Category Archives: Government IT

Publish Universal Credit and other project reports, says ex-gov’t CIO

Posted on 21/07/2014 | 7 comments

By Tony Collins

John SuffolkJohn Suffolk, the government’s former chief information officer, says warnings that publishing Universal Credit reports will have a chilling effect are “poppycock”.

His comments were prompted by the Department for Work and Pensions’ appeals against a ruling by the first-tier information tribunal that 4 reports on the Universal Credit programme be published.

The DWP has failed in every legal move it has made to stop the reports being published but is continuing its attempts although costs for taxpayers are increasing.

The DWP and its external lawyers argue that publishing the 4 reports would have a chilling effect by inhibiting the candour and boldness of civil servants who contribute to such reports.

But Suffolk says the claims of a chilling effect are “poppycock”. Suffolk was responding to a Campaign4Change blog “DWP tries again to stop disclosure of Universal Credit reports“.  He says:

“As you know I am a great fan of publishing all of the project reports. I note all of the comments on the “chilling effect” but this is poppycock.

“There is no chilling effect and if there was it would be countered by the extra scrutiny change programmes would receive by increased transparency. We should publish everything on projects and programmes.

“Transparency is a good thing. Government does complex work and more eyes on the problem would be a help not a hindrance, accepting we all need to know ‘who is the cook and who is the food critic’.

Suffolk was government CIO for nearly 5 years between 2006 and 2011 where he helped to steer an annual IT budget of billions of pounds.  He is now Head of Cyber Security/SVP at Huawei Technologies

His comments in full:

“It is such a shame that we have reached this position. Part of the Conservative Party (not the coalition) election thrust was on openness, transparency etc.

“Indeed some work has been done on this such as publishing the finance data, a summary report on major projects, but we appear to have gone backwards on no longer publishing an annual report for ICT spend, no longer publishing benchmark data – a prime driver that can reduce costs. According to the NAO some of what is published in terms of progress, is a little, how can I phrase this suspect.

“The realism is the only time a government can introduce transparency is at the beginning of a political cycle, this should have been executed at the beginning of the coalition as it becomes almost impossible to become transparent at the beginning of a new election cycle.

“A few words about UC. Before I left Government we reviewed the outline of UC as part of Francis Maude’s project control. I have to say the Ministers were excellent.

“They fully understood the policy objectives, fully understood the likely benefits and costs, understood the challenges but rightly deferred to officials on execution – how do we get from A to B.

“The Officials were far less impressive… Since then the ICT Team and Executive at DWP have gone through substantial change, the Civil Service have gone through a period of “transition” or “turmoil”; suppliers have gone through similar experiences and here we are trying to undertake one of the largest changes to the benefits system.

“We should not be surprised if there are a few wrinkles, nor should we be surprised if things move around a bit (what doesn’t – big or small) but what we should be surprised at is that Cabinet Office doesn’t appear to be backing the programme.

“I read with some mild amusement that GDS had taken their toys home and withdrew troops from “supporting” the programme.

“Excuse me, but isn’t this a flagship Programme? Won’t this programme save billions of pounds? Won’t this programme begin to change the something-for-nothing culture to nothing-for- nothing culture (unless there are real health reasons etc)?

“So we should have robbed all of the most talented resources of less priority programmes to support this. We didn’t. We went and sulked in the corner because they wouldn’t accept our ideas – instead we go and play around with websites and mess with tactical online services rather than focussing on the things that matter.

“You could also see this manifested in the major projects report where they singled out UC in a special category. Boys boys your job is to work together not squabble like little children.

“Get the best resources on UC, accept it is complex and dates will move around, take steady small steps and prove the programme and then get your shoulders behind it to make the implementation a success.

“Without doubt the Government have made many substantial improvements but when it comes to getting big changed implemented there is a long way to go.”

Millions of pounds of secret DWP reports

Judge refuses DWP leave to appeal ruling on Universal Credit reports

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Posted in Campaign4Change, DWP, excessive secrecy, FOI, Government IT, openness and transparency, Universal Credit

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DWP tries again to stop release of Universal Credit reports

Posted on 17/07/2014 | 18 comments

By Tony Collins

The Department for Work and Pensions has requested another legal hearing in its attempt to stop four ageing reports on the Universal Credit programme being published.

