mandates the use of the centres. [But there’s no point in mandating change unless working practices are standardised.  If they cannot be standardised shared services may end up – again – costing more.]

Says the NAO  “The Cabinet Office did not have the powers to mandate shared services. Without a mandate, we do not think that coherent shared services are likely to be achieved. If there is an overall value-for-money case for the taxpayer, the Cabinet Office should seek appropriate authority to mandate the shared services strategy and its implementation.

“The Cabinet Office should also make sure that there is clear accountability for implementing its new shared services strategy.”

MPs ignored

“…the Committee of Public Accounts set out recommendations (on shared services) for the Cabinet Office in 2008,” says the NAO. “None of the recommendations have been fully implemented. All are relevant to shared services today.”

The five shared service centres under NAO scrutiny – and their ERP

• The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) Centre provides services to 16,000 customer users (full-time equivalents)7 from the Department and 13 of its agencies. Enterprise Resource Planning System: Oracle 11i, upgrade to Oracle v12 in 2012-13.

• The Department for Transport (DfT) Centre provides services for 14,000 customer users from the Department and four of its agencies. SAP ERP.

• The DWP Centre provides services for 130,000 customer users from the Department, the Cabinet Office and the Department for Education. Main site Norcross. ERP system: Oracle 11i, upgrade to Oracle v12 planned in 2012-13.

• The Ministry of Justice Centre manages two separate systems – serving 47,000 customer users for its National Offender Management Service and 27,000 for the Home Office. Enterprise Resource Planning System: Oracle 11i, upgrade to Oracle v12 in 2012-13 and plans to completely re-implement its system to remove all customisation.

• Research Councils UK Centre provides services to 11,000 customer users from seven Research Councils. ERP is Oracle 12.

Three major shared service centres not under NAO scrutiny

• The Ministry of Defence’s Defence Business Services, which was established in July 2011. ERP is Oracle 11i. An upgrade to Oracle v12 in planned for 2012-13.

• The Department of Health NHS Shared Business Services Ltd (joint venture with Steria) which does not provide services to central government. (ERP is Oracle v12)

• HMRC which set up a shared service centre – but no other departments used it. ERP is SAP.

Comment:

Anyone reading the NAO report could be forgiven for thinking that civil servants setting up shared service centres have aimed to fail, perhaps to prove to ministers that major change within central government is a bad idea. We doubt this.

What is more likely is that civil servants, encouraged by some suppliers, thought it a good idea to buy big ERP systems from which they thought savings would naturally flow. But big has not proved to be better. When will this message get through? Isn’t it time for civil servants to stop throwing money at big suppliers?

[And there may be some substance in the NAO’s hint that some civil servants have preferred to work on big ERP systems rather than save money. Having strong ERP skills is an insurance against job loss.]

NAO report  

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Posted in capacity building, change management, collaboration, ERP, Government IT, IT projects, Oracle ERP, public services, reducing cost strategically, reforms, SAP, shared services, supplier relationships

NAO says HMRC is tackling tax evasion but needs to further exploit IT systems’ potential

Posted on 05/03/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

A report by the National Audit Office (NAO) has applauded HM Revenue & Customs’ (HMRC) work in tackling tax evasion to deliver £4.32 billion of additional tax yield between 2006 and 2011. HMRC also reduced staff numbers and introduced a range of improvements in its compliance work.

But, the NAO says, although the Department has introduced new IT capabilities to identify incidences of evasion more effectively, it is not yet exploiting the full potential of the new systems. It has also had to defer and reduce the scope of projects to keep within annual budgetary limits, leading to reductions in benefits.

According to the NAO’s report, the Compliance and Enforcement Programme cost £387 million to 2011-12 and was made up of over 40 projects intended to increase compliance yield – the measure of additional tax arising from compliance work – by £4.56 billion between 2006-2011.

Against that target, the Programme actually reported additional yield of £4.32 billion over the five years to March 2011, with HMRC forecasting that it will generate an additional £8.87 billion of yield between 2011-12 and 2014-15. However, the NAO points out, HMRC will not achieve all of the Programme’s forecast benefits because of changes to scope or slippage in delivering projects, as well as over-optimism in its forecasts.

