Category Archives: IBM

Universal Credit – a chance to do things differently.

Posted on 13/09/2012 | 2 comments

By Tony Collins

Comment

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

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

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

Private v public sector approaches on big projects

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Public sector

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

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

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

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

Nik Silver’s website

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

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

Posted on 11/09/2012 | 6 comments

By Tony Collins

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

Who’s to say the concern would be inappropriate?

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

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

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

Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

Can we trust what DWP says?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The reports we’d requested were:

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

DWP’s letter to us:

7 September 2012
Dear Mr Collins,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yours sincerely
Ethna Harnett

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

Universal  Credit programme on course for disaster – Frank Field

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

Millions of pounds of secret DWP reports

NAO criticises Atos benefits contract

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

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

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IBM sues its council “partner”

Posted on 06/09/2012 | 3 comments

By Tony Collins

Earlier this week we reported IBM’s disclosure that it is in dispute with Somerset County Council, its lead partner on a joint venture Southwest One.

In  its annual statement on Southwest One, a joint venture owned by IBM in which Somerset County Council is the lead partner, the company said that a dispute with its partners had gone to mediation which had failed.

Now it turns out that the dispute has escalated: IBM, in the form of Southwest One, is suing Somerset County Council according to BBC online.

On its website Southwest One says how “collaboration and cooperation can help to deliver procurement savings”.  But it is largely over the level of procurement savings that Southwest One is going to court.

Southwest One’s statement

Southwest One said it had taken court action because an agreement could not be made with Somerset Country Council.

“Southwest One complies with its contractual obligations, providing a robust service to all partners which includes the identification of substantial procurement savings.

“Throughout the course of the contract, Southwest One has secured procurement savings that amount to £22 million which have been approved by all partners, with contracts in place to deliver a further £71 million of savings.

“Southwest One has also successfully achieved external recognition from the Cabinet Office for Customer Service Excellence and operates an award-winning Customer Contact Centre.”

Somerset’s statement

Somerset County Council said

“We are in disagreement with Southwest One about the quality of the procurement service and what payments Southwest One is entitled to as a result of savings made by getting better deals through the joint venture.

“As set out in the terms of the contract, we had hoped we would be able to settle this issue through mediation and negotiation.

“It is now apparent that this will not be possible and it is disappointing that we are in the position of going to court.

“It is paramount that we look after the best interests of tax payers and take action when standards of performance and quality are not being met.

“We will therefore robustly defend our position and make counter-claims where we believe we have suffered losses.

“Somerset County Council will not be commenting any further on this issue at this stage.”

Thank you to Dave Orr for drawing my attention to IBM’s legal action.

Comment

As procurement expert Peter Smith asks: what is a procurement saving? Amid a complexity of transactions the phrase “procurement saving” can mean almost anything.

Southwest One was supposed to be a partnership between IBM and three public authorities: Somerset County Council, Taunton Deane Borough Council and Avon and Somerset Police.

Now the primary beneficiaries will be lawyers … And so we plough along, as the fly said to the ox.

Links

Southwest One sues Somerset County Council

Procurement savings disputes are not unusual

IBM in dispute with partners on £585m contract

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Posted in IBM, IT-related failures, legal disputes, local government, managing change, managing outsourced services, procurement, public-private partnerships, SAP, shared services

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

Posted on 31/08/2012 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Comment

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

Is it any surprise that things have come to this?

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

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

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

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

IBM-led model partnership based on SAP makes loss

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

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

Posted on 10/07/2012 | Leave a comment

By Tony Collins

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Council accepts IBM deal as failing.

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

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

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RBS/Natwest: Some lessons from the IT crash – Bank of England Governor.

Posted on 26/06/2012 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

Sir Mervyn King, Governor Bank of England, promised today that there would be a “very detailed inquiry” once problems at RBS/Natwest are back to normal.

Such a report would be unusual because the cause or causes of IT-related crashes in the public and private sectors are usually kept secret unless in rare cases a legal action comes to court.

Mervyn King told the Treasury Committee today:

“Once the current difficulties are over then we will need the FSA to go in and carry out a very detailed investigation to find out first of all what went wrong but even more importantly why it took so long to recover.

“Computer systems will always go wrong from time to time. The important things are your back-up systems and the time it takes to implement recovery. As of now we have kept in very close touch. My office was in touch with senior RBS management right through the weekend. Our banking director was in touch with RBA and FSA on this right since this problem began … It is still going to take time to catch up, to get back to normal.

“The important thing now is that we provide whatever support is needed to let them put it right. Once it is back to normal then we must carry out a very detailed inquiry.

“To my mind, one of the big lessons from this is that it shows everyone is how important the basic functions of banking actually are: what can go wrong when the system of payments from person to another is interrupted. Fortunately it has been one bank, albeit a very big bank, and customers of that bank have been affected, and of course customers of other banks have been affected, and payments have not gone through.

“I hope this is a reminder, a demonstration, to everyone, for example, of what might have happened if we had not rescued RBS in the autumn of 2008. The whole payment system would have collapsed. [It is] why it is so important to ensure you have a banking system where the people running it are completely focused on this essential service function of banking to provide … customers with a functioning payment system.

Learning from supermarkets.

“I have been driven by the belief that the nature of banking and providing these kinds of services is very different from investment banking operations. Those are important but they are very different. When you go out and see how supermarkets operate, the senior management is utterly focused on ensuring that the IT systems, the ordering systems, the delivery system, works hour by hour. That is very important to ensure that that is true of the banking system as well…”

Comment:

History  is, to some extent, the story of the unforeseen, in which case a published report on the cause of the problems at RBS/Natwest could be helpful to other banks and major organisations whose ageing systems are vulnerable to an unforeseen failure of huge proportions.