The DWP’s formal application to the Upper Tribunal (below) shows that Whitehall officials and work and pensions  ministers, Iain Duncan Smith and Lord Freud,  are prepared to sink more public money into fighting a judge’s ruling in March 2014 that the DWP publish the four reports

It appears the DWP does not want the reports published on a point of principle: the department does not publish any reports on any of its major IT-based change programmes.

Another reason officials and ministers have for keeping the reports confidential is that they would establish what officials knew of Universal Credit programme’s serious problems in 2012 when departmental press releases were saying the scheme was on time and within budget.

The reports could show, without ambiguity, that the DWP misled Parliament in 2012 and 2013 by saying the UC programme was progressing successfully when officials knew this was not the case.

So far the the DWP’s lawyers have lost every stage of their appeals to stop disclosure of the reports. One judge noted the apparent contradiction between what’s in the hidden reports and optimistic press releases issued by the department about the UC programme.

The reports in question date back to 2011 and 2012. They are:

–  A Project Assessment Review of Universal Credit by the Cabinet Office’s Major Projects Authority. The Review gave a high-level strategic view of the state of UC, its problems, risks and how well or badly it was being managed.

–  A Risk Register of Universal Credit. It included a description of the risk, the possible impact should it occur, the probability of its occurring, a risk score, a traffic light [Red/Green Amber] status, a summary of the planned response if a risk materialises, and a summary of the risk mitigation.

– An Issues Register for Universal Credit. It contained a short list of problems, the dates when they were identified, the mitigating steps required and the dates for review and resolution.

– A High Level Milestone Schedule for Universal Credit. It is described in the tribunal’s ruling as a “graphic record of progress, measured in milestones, some completed, some missed and others targeted in the future”.

John Slater, who has 25 years experience in IT and programme and project management, requested three of the reports in 2012 under the FOI Act. Separately I requested the Project Assessment Review, also in 2012. The Information Commissioner ruled that the DWP release three of the four reports. He said the Risk Register could stay confidential.

The DWP appealed the ruling and the case came before the first-tier information tribunal earlier this year.  The DWP sent an external legal team to Leicester for the hearing – which the DWP lost.

The tribunal ruled that the DWP publish all four reports. Lawyers for the DWP had claimed that disclosure of the four reports would inhibit the candour and boldness of civil servants who contributed to them – the so-called chilling effect.

The DWP’s lawyers sought the first-tier tribunal’s leave to appeal the ruling, describing it as “perverse”. The  lawyers said the tribunal had wholly misunderstood what was meant by a “chilling effect”, how it was manifested and how its existence could be proved.

They claimed that the first-tier tribunal’s misunderstanding of the chilling effect and its perverse decision were “errors of law”. For the first-tier tribunal’s finding to go to appeal to the “upper tribunal”, the DWP would have needed to prove “errors in law” in the findings of the first-tier tribunal.

The judge in that case, David Farrer QC, found that there were no errors in law in his ruling and he refused the DWP leave to appeal. The DWP then asked the upper tribunal to overrule Farrer’s decision – and the DWP lost again.

The judge in the upper tribunal refused permission for the DWP to appeal.

Rather than simply publish the reports – and avoid further legal costs – the DWP has now asked its lawyers to submit another request for an appeal. This time the DWP has asked for an “oral hearing” so that its lawyers can argue for permission to appeal to the upper tribunal in person, rather than on paper.

The upper tribunal has yet to decide on the DWP’s request for an oral hearing.

As long as the DWP sustains its series of appeals it does not have to publish the four reports, although legal costs from the public purse continue to rise.

The DWP’s latest letter to the upper tribunal:

8 July 2014

Dear Sirs

Department For Work And Pensions v ICO

Application to the Upper Tribunal for permission to appeal

We write further to your letter dated 25 June 2014 enclosing Upper Tribunal Judge Wikeley’s refusal of the Secretary of State’s application for permission to appeal and above three appeals.

We apply in accordance with rules 22(4) and (5) of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008 for the Department for Work and Pensions’ application for permission to appeal against the First-Tier Tribunal’s decision of 19 March 2014 (notified on 24 March 2014) in the above cases to be reconsidered at an oral hearing.

The Department for Work and Pensions contends that each of the three proposed grounds of appeal is arguable in law for the reasons set out in the grounds of appeal accompanying its application for permission to appeal, and applies for reconsideration before a judge at an oral hearing on that basis.

Yours faithfully …

Comment

The DWP is facing Parliamentary and NAO criticism over the poor state of several of its major programmes. So it is odd that its officials have the time, and can spare the public funds, to fight a long campaign to stop four old UC programme reports being published.