HMRC reduced staff numbers by the planned amount of 3,374 full time equivalents by the end of 2008-09, two years ahead of schedule. It also generated an improvement in productivity -defined as the level of yield generated by each full time equivalent – of approximately 36 per cent, below its forecast of a 42 per cent improvement. HMRC did not routinely measure the impact of the Programme on customer experience.

Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, said:

“This major programme has helped HMRC to increase tax yield substantially and has introduced ways of working which will strengthen HMRC’s compliance work in future.

“The Department could, though, achieve better value for money from its investment in compliance work by improved understanding of the impact of individual projects and ensuring that its staff have the capacity to exploit new systems to the full.”

On improving HMRC’s compliance work, the NAO report says the following:

 “The Programme has improved HMRC’s ability to undertake compliance work but it has yet to exploit the full potential of the new systems. In particular, the new ICT systems can substantially improve how HMRC assesses evasion risks to identify cases for investigation. HMRC is embedding new systems and approaches into working practices. We assessed the implementation of a sample of projects:

• Project design. Overall, HMRC managed design phases well but, particularly on projects to implement new ICT systems, it did not sufficiently consider redesigning business processes or developing the staff capability needed to exploit the full potential of the new technologies.

• Implementation. HMRC did not always communicate clearly the rationale for projects and, although it provided training and guidance, these were not always timely or requirements were underestimated.

• Assessing the performance of new systems. HMRC has established management information on the use and performance of new systems and, over time, will seek to use this to better understand the impact on business performance.

HMRC – The compliance and enforcement programme

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Posted in Campaign4Change, change management, government, Government IT, IT projects, project management, public sector

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Australian Gateway Review key in revealing extent of Victoria Police IT project deficiencies

Posted on 05/03/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

A report has found that the police in the state of Victoria in Australia lacked the capacity to deliver a major IT project and wasted millions of dollars on a failed system.

According to The Australian, the force had lost around $30 million as a result of the decision to abandon the replacement of its Law Enforcement Assistance Program (LEAP) system, said the report by an Australian QC, Jack Rush.

“The investigations of the inquiry into the LEAP replacement and two other IT projects at Victoria Police revealed a lack of project management methodology and discipline leading to systemic mismanagement,” the report said.

“The inquiry identified a culture within Victoria Police that cost overruns were acceptable but above all, there was a lack of any form of strategy to define the IT needs and requirements of Victoria Police for the future.”

Victoria Police admitted last year it had underestimated the cost of replacing its inefficient, ageing LEAP system by $100m, before it abandoned the replacement project. 

Chief Commissioner Ken Lay said he would adopt the report’s recommendation that the force seek external assistance through an advisory group and had already been consulting external experts.

“Victoria Police needs help in delivering these projects and I will certainly be reaching out both nationally and internationally to make sure that we get this right,” he said.

A key Gateway Review was instrumental in the ending of LEAP, as the report discusses:

“The PIMS preliminary business case was subject to a Gateway Review in late July 2011. The scrutiny of this review process appears to have been the cause of considerable reflection at senior levels of Victoria Police command. The Gateway Review indicated interviewees advised that the preliminary business case did not provide sufficient justification for additional funding to complete the replacement of LEAP; and varied greatly in their expectations and understanding of what outcomes the Policing Information Management System (PIMS) would provide and the technology necessary to achieve outcomes.

The Gateway Review observed “… that best practice and strategic assessment begins with a fundamental understanding of what the problem is that requires fixing and the strategic response that the organisation is looking for.” The review found that the PIMS project was deficient in these respects:

  • the strategic vision for Victoria Police as it related to the PIMS project;
  • current and preferred policing workflow;
  • business requirements based upon the operational needs of modern policing; and
  • information management plan

Rush Report

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Posted in Campaign4Change, change management, Gateway reviews, Government IT, IT projects, project management

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New child support system has 90,000 requirements – in phase one

Posted on 29/02/2012 | 3 comments

                               A new old-style government IT disaster?