A published report on the crisis may show systemic management failures. The mere fear of such a report would be an added deterrent – additional to potential losses and payments of compensation – to any bank that does not give the attention it should to operational systems, even when those systems support a retail banking operation that may represent a small part, perhaps only 2% of a bank’s balance sheet.

It is ironic that RBS is publicly owned. Will the IT disaster now be added to the list of other public sector failures? Did RBS, now in the public sector, drop its IT-related standards and caution in part because the commercial imperative was absent?

Natwest/RBS – what went wrong?

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Posted in Government IT, IBM, IT projects, IT-related failures, managing outsourced services, operational issues, software quality, supplier relationships

Millions of pounds of secret DWP reports

Posted on 29/03/2012 | 10 comments

By Tony Collins

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

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

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

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

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

Lack of accountability

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

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

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

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

The reports

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

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

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

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

Posted on 27/03/2012 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is also a dependency on the banks.

But nothing is wrong … is it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

But …

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

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

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

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

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

Universal Credit latest

Universal Credit and the banks.

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

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Good news: IBM-led shared services company is recognised as “failing”

Posted on 17/02/2012 | Leave a comment

By Tony Collins

After years of depicting problems at an IBM-led shared services company, Southwest One, as teething, Somerset County Council has conceded that the venture is failing.

The Conservative leader of Somerset County Council Councillor Ken Maddock used the word “failing” nine times in a speech on Wednesday about Southwest One, a company run by IBM on behalf Somerset County Council, Taunton Deane Borough Council and Avon and Somerset Police.

Southwest One’s contract, which was signed in the early hours of a Saturday morning in 2007, was doomed from the start, in part because of the complexity of the arrangements and in part because of pervasive secrecy that antagonised hundreds of Somerset council staff who were already opposed to the joint venture; and they were the very staff who were seconded to Southwest One to make the venture work. [It’s a truism that staff, if they are motivated, will often make their way around difficulties but may be overwhelmed by them if not motivated.]

Last month Campaign4Change set out in detail some of the most disruptive and continuing problems at Southwest One; and we said the difficulties could not be tackled in earnest while Somerset council and its partners were portraying the venture as a success. On 31 January 2012, our post was mentioned on the website of the local Conservative MP Ian Liddell-Grainger.

The good news now is that the council has, this week, for the first time, spoken of Southwest One in unequivocally negative terms. No longer is every council criticism of the company qualified by a positive comment, such that one cancels out the other.

Whether our post last month has made any difference is not important. What’s pleasing is that IBM and Southwest One’s partners are free to make progress, now that Somerset has told it like it is. Much of the credit for the council’s emergence from its long, self-administered anaesthesia lies with Dave Orr who has campaigned for years to highlight the failings of Southwest One, as has Liddell-Grainger.

Maddock’s speech on Southwest One

Maddock’s speech to a full council meeting is reported at length by the Somerset County Gazette and by Liddell-Grainger.

Maddock said

“As an administration we inherited a partnership that promised a huge amount, but it was not delivering. Southwest One’s accounts year on year show losses, staggering losses just published of £31m, and failures to hit modest savings targets.

“We have bent over backwards to try to make this partnership work. But we have to state clearly that our primary duty in looking after the public’s hard earned money is to make sure we get the best possible deals, that we get the best possible value for the public’s money.

“I have to say that Southwest One is failing this test.

“We are currently looking at all our services and all our contracts to see whether we are doing the best we can for our customers,  whether we are providing the best possible services for our customers and at the best possible prices for our customers.

“I have to say that Southwest One is failing this test.

“We need a Council that can cope with future government cuts and rising demand. We will need to be efficient and flexible.

“I have to say that Southwest One is failing this test.

“Sadly, Southwest One is failing. It is failing to deliver promised savings; failing to cope with a changing financial landscape; failing to be flexible enough to adapt in challenging times and provide the best possible value for money.

“To make up for this failure, we will now accelerate our extensive review of everything that the council does: Almost half our most vital services are carried out by private sector or not for profit organisations – we will look to increase this where appropriate.

“We will encourage social enterprises, partnerships, communities and voluntary groups to get more involved in what we do and what we run. We will look to put the customer at the heart of what we do.

“And we will do this whilst we continue to do all we can to make Southwest One work. But I have to be clear; it is failing; it is inflexible; and it is intransigent. We are therefore looking at all the options available to us.

“I do have one final message for Southwest One – and that is to the staff and our Somerset County Council colleagues and secondees working there.  The message is this: This continuing failure is not about you. It is about the contract, the complications, the failed technology, the missed opportunities, the lack of promised savings.  It is about Southwest One itself, not about the people working for it.”

Comments on Maddock’s speech

Some of the comments on the Somerset County Gazette website were apt. One said “Somerset County Council has finally come to accept what we, the minions, have known for years: South West One is a failure and a pretty expensive one…”

Another said

“At last SCC admits to what everyone in the real world knew from day one …”

Comment:

One of the lessons from IT disasters in the private and public sectors is that things often start to improve once the main parties own up to the seriousness of the problems. The good news, perhaps, is that Southwest One may now be at its lowest point. It has at long last purged its bowels, so to speak.

Ian Liddell-Grainger’s website.

Southwest One gets £10m IBM amid “staggering” losses.

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

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Posted in Campaign4Change, capacity building, change management, IBM, IT projects, public services, reducing cost strategically, SAP, shared services, supplier relationships

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