It shows that the DWP cares more about how it is perceived by the outside world than it cares for minimising the public money it spends on this FOI case.

It’s likely that publication of the four reports would slightly embarrass the department but that would soon be forgotten.  Once incurred the legal costs cannot be reclaimed.

The DWP’s claims of a “chilling effect” should the reports be disclosed are entirely understandable. No publicly funded body wants be scrutinised. Officials would rather keep all their internal affairs secret.  But that’s not the way it works in a democracy.

Upper Tribunal ruling Universal Credit appeal

My submission to FOI tribunal on universal credit

Judge [first-tier tribunal] refuses DWP leave to appeal ruling on Universal Credit reports – April 2014

 

 

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Posted in DWP, excessive secrecy, FOI, Freedom of Information, Government digital Service, Government IT, Major Projects Authority, Universal Credit

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Treasury refusing to sign off Universal Credit business case?

Posted on 08/07/2014 | Leave a comment

By Tony Collins

Government Computing reports that the business case for the Universal Credit programme has yet to be signed off.

It appears that the Department for Work and Pensions receives money for the programme only when it needs it.

It is odd that the business case remains to be signed although the programme is more than three years old. The programme was “reset” last year.

At a hearing yesterday of the Public Accounts Committee the four top civil servants who appeared before MPs were reluctant to admit that the business case had not been signed off.

They four were:

– Sir Jeremy Heywood, Cabinet Secretary, Cabinet Office;

– Sir Bob Kerslake, Head of the Home Civil Service and Permanent Secretary, Communities and Local Government;

– Richard Heaton, Permanent Secretary, Cabinet Office and

– Sir Nicholas Macpherson, Permanent Secretary, HM Treasury.

Government Computing reports that the four were “reduced to bluster” when the committee’s chair Margaret Hodge  questioned them repeatedly on whether the business case for Universal Credit had been signed off by the Treasury.

She said, “There is no argument about the policy. It is entirely an implementation issue. And I cannot understand a centre that fails to intervene when there is such a classic failure at the departmental level on something that the centre says it is interested in, which is IT.

“It’s supposed to be a digitisation exercise in the way we administer benefits so you can integrate the benefits. What we’ve got out there is not a digitisation – it’s an incredibly staff intensive, pathfinder thing. Why is the centre allowing that to happen? Have you signed off the business case yet?”

“Have you assigned off the business case?” she repeated to  MacPherson.

After some looks between the four permanent secretaries, Kerslake said, “I think we should stop beating about the bush. It hasn’t been signed off. What we’ve had is a set of conditional assurances about progress and the Treasury has released money accordingly. And that’s one of the key controls they have. “

Defending the role of the centre in the Universal Credit programme, Heywood said, “This is an example of where the centre did intervene very strongly, both the Treasury and the Major Projects Authority (MPA).

“The MPA with the support of the Treasury and with a lot of technical help from the Government Digital Service (GDS) has played a very clear role in bringing to the secretary of state’s attention that the project was way off track. And that was a very important intervention from the centre.

“It then followed up with the next technique that the centre has got, which is to provide support in seconding in the then head of the MPA, David Pitchford, to help re-programme the project, a lot of support from Mike Bracken and his team at GDS to help the digital underpinnings of it and also some help on the commercial renegotiation of some of the contracts from Bill Crothers and his team. So it’s a very good example of the assurance role was followed by a support role and that continues.”

Pressed by Margaret Hodge on whether Universal Credit was now on track, Heywood said, “In its current form, yes, I think it is.”

Comment

Among so-called enlightened democracies the UK, perhaps, stands alone. In what other country would the nation’s four most senior civil servants, when asked if the business case for a major project has been signed off, look like children in a playground who are being asked to reveal a secret?

What does it say about open government that the UK’s four most senior civil servants cannot immediately say yes or no to such a basic question?

[One thing it says, perhaps, is that they are all terrified of Iain Duncan Smith who doesn’t like anything being said about Universal Credit that isn’t entirely positive. Worse still, they probably all agree with him.]

Treasury still to fully sign off Universal Credit business case 

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Posted in Agile, Campaign4Change, change management, DWP, excessive secrecy, Government IT, IT-related failures, Major Projects Authority, Universal Credit

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HP’s tacit threat to government not to bid for contracts?

Posted on 03/07/2014 | Leave a comment

By Tony Collins

HP has written to the Treasury  questioning whether it is worthwhile competing for contracts if the Government is no longer interested in doing business with multinationals, says The Independent.