By Tony Collins

While officials in the Cabinet Office offcials try to simplify and cut costs of Government IT, a part of the Department for Work and Pensions has commissioned a system with 90,000 requirements in phase one.

The projected costs of the child maintenance system have risen by 85% and the delivery date has slipped by more than two years.

Even with 90,000 requirements, phase one, which is due to go live in October, excludes 70 requirements that are “deemed critical” says a report published today by the National Audit Office.

The NAO report indicates that the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission has commissioned an old-style large IT system using traditional developing techniques and relying on large companies.

G-Cloud and SMEs have not featured in the Commission’s IT strategy – and it abandoned agile techniques last year on its child maintenance project.

The Commission put the cost of its new child maintenance system at £149m in January 2011. Ten months later it put the cost at £275m, an 85% increase. The Commission was unable to give the NAO a full explanation for the difference.

Lessons from past failures not learned?

Today’s NAO report says there is a risk the Commission will repeat mistakes by the Child Support Agency whose IT system and business processes were criticised in several Parliamentary reports. The Commission takes in the work of the Child Support Agency – and indeed runs its own systems and the Child Support Agency’s in parallel.

Officials at the Commission told the NAO they have a good track record of holding back IT releases until they are satisfied they will work.  “Nevertheless, we found that the Commission is at risk of repeating many of the mistakes of 2003,” said the NAO. Those mistakes include over-optimism and a lack of internal expertise to handle suppliers.

Mixing “agile” and “waterfall” doesn’t work

Initially civil servants at the Commission tried to “mix and match” agile and traditional developing techniques – which Agile advocates say should not be attempted.

In 2011 the Commission gave up on agile and “reverted to a more traditional approach to system development” says the NAO report.

The mix and match approach meant there were two distinct routes for specifying requirements and “resulted in duplicated, conflicting and ambiguous specifications”.  The Commission did not have previous experience of using the agile approach.

The Commission’s child maintenance system was due to go live in April 2010 but the delivery date has slipped three times. Phase one is now due to go live in October 2012 and phase two in July next year but the NAO report raises questions about whether the go-lives will happen successfully. The Commission has not planned in its financial estimates for the failure of the system.

The NAO finds that the Commission has struggled to make its requirements for the new system clear. The Commission’s main developer Tata Consulting Services has had protracted discussions over the meaning and implementation of requirements.

The NAO also hints that IT costs may be out of control. It says the Commission may not secure value for money without properly considering alternative options for restructuring and “adequately controlling its IT development …”

These are some of the NAO’s findings:

IT costs could increase further

“The new system is based on ‘commercial off-the-shelf’ products. However, a recent audit by Oracle identified that the performance, maintainability and adaptability of the new system would be key risks. This could increase the cost of supporting the system. The scheme does not yet include plans for the integration with HM Revenue & Customs’ Real Time Information system due to be implemented in 2013, or introducing Universal Credit because of the differing timescales,” says the NAO which adds:

“Achieving the Commission’s plans without further cost increases or delays appears unlikely. The Commission reported to the audit committee in October 2011 on the high risk that the change programme may not deliver phase two functionality within agreed timescales … The Commission did not develop a benefits realisation plan until November 2011.”

103,000 of Commission’s 1.1m cases are handled manually

“Ongoing technical problems have resulted in a large number of cases being removed from the IT system and managed manually. These are known as clerical cases … The Commission has had to operate the ‘old’ and ‘current’ schemes in parallel.  Due to flaws in the IT systems for each scheme, some 100,000 cases have had to be processe:d separately by clerical staff at a cost of £48 million,” says the NAO. It takes 900 contractors to manage the clerical cases.

Comment

Despite numerous NAO reports on failures of Government IT-based projects over the past 30 years the disasters are still happening, with the same mistakes repeated: over-optimism in every aspect of the project including timetables and financial estimates; excessive complexity and over-specification, no sign of cost-consciousness and, worst of all, an apparent indifference to being held accountable for a major failure.