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude is encouraging departments to spend more with SMEs and be less reliant on a small number of major IT suppliers. He wants departments to avoid signing long-term contracts which lock-in ministers to one major supplier.

The Independent says:

“In a striking case of Goliath accusing David of bullying, the American giants Microsoft and Hewlett Packard have complained that they are being unfairly picked on by the Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude.

“…the Government’s largest IT supplier Hewlett Packard has written to the Treasury to express its concern at plans by Mr Maude to award more Government contracts to smaller suppliers.

“At the same time Microsoft is fighting a rearguard action against the Cabinet Office to protect the million pounds it gets each year from Whitehall by selling popular Office programmes such as Word and Excel.

“Both companies are concerned that they are being singled out by ministers as unpopular and easy targets in their rhetoric about cutting public sector waste…

“Microsoft is attempting to prevent the Government from migrating its own computer systems from those that rely on the multinational to open-source documents that are free to use…

“Both companies look set to be disappointed – at least unless there is a change in Government. Mr Maude is understood to be looking to next year – when a significant number of big IT contracts are up for renewal – to push ahead with the new policy that could significantly denude the profits of IT multinationals.”

A Cabinet Office spokesman said it was unaware of HP’s letter to the Treasury and added: “We value the contribution companies of all sizes make to the UK economy, driving innovation, growth and jobs.”

A spokeswoman for HP told The Independent:  “HP is a proud and long-standing supplier of IT products and services to Her Majesty’s Government and provides vital public services to UK citizens.  We maintain an ongoing dialogue with government about our programme of work.”

A report by the Institute for Government Government Contracting:  Public data, private providers says that HP is the largest supplier to government with earnings in excess of 1.7bn in both 2012 and 2013.

In 2013, 86% (£1.49bn) of HP’s revenue from central government came from a DWP contract to supply infrastructure and systems for DWP and its job centres. “This contract is likely to be the largest single non-defence contract in central government,” says the Institute.

Capgemini, BT and Capita were the next largest suppliers to central government. Capgemini’s work is mainly from HMRC through the “Aspire” contract which is worth about £850m a year.

Departments are more open than they used to be but the Institute found big gaps in the information provided.

These gaps include:

– Contractual transparency –  contracts and contractual terms, including who will bear financial liabilities in the event of failures

– Information about how well contractors perform, allowing a vital assessment of value for money

– Supply chain transparency – information including the proportion of work subcontracted to others, terms of subcontracting (particularly levels of risk transfer), and details on the types of organisation (for example, voluntary and community sector organisations) in the supply chain.

Comment

What concerns Maude and his team is not the existence of major suppliers in central government contracts but the reliance by central departments on long-term contracts that lock-in ministers and lead to costly minor changes.

Nobody wants the major suppliers to stop bidding for contracts. What’s needed is for departments to have the in-house expertise to manage suppliers adroitly, and not to be adroitly managed by their suppliers which seems to be the position at present.

Thank you to openness campaigner Dave Orr for the information he sent me which helped with this article.

The IT giants who fear losing the government’s favour

Opening the door to data transparency

 

 

 

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Posted in BT, Campaign4Change, Capita, DWP, excessive secrecy, Government IT, HMRC, HP, Institute for Government, managing outsourced services, open source, open standards, openness and transparency, supplier relationships

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Upper Tribunal refuses DWP leave to appeal ruling on Universal Credit reports

Posted on 26/06/2014 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

An upper tribunal judge this week refused consent for the Department of Work and Pensions to appeal a ruling that four reports on the Universal Credit programme be published.

It’s the third successive legal ruling to have gone against the DWP as its lawyers try to stop the reports being released.

The DWP is likely to request further consideration of its appeal. History suggests it will devote the necessary legal time and funding to stop the reports being published.

In March 2014, the first-tier information tribunal rejected the DWP’s claim that disclosure of the four reports would inhibit the candour and boldness of civil servants who contributed to them – the so-called chilling effect.

The DWP sought the first-tier tribunal’s leave to appeal the ruling, describing it as “perverse”. External lawyers for the DWP said the tribunal had wholly misunderstood what is meant by a “chilling effect”, how it is manifested and how its existence can be proved.

They claimed the misunderstanding and the perverse decision were “errors of law”. For the first-tier tribunal’s finding to go to appeal to the “upper tribunal”, the DWP would have needed to prove “errors in law” in the findings of the first-tier tribunal.

The judge in that case, David Farrer QC, found that there were no errors in law in his ruling and he refused the DWP leave to appeal. The DWP then asked the upper tribunal to overrule Farrer’s decision – and now the DWP has lost again.

The upper tribunal’s judge Nicholas Wikeley says in his ruling this week:

“This [chilling effect] is a well known concept, and I can see no support for the argument that the [first-tier] Tribunal misunderstood its meaning.

“The Tribunal was surely saying that whilst it heard Ms Cox’s claim that disclosure would have a chilling effect, neither she nor the Department provided any persuasive evidence to that effect.” [Sarah Cox is a senior DWP executive on the Universal Credit programme.]

“Indeed, the Tribunal noted, as it was entitled to, that Ms Cox did not suggest that frank discussion had been inhibited in any way by a third party’s revelation of the ‘Starting Gate Review’.”

In conclusion the judge says:

“I therefore refuse permission [for the DWP] to appeal to the Upper Tribunal.”

The DWP’s lawyers asked the upper tribunal for a stay, or suspension, of the first-tier tribunal’s ruling that the four reports be published. This the judge granted temporarily.  The lawyers also asked for a private hearing, which the judge did not decide on.

DWP too secretive?

John Slater, who has 25 years experience working in IT and programme and project management, requested three of the four reports in question under the FOI Act in 2012. He asked for the UC issues register, high-level milestone schedule and risk register. Also in 2012 I requested a UC project assessment review by the Cabinet Office’s Major Projects Authority.

The Information Commissioner ruled that the DWP should publish three of the reports but not the Risks Register.  In March 2014 the first-tier information tribunal ruled that all four reports should be published.

Excluding these four, the DWP has had 19 separate reports on the progress or otherwise of the Universal Credit programme and has not published any of them.

Work and Pensions minister Lord Freud, told the House of Lords, in a debate on Universal Credit this week:

“I hope we are as transparent as we can be.”

What happens now?

Slater says that as the DWP has been refused permission to appeal it will probably ask for an oral hearing before the upper tribunal. This would mean that the DWP would get a second chance to gets its point across directly in front of the Upper Tribunal rather than just on paper, as it has just tried, says Slater. There is no guarantee that the DWP would be granted an oral hearing.

Comment

If all was going well with the DWP’s largest projects its lawyers could argue, with some credibility, that the “safe space” civil servants need to produce reports on the progress or otherwise of major schemes is having a useful effect.

In fact the DWP has, with a small number of notable exceptions such as Pension Credit, presided over a series of major IT-based projects that have failed to meet expectations or business objectives, from  “Camelot” in the 1980s to “Operational Strategy” in the 1990s. Universal Credit is arguably the latest project disaster, to judge from the National Audit Office’s 2013 report on the scheme.

The”safe space” the DWP covets doesn’t  appear to work.  Perhaps it’s a lack of firm challenge, external scrutiny and transparency that are having a chilling effect on the department.

Upper Tribunal ruling Universal Credit appeal

My submission to FOI tribunal on universal credit

Judge [first-tier tribunal] refuses DWP leave to appeal ruling on Universal Credit reports – April 2014

 

 

 

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Posted in Campaign4Change, DWP, excessive secrecy, FOI, Freedom of Information, Gateway reviews, Government IT, IT-related failures, Major Projects Authority, managing change, Universal Credit

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How well is new passport IT coping with high demand?

Posted on 13/06/2014 | Leave a comment

By T0ny Collins

In 1989 when the Passport Agency introduced new systems avoidable chaos ensued. A decade later, in 1999, officials introduced a new passport system and avoidable chaos ensued. Jack Straw, the then Home Secretary, apologised to the House of Commons.

Last year HM Passport Office introduced, after delays,  a replacement passport system, the Application Management System. It was built with the help of the Passport Office’s main IT supplier CSC under a 10-year £385m contract awarded in 2009.

The Passport Office said at the time the new system was designed “to be easier to use and enable cases to be examined more efficiently”. So how well is the system coping with unusually high demand, given that an objective was to help passport staff deal with applications more efficiently?

The answer is that we don’t know: open government has yet to reach HM Passport Office. It publishes no regular updates on how well it is performing, how many passports it is processing each month or how long it is taking on average to process them. It has published no information on the performance of the Application Management System or how much it has cost.

All we know is that the system was due to be rolled out in 2012 but concerns about how well it would perform after go-live led to the roll-out being delayed a year. In the past 18 months it has been fully rolled out.