A glance at the monthly outgoings of the Commission (well done to the coalition for requiring departments and agencies to publish contracts over £25,000) show sizeable and regular payments to familiar names among the large suppliers: HP Enterprise Services (formerly EDS), Capgemini, Tata Consultancy Services, BT Global Services and Capita. There is hardly an SME in sight and no sign of imaginative thinking.

Meanwhile some senior officials at the Commission put in monthly expenses for thousands of pounds in travel, accomodation and subsistence for “Commission meetings”. One wonders: to what useful effect?

Officials at the Cabinet Office are trying to change the culture of departments and agencies. They are encouraging departmental heads to do things differently. They advocate the use of  SMEs to show how new ways of working can trounce traditional approaches to projects.

But the Cabinet Office has little influence on the Department of Work and Pensions. Indeed the DWP has lost its impressive chief innovator James Gardner.

We praise the NAO for noting that the Commission risks repeating the IT-related and project management mistakes of the Child Support Agency. But we note with concern that the NAO still puts up with Whitehall’s non-publication of  Gateway reviews, which are independent reports on the progress or otherwise of big and risky IT-based projects.

Would the Commission have been so apparently careless of the risks if it had known that regular Gateway reports on its shortcomings would be published?

How many more government IT-based projects are late, over budget and at risk of failing, their weaknesses hidden by an unwritten agreement between the coalition and civil servants to keep Gateway reviews secret?

NAO report – Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission: cost reduction

Government repeating child support mistakes – ComputerworldUK

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Posted in Agile, capacity building, change, change management, CIO, Gateway reviews, Government IT, India, IT projects, managing change, managing outsourced services, openness and transparency, operational issues, outsourcing, private sector lessons for the public sector, project management, public sector, public services

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Ambitious health records IT project bags US budget increase

Posted on 24/02/2012 | 1 comment

By David Bicknell

Electronic health records appear to be the three magic words to help unlock an increase in your IT budget, especially if you’re looking to deliver a groundbreaking health IT project for US services veterans.

According to this story,  the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) would see a 6.9% increase, with much of the money being spent on improved electronic health records. The 2013 budget proposal put forward by the Obama Administration would see $3.3bn being spent on IT, a $216m increase over the current budget.

2012 will see major investment in an ongoing IT project to integrate Department of Veterans Affairs health records with Department of Defence health records. Currently, more than 100 VA employees are working on the programme, with over 20 projects in planning mode, including single sign-on and a plan to unify VA and DOD pharmaceutical systems.

Department of Veterans Affairs press release referring to IT budgets

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Posted in Government IT, health records, IT projects, US Government

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Coming soon, credit ratings-like agencies for Cloud service providers

Posted on 21/02/2012 | 1 comment

By David Bicknell

You won’t get many positive thoughts towards credit ratings agencies, particularly from European governments, several of whom have suffered the ignominy of seeing their coveted Triple A status downgraded.

Now imagine that same credit ratings approach for Cloud service providers. The research group Gartner has, and put forward its thoughts in an article reported in The Australian. (registration required)

Gartner’s research vice-president Brian Prentice says the need for credible external rating agencies for cloud service providers will become more urgent this year, because current industry performance contracts are unable to quantify, or be accountable for, the costly and potentially devastating indirect effects that Cloud-based service failures have on businesses.

Gartner believes trying to mitigate risk using service level agreements will prove unwieldy for companies, because they are often dealing directly with consultancies that on-sell cloud services in complex multi-tiered agreements.

“The issue here is that it’s very hard to expect the vendors to have a set of impacts on their business commensurate with the problems that could come up. What that means is that you can’t come back on that, and you have to do the assessment on whether the problem is going to show up in the first place,” says Prentice. He envisages that ratings agencies, operating on similar lines to those in the finance sector, will emerge for cloud service companies by the end of the year.

This is an intriguing idea. I wonder where these ratings agencies will emerge from, and how they will compete. Will we see a Big Three emerge, like Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s, and Fitch? How will they compete with each other? How quickly will they be able to gain a reputation that companies can rely on? And on what will that reputation be based? Is this something that the management consultancy one-stop-shops will offer? Or will pure-play Cloud ratings agencies emerge?   