Comment

Has there been a repeat of the IT problems that seriously delayed the processing of applications in 1989 and 1999? In both years, passport officials had inadequate contingency arrangements to cope with a surge in demand, according to National Audit Office reports.

Clearly the same thing has happened for a third time: there have been inadequate contingency arrangements to cope with an unexpectedly high surge in demand.

How is it the passport office can repeatedly build up excessive backlogs without telling anyone? One answer is that there is a structural secrecy about internal performance.

Despite attempts by Francis Maude and the Cabinet Office to make departments and agencies more open about their performance, the Passport Office is more secretive than ever.

It appears that even the Home Secretary Theresa May was kept in the dark about the latest backlogs.  She gave reassuring statistics to the House of Commons about passport applications being processed on time – and only days later conceded there were backlogs.

It’s a familiar story: administrative problems in a government agency are denied until the truth can be hidden no longer because of the number of constituents who are contacting their MPs.

David Cameron said this week that up to 30,000 passport applications may be delayed.

One man who contacted the BBC said he had applied for a passport 7 weeks before he was due to travel. The passport office website said he should get a new passport in 3 weeks. When it had not arrived after 6 weeks he called the passport office and was told he’d be called back within 48 hours. He wasn’t, so he called again and was told the same thing. In the end he lost his holiday.

In 1989 the IT-related disaster was avoidable because managers continued a roll-out even though tests at the Glasgow office had shown it was taking longer to process passport applications on computers than clerically. Backlogs built up and deteriorating relations with staff culminated in industrial action

In 1999 electronic scanning of passport applications and added security checks imposed by the new systems caused delays and lowered productivity.  Even so a national roll-out continued. Contingency plans were inadequate, said the National Audit Office.

Does the “new” Application Management System show down processing of applications? We don’t know. The Passport Office is keeping its 2014 statistics to itself.

Decades of observing failures in government administration have taught me that chaos always seems to take officialdom by surprise.

If departments and agencies had to account publicly for their performance on a monthly and not just an annual basis, the public, MPs, ministers and officials themselves, would know when chaos is looming. But openness won’t happen unless the culture of the Passport Office changes.

For the time being its preoccupation seems to be finding whoever published photos of masses of files of passport applications seemingly awaiting processing.

The taking and publication of the photos seems to be regarded as a greater crime than the backlogs themselves.  To discourage such leaks the Passport Office has sent a threatening letter to staff.

But innocuous leaks are an essential part of the democratic process. They help ministers find out what’s going on in their departments and agencies.  Has government administration really come to this?

 

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Posted in Campaign4Change, CSC, excessive secrecy, Government IT, IT and the Business, IT projects, Passport Office

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Has DWP suppressed a “red” rating on Universal Credit project?

Posted on 28/05/2014 | 4 comments

By Tony Collins

The Cabinet Office’s Major Project Authority gave the Universal Credit programme a “red” rating which IDS and the Department for Work and Pensions campaigned successfully to turn into a neutral “reset” designation, says The Independent.

Universal Credit was “only given a reset rating after furious protests by Iain Duncan Smith and his department,” says the newspaper.

A “reset” rating is unprecedented. All major projects at red will need a reset. That is one of the reasons the Major Projects Authority gives a red rating: to signal to the senior responsible owner that the project needs resetting or cancelling. A “reset” designation is a non-assessment.

The MPA’s official definition of a red rating is:

“Red: Successful delivery of the project appears to be unachievable. There are major issues on project definition, schedule, budget, quality and/or benefits delivery, which at this stage do not appear to be manageable or resolvable. The project may need re-scoping and/or its overall viability reassessed.”

The suppression of Universal Credit’s red rating may indicate that the project, at the top, is driven by politics – the public and Parliamentary perception of the project being all-important – rather than pragmatics.

It is a project management aphorism that serious problems cannot be tackled until their seriousness is admitted.

Normally the Major Projects Authority will give even newly reconfigured projects traffic light ratings, to indicate its view of the risks of the revised plans.

The Independent calls for the replacement of Iain Duncan Smith as political head of the project.

Comment

The National Audit Office warned last September of the DWP’s fortress mentality and “good news” culture.

The suppression of Universal Credit’s red rating on top of the DWP’s repeated refusals to publish the Universal Credit project assessment report, risk register, issues register and milestone schedule shows that the DWP still avoids telling it like it is. That will make successful delivery of Universal Credit’s complexities impossible.