One article recently suggested credit ratings agencies rule the world. Could something similar soon be ruling the Cloud too?

How credit ratings agencies rule the world

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Posted in Campaign4Change, Cloud, Cloud Computing, Government IT

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US Government to send in troubleshooters to sort out underperforming IT projects

Posted on 14/02/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

The US Government wants to formalise a plan to send in specialist troubleshooting teams to rein in failing IT projects.

Federal chief information officer Steven Van Roekel  said the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) – which oversees the preparation of the US federal budget and supervises its administration in government agencies – is to create government-wide teams to take on the most problematic IT programs.

VanRoekel said agency CIOs also will continue to run TechStats, a government wide tool to shine light on and turn around underperforming IT projects. The critical details of a project’s health that are generated by a TechStat session reveal project strengths and the potential weaknesses that could lead to catastrophic failure.

As well as TechStats, VanRoekel said he will formally launch IT SWAT teams according to a US report.  The concept has already been used to help the Office of Personnel Management sort out its struggling USAJobs.gov portal.

“We assembled a team of the best and brightest IT people across government and they evaluated the USAJobs infrastructure,” said Van Roekel. “They sent me back a bunch of recommendations we now are having OPM implement and take forward. It is a great program and I’m excited to take that concept government-wide.”

VanRoekel said the goal is to bring together other teams of experts throughout 2012.

Links

Ian Watmore: ‘Majority of projects go very well and the public never hears’

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Posted in Campaign4Change, Government IT, IT projects, US Government

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Can officials stop TPP offering gifts to GPs?

Posted on 10/02/2012 | 3 comments

By Tony Collins

On 13 July 2011 CSC gave this written assurance to NHS Connecting for Health at its headquarters in Leeds.

“CSC can confirm that its subcontractor TPP will no longer be sending out letters to practices offering  gifts in return for organising demonstrations of SystmOne.”

TPP has continued to offer gifts, and the Department of Health is now concerned enough to divulge the letters it has sent to CSC.

It can do little more, for GPs are not bound by NHS rules on the acceptance of gifts.

NHS Connecting for Health became involved after TPP sent out a letter in April 2011 offering tea at The Ritz or two tickets to a West End show of the GP choice.

“All we ask for in return is a short slot at your [local practice manager] meeting so we can demonstrate the benefits of SystmOne,” TPP said. “We’re [sic] a proven system and a real alternative to EMIS and Vision. With a third of the country’s patient records and more than 90,000 users, SystmOne is the leader in hosted clinical systems.

“Following recent success in the London area, TPP are looking to sponsor local practice manager meetings. We’ll provide lunch and refreshments for all your attendees. As a thank-you the organiser of the event will will also receive afternoon tea at The Ritz or two tickets to a West End show of their choice …Don’t wait around for an alternative that might not arrive – SystmOne is available, right here, right now…”

SystmOne is supplied to the NHS by CSC under the National Programme for IT, at a cost to taxpayers that remains confidential under NPfIT contracts. GPs can also buy the system directly under GP Systems of Choice. Some PCTs are said to be putting pressure on GP practices to replace existing systems with SystmOne.

Three months after TPP’s “tea at The Ritz” letter, on 6 July 2011, NHS Connecting for Health’s Programme Director, GP IT, wrote to CSC.

Dear Sirs

GPSoC [GP Systems of Choice] Marketing Activity by Subcontractor (TPP)

It has come to the attention of the Authority [Connecting for Health/Department of Health] that TPP have been sending letters to practices which include offers of gifts in return for organising meetings of practice managers  during which SystmOne would be demonstrated. The gifts on offer include tea at The Ritz, two tickets to a West End show and £50 of Marks and Spencer vouchers.

The activities being carried out by TPP state that they are in relation to the provision of SystmOne through GP Systems of Choice. As the Supplier of SystmOne under the Framework Agreement, the Authority requests that CSC review these activities and provides a response to the Authority, by no later than 13 July, to advise whether TPP, as their subcontractor, will be continuing with such activity.”

CSC’s Primary Care Product Executive replied on 13 July:

“CSC was not aware of such activities being undertaken by TPP and immediately entered into dialogue with TPP.

CSC can confirm that its subcontractor TPP will not be sending out letters to practices offering gifts in return for organising demonstrations of SystmOne.”

In December 2011 Campaign4Change learned that TPP was offering £25 Marks and Spencer vouchers to GPs in return for a “short slot at your meeting so we can talk to you and demonstrate the benefits of SystmOne”. By that time TPP put the number of its users at more than 100,000.

We asked the Department of Health in December 2011 whether it approved of TPP’s incentives. It replied:

“We were made aware and asked the supplier about this activity. The supplier has subsequently confirmed that they have ceased offering incentives to GPs.”

Then we learned of a TPP offer of Hotel Chocolat chocolates.

“Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year from TPP.

“To find out why 1800 GP practices have already moved to SystmOne, just call me on the number below to book your short GP demo. Book before 24th December to get a box of Hotel Chocolat chocolates on the day of your demonstration…”

This month, February 2012, TPP sent out this message:

TPP sponsorship for your practice meeting

“TPP are looking to sponsor your practice manager meeting! We’ll provide lunch and refreshments for all of your attendees. As a thank-you, the organiser of the meeting will also receive £25 Marks and Spencer vouchers! All we ask for in return is a short slot at your meeting so we can talk to your attendees and demonstrate the benefits of SystmOne to those practices not yet using it. Anyone that books a SystmOne demonstration on the day of the meeting will also recieve £25 Marks and Spencer vouchers!

“You already know all the great reasons to move to SystmOne, why not share them with other practices in your area? The more practices that move to SystmOne, the more benefits you’ll see.

“To arrange sponsorship for your next meeting and take advantage of this great offer, just contact us on the number below or reply to this email.”

We asked DH why it had suggested that the gift offers had ceased when they hadn’t. Its reply:

“The Department contacted CSC (as the GPSoC supplier) about this activity by their subcontractor TPP. CSC confirmed that TPP would cease offering gifts to GPs in return for organising demonstrations of SystmOne. We have contacted CSC about TPP’s position which is not in line with the assurances previously provided.”

We also asked the DH why it was concerned about the gifts. It did not reply directly but sent us copies of the letter it had sent to CSC, and CSC’s reply.

Is the DH powerless to stop TPP offering gifts?

TPP told Pulse this week:  “We momentarily stopped offering the incentives over Christmas but will be resuming during February … The incentives were offered only to GPs and practice managers and were completely optional.

“Our ‘Tea at the Ritz’ offer actually costs considerably less than the cost of catering for such a practice meeting. We at TPP appreciate that GPs and their staff are extremely busy and so any thank-you gifts we offer staff are simply that, a thank-you for an hour or two of their time.”

CSC has made no comment.

Pulse reports that the GP Systems of Choice framework agreement prohibits software providers from offering gifts to any servant of the authority or a PCT. The ban does not include GPs because they do not sign the framework. Suppliers can offer gifts to GPs without breaching the framework agreement says Pulse.

It quotes Dr Charlie Stuart-Buttle, a former chair of the EMIS user group and a GP in Tonbridge, Kent, as saying the incentives were an unacceptable way of going about things. It also quotes Dr Trefor Roscoe, a GP in Sheffield and former medical IT consultant, as saying the incentives were not a problem as long as the GPs felt the system in question was worth demonstrating in the first place.

Comment

Some will say that GPs are bombarded with offers of freebies from drug companies. So why does it matter if an IT company offers gifts?

Another argument is that drugs are different. GPs can stop offering drugs that become too expensive. They cannot simply stop using a GP system. It’s a big decision for any GP practice to choose a new system even with subsidies from the Department of Health under GP Systems of Choice GPs, while the GPSoC framework lasts. Any new GP system is likely to be a long-term commitment because of the disruption of changing.

GPs should surely choose their IT supplier on the basis of the facts and after shortlisting suppliers.