Well-run IT projects are about problem-solving not problem-denying.

The Independent is right to say that IDS is not the person to be running Universal Credit. He has too much emotional equity to be an objective leader. He sees himself as having too much to lose. The programme needs to be run by an open-minded pragmatist.

In asking the Cabinet Office to agree with a “reset” rating for Universal Credit IDS is acting like a schoolboy who has done something wrong and asks the school not to tell his parents. That’s no way to run something as important as Universal Credit.

IDS and DWP accused of hiding bad news on Universal Credit – The Independent

 

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Posted in Agile, Campaign4Change, DWP, excessive secrecy, Gateway reviews, Government IT, IT-related failures, Major Projects Authority, managing change, openness and transparency, Universal Credit

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DWP – and Cabinet Office – hide new Universal Credit secrets

Posted on 23/05/2014 | 2 comments

By Tony Collins

In 2009 Francis Maude promised, if the Conservatives came to power,  that his party would publish “Gateway” reviews on the progress or otherwise or big IT-based projects.

He was surprised when I told him that civil servants wouldn’t allow it, that they wouldn’t want Parliament and the media knowing how badly their big programmes were being managed. Maude said he couldn’t see a problem in publishing the reports.

When Maude and the Conservatives won power, the Cabinet Office promised in its forward plans to publish Gateway reviews but it never happened.

The Cabinet Office told me its forward plans were “draft” (although they were not marked “draft”) and the commitment to publishing Gateway reviews was no longer included. It didn’t say why.

Still Maude worked privately within government to persuade departmental ministers to at least publish the “traffic light” status of major projects – red, amber or green. Eventually this happened – sort of.

Senior civil servants and their ministers agreed to publish the traffic light status of major projects only if the disclosures were at least six months old by the time they were published.

Maude agreed – and last year the Major Projects Authority published its delayed 2013 annual report. It revealed the out-of-date traffic light status of big projects.

Today the 2014 Major Projects Authority annual report is published. Alongside publication, departments are publishing the traffic light status of major projects – except the Universal Credit programme.

Where the DWP should be publishing the red, amber or green designation of the UC programme the spreadsheet says “reset”.

Therefore the DWP is avoiding not only the publication of Universal Credit reports as part of a 2-year FOI legal battle, it has stopped publishing the traffic light status of the Universal Credit programme.

Secrecy over the state of the UC programme is deepening, which could be said to make a mockery of the Cabinet Office’s attempts to bring about open government.

It seems that the DWP is happy for MPs, journalists and the public to speculate on the state of the Universal Credit programme. But it is determined to deny its critics authoritative information on the state of the programme.

Universal Credit is looking to me rather like a programme disaster of the type seen during Labour’s administration. And the detail is being kept hidden – as it was under Labour.

The DWP argues that UC reports cannot be published because of the “chilling effect” on civil servants who contribute to the reports. In other words they will not be candid in their assessments if they know their comments will be published.

What’s remarkable about this claim is the assumption that the status quo works. The DWP assumes that publication of the UC reports – even if there is a demonstrable chilling effect – will have a bad effect on the UC programme. But how could things be worse than they are? The National Audit Office report “Universal Credit – early progress” showed that the programme was being poorly managed.

The absence of a chilling effect has not served the UC programme well. Will the non-publication of a traffic light status for UC serve the programme well?

It may be that more rigorous Parliamentary scrutiny – by well informed MPs – is essential for the UC programme’s welfare.

But for that to happen IDS and the DWP’s ministers and senior civil servants will need to be dragged kicking and screaming towards the door marked “open government”. Will it ever happen? I doubt it.

PS: It appears that the Cabinet Office and its Major Projects Authority have agreed with departments that the MPA’s Annual Report will be published today – a Friday before a Bank Holiday weekend . Is this to reduce the chances it will be noticed by the trade press and national media?  

Update:

Shortly after publishing the blog post above a DWP press officer gave me the following statement:

“Universal Credit is on track. The reset is not new but refers to the shift in the delivery plan and change in management back in early 2013.

“The reality is that Universal Credit is already making work pay as we roll it out in a careful and controlled way.

“It’s already operating in 10 areas and will start expanding to the rest of the North West in June. Jobseekers in other areas are already benefiting from some of its positive impacts through help from a work coach, more digital facilities in jobcentres, and a written agreement setting out what they will do to find work.”

The DWP says the “reset” rating reflects the fact that the Secretary of State decided to reset the programme in 2013, with a clear plan developed since then to deliver the programme.