We dislike the expression “level playing field” but if applied here it would mean that GPs chose new systems only after demos at which all shortlisted suppliers offered tea at the Ritz or Marks and Spencer vouchers to certain GPs.

Alternatively the suppliers could agree that none offers gifts.

IT company’s tea at The Ritz offer to GPs.

Pulse article on TPP incentives

Are PCTs putting GPs under pressure to switch to SystmOne?

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Posted in change, Government IT, health, health records, managing outsourced services, NHS, npfit, outsourcing, Politics, procurement, supplier relationships

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Why effective project management should focus on people, not just processes

Posted on 09/02/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

I recently read an interesting post in the Gallup Management Journal which argued that when it comes to project management, most organisations put their practices before their people.

In other words, they place more emphasis on ‘rational’ factors, such as the process itself, and rather less on emotional drivers that could actually deliver project excellence – actually, just a project success would do! – such as their employees’ engagement with the project and company.

The piece, by Benoit Hardy-Vallee, points out that, “Project management is integral to the business world. Milestones, kickoff meetings, deliverables, stakeholders, Gantt charts, and work plans constitute the everyday world of most managers, whether they are called “project managers” or not. Given the vast experience organisations have with project management, it’s reasonable to wonder why all projects aren’t completed on time, on scope, and under budget.”

It argues that cost and time overruns on IT projects have had a profound effect on national economies, and suggests that one estimate of the IT project failure rate is between 5% and 15%, which represents a loss of $50 billion to $150 billion per year in the United States. In Europe, although the figures look pretty dated, they are still staggering in size: IT project failures  cost the European Union €142 billion in 2004.

What’s more, the piece argues, this trend is here to stay. With an ever-growing need for accessible and integrated data, organisations require larger platforms to manage supply chains, customer relationships, and dozens of other crucial systems.

“Mega-software projects are now common in private and governmental organisations, and development is not slowing down, especially in emerging economies.”

The blog argues that large projects, especially those in the IT sectors, already have a poor record. And forcing team members to adapt to project management processes and procedures only makes it more likely that the project will fail.

It goes on to suggest that a different, more powerful behaviour-based project management might be a better way of  enabling project groups to gain higher levels of emotional commitment and performance from their team members, as well as increased levels of emotional involvement from stakeholders to help improve both engagement and performance.

“A typical project management approach focuses on processes, policies, and procedures. Every task and step is described in detail by a set of rules.  Many companies implement rigid processes that dictate behaviour and use statistical methods to control quality (such as total quality management, kaizen, lean management, and Six Sigma). Process guides and rulebooks support work practices, while quality control systems assess and improve these practices.

“The problem with a single-minded focus on processes and methodologies is that once people are given procedures to follow, compliance replaces results. Everybody is concerned about how to do the job, not about the outcome if the job is done well.

“Companies that take this approach do so for valid reasons: They can’t manage what they don’t measure. More importantly, they can’t let projects run without any direction, hoping for the best. However, by relying on managing only these rational factors, organisations fail to harness the power of human nature by engaging employees’ emotions.”

The article concludes: “It’s time to update project management not with more methodologies, but with more emotional content. Employees’ and stakeholders’ disengagement can make a project fail, but behaviour-based management can make projects succeed.”

Gallup Management Journal

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Posted in Agile, BRICS, Campaign4Change, change management, Government IT, IT projects, project management

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Bridging the divide: an engineered approach to IT projects

Posted on 06/02/2012 | Leave a comment

The State Auditor in California recently criticised a planned high speed rail system between San Francisco and Los Angeles because the project suffered from critical, on-going oversight problems. In this guest blog, Bob Evans, founder and Managing Director of TestIT Software Assurance, explains why it is critical to have a ‘single source of truth’ for any IT development, to provide the required level of cohesion, discipline, control and transparency that should be expected from any engineering project.

The risks associated with developing or changing IT systems are well documented. IT failures always bring despair and reputational damage to all involved.

Do you remember the scene in Blackadder where General Melchett suggested that walking slowly (again) towards the German machine guns would be “the last thing they’d expect” – and so “that’s what we’re going to do”? This seems to be the attitude found in many IT procurements. What’s needed is a fresh, radical and innovative approach, especially in these changed times where senior management focus is on delivery and cost.

Keeping Control

Establishing and maintaining control of an outsourced project is the single, most important part of IT development; it is imperative for the purchaser to remain in full control at all times. In all of the failure scenarios that we have researched, it is obvious in every case that control has been lost, with always calamitous consequences.

The nature of the procurement process and inevitable time pressure means that the requirements of a new software system aren’t always well-defined at project inception. Typically, specifications are incomplete or ambiguous and put together from a range of disparate sources, with non-existent internal process and control. The “silo” attitude that is often encountered across departmental organisations is usually a key factor here.  Requirements that are not made clear at the start of the project will inevitably lead to confusion, delays, additional cost and even to dispute.

And if a contract is awarded on the basis of a flawed specification, the chosen vendor is in a strong position to justify delays and ramp up the costs. When planned schedules are missed and costs spiral out of control, well intended remedial actions can then create new, unforeseen problems, leading to even more rework.

The culture of care and diligence found in many traditional engineering environments is sometimes lacking in the IT industry and in our experience, engineering discipline is usually the first casualty when pressure is applied. Very quickly, the focus shifts to fire-fighting and a project loses sight of its objectives. It’s like building a bridge – but when halfway across, only fitting every other bolt.

 Contrived Tests

It’s no surprise that applications that have seemingly passed an Acceptance Test, when deployed on a live system, prove to be problematic. Validating the effectiveness of an IT system is typically a contrived process – put simply, tests are designed to pass! They would be – they are usually designed, controlled and often even run by the software vendor.

If you were buying a used car from a local garage, you’d get the RAC to come along and check out the mechanics. You wouldn’t even think of asking the mechanic who worked at that garage to do the inspection would you? But invariably this is the case in IT.

As discussed above, it is imperative that full control of the project remains with the purchaser. But without, continual up to date feedback and independent metrics, it’s hard to know what’s really going on. And the critical decision – when to go live – cannot be made with confidence.

Agile Development

The concept of Agile Development has been round for many years. However, it is still to be seen whether this approach can really work on a large, complex project. A properly managed set of sprints – with precise objectives, proper controls and diligent, independent validation at appropriate times may indeed lead to a more rapid and successful conclusion. However, it should be noted that as development continues, the needs of the business will necessarily change. If controls are not adequately maintained, no process – not even “Agile” ones – can keep up. What is delivered is what the vendor believes is required, rather than what is actually required by the business. And no matter what methodology is used for developing software, at the end of the development cycle it is essential to verify, independently and thoroughly, that the product meets the needs of the business.

The Agile Manifesto focuses on “working software over comprehensive documentation”. Documentation is of course often cumbersome. However, minimising the amount of information while maximising the value of the information is what’s really needed.

When it’s too late – and organisations end up mired in a legal dispute, we’ve been called in to play the part of the pathologist. It is soon apparent that the project was doomed from the start – no spec, no metrics, no control, no hope. Suppliers who didn’t listen, purchasers who didn’t actually know what they needed in the first place.

But there is another way. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency recently used independent software assurance to ensure success of its high-profile CERS/SVD project. There was an acknowledgement right from the start that requirements were bound to change and controls put in place to manage this. There were efficient, timely tests – not at the project end, but continuous tests, right from project inception. There was an approach that asked:  “What can we do given the available time and budget?”, rather than the popular “one-shot, whistle and bells” approach. And there was pro-active searching for and identifying issues early on – when the supplier was still on site – which meant that remedial actions were fixed by the supplier, at no additional cost to the project. Independent, constantly updated metrics also meant that the Maritime and Coastguard Agency stayed in complete control.

It isn’t rocket science. But for IT projects, the discipline driven by an engineering-based approach is generally more likely to lead to success. That’s why bridges get built – and IT projects often don’t. 

TestIT Software Assurance

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Posted in Agile, Campaign4Change, change management, Government IT, IT projects, managing change, managing outsourced services

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