Now this reset has taken place, future Major Projects Authority reports will give a traffic light status, says the DWP.

 

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Posted in Campaign4Change, DWP, excessive secrecy, FOI, Freedom of Information, Gateway reviews, Government IT, IT-related failures, Major Projects Authority, Universal Credit

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DWP tries anew for leave to appeal FOI ruling on Universal Credit reports

Posted on 22/05/2014 | 3 comments

By Tony Collins

The DWP is continuing its protracted legal fight to stop publication of four reports on the Universal Credit programme.

The department this week asked the upper tribunal for leave to appeal a decision of the first-tier information tribunal that the four reports be published.  The first-tier tribunal had refused the DWP leave to appeal.

As expected, the DWP is doing everything possible within the FOI Act to stop the UC programme reports being published. This is despite MPs on the Work and Pensions Committee saying there is a “lack of transparency” on the Universal Credit programme.

The reports in question are more than two years old but they would show how much ministers knew about UC programme problems at a time when the DWP was issuing regular press releases claiming the scheme was on time and to budget.

By law the DWP has to deal with every FOI request individually but in practice the department has rejected every FOI request for reviews and assessments of its major IT-enabled projects and programmes including Universal Credit.

The four reports in question are:

– A project assessment review on the state of the UC programme in November 2011, as assessed by the Cabinet Office’s Major Projects Authority.

– A risk register of possible risks to the development or eventual operation of UC as perceived by those involved.

– An issues register of problems that have materialised, why and how they can be minimised or eliminated.

– A milestone schedule of progress and times by which activities should be completed.

In his request to the upper tribunal for leave to appeal the first-tier tribunal’s decision, the DWP’s lawyer  argues that the first-tier tribunal wholly misunderstood the nature of any “chilling effect” that publishing the reports would have on the frankness of civil servants contributing to them.

He said that the tribunal’s finding that disclosure of the reports would have no chilling effect was “perverse”, and that the tribunal failed to give due weight to the evidence of a senior civil servant Sarah Cox on the chilling effect.

He said that “many ex-ministers and others have spoken of the chilling effect of disclosure as an observable phenomenon within government” though he provided no evidence of this in his submission.

He added that the first-tier tribunal’s reasoning was “defective” in a number of respects. The tribunal had made a fundamental error of law, he said.

The tribunal’s “factual conclusion that disclosure of the disputed information would have no chilling effect whatsoever was one which no reasonable tribunal, properly directing itself as to the relevant legal principles, could have reached,” said the DWP’s lawyer.

Judge refuses DWP leave to appeal FOI ruling on Universal Credit reports

 

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Posted in Campaign4Change, DWP, excessive secrecy, FOI, Freedom of Information, Gateway reviews, Government IT, IT-related failures, Major Projects Authority, project management, public sector, public services, Universal Credit

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Criminal Justice IT – still criminally backward?

Posted on 20/05/2014 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

After decades of attempts to join up criminal justice systems, and hundreds of millions of pounds spent on attempts to integrate IT, such as “Libra”, there is still no single case management system that can pass offenders’ files seamlessly from the police to the prosecution, through the courts, and to the prison and probation system.

In the police service IT is particularly fragmented. There are 2,000 IT systems in use – 300 separate systems in the Metropolitan Police alone.

Meanwhile large companies such as Serco and G4S hold major contracts across the Departments’ activities creating the problem of “over-dependency on a small number of contractors who could become too big to fail”, says the Public Accounts Committee chairman Margaret Hodge. Her committee publishes a report today The Criminal Justice System.

Comment

Major suppliers have benefited from big contracts but criminal justice IT integration seems almost as far away as it was 20 years ago.

A new administration may be tempted to embark on the equivalent of an NHS IT programme for criminal justice, which is not a good idea. A grand plan for integrating criminal justice IT has already been tried at a cost of more than £1bn – called Criminal Justice IT.

Instead of lamenting how bad things are perhaps there should be an acceptance by a new administration that joining up criminal justice IT is never going to happen and it’s best to improve incrementally without a grand plan, which is what is happening now.

The problem with joined up IT is not the technology but the scale of business process change. It’s unlikely that all agencies could cope.

Indeed today’s Public Accounts Committee report says that “prosecutors have reported that it takes significantly longer to process work digitally rather than on paper”.

The Criminal Justice System 

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Posted in change management, Government IT, IT-related failures, Ministry of Justice