Category Archives: managing change

Agile for Universal Credit – a good choice says report

Posted on 05/10/2011 | 3 comments

By Tony Collins

Universal Credit is one of  the government’s biggest IT-based projects and the biggest test for agile in the public sector. It is due to start rolling out in April 2013.

The choice of agile for the scheme is supported by a “Starting Gate” review which was carried out for the Cabinet Office’s Major Projects Authority, and for Terry Moran, the Director-General, Universal Credit at the Department for Work and Pensions. The review was carried out between 28 February 2011 and 4 March 2011.

This is what the Starting Gate report says on agile aspects of the project.

Agile

The challenging timetable for delivery of UC meant that DWP elected to use an Agile approach to the delivery. There is no evidence of such a methodology being used on a public sector programme of such scale and during the course of the review it was evident that there had been some initial scepticism to the use of such a methodology with a programme of this scale.

However, during the review there was overwhelming evidence of buy-in to the methodology at all levels up to and including the highest levels. DWP have set about thoroughly educating all involved on what can be expected from them and there was clear evidence within the interviews that this is being taken up enthusiastically.

There was a view that policy decisions being made later in the programme would pose a problem for delivery. This was countered by the view that the methodology should allow decisions to be made when they need to be made, which is in contrast to fixing requirements early in more traditional (‘waterfall’) methodologies.

On balance, the review team found that the use of the chosen methodology here was judged by interviewees to provide greater assurance of delivery in such an environment. The review team agrees with this finding.

In terms of the use of Agile within Government, DWP also have the best current experience via their Automated Service Delivery (ASD) Programme, which used a slightly less ‘lean’ version of the methodology based on an Accenture interpretation.

However, there are still valuable lessons that can be transferred from this programme and there exists experience that is being directly deployed on UC. The review team felt that whilst effectively piloting this methodology on a programme such as UC did pose a risk, this was acceptable in view of the risk of delivery out of line with expectations, for example in terms of timing or quality of service to the public.

Accenture remain involved in UC, although DWP have brought in consultants (Emergn) to provide an independent methodology not based on any ‘out of the box’ methodologies, but rather one that Emergn have tailored.

New contracts supporting this development are due to be awarded in June 2011 and DWP state that their use of this independent methodology will serve to remove any supplier advantage.

There was evidence that DWP have understood the need for decision-making delegated to the level at which the expertise exists, with the appropriate empowerment supported within the planned governance re-design.

There was also an acknowledgement that the right domain/business knowledge needs to be made available at the workshops that will drive the detailed design processes. It was also accepted that there is a continuing need for this knowledge to be made available and also that it will need to keep pace with the changing policy.

One key risk identified by DWP is how an Agile methodology will interact successfully with the various approvals processes that will come into play across the programme – most especially the ICT Spend Approval process (formally known as the ICT Moratorium Exception process).

Engagement has begun already with the Major Projects Authority (MPA) on designing the Integrated Assurance and Approval Plan (IAAP) that will ensure the correct internal and external assurance is brought to bear for the identified approval points. The production of this plan is seen by the review team as a key mitigating factor for the risk identified and it is recommended that this is produced, with MPA guidance, by the end of March 2011 at the latest. This may need fine-tuning as approval points are finally agreed.

Recommendation:

DWP, with guidance and assistance from the MPA, produces an Integrated Assurance and Approvals Plan (IAAP) by the end of March 2011.

As noted earlier, there are contracts that are relevant to this development that are being re-competed at this time, with a wish to award in June 2011. There was some evidence that the design of contracts to deliver in an Agile environment will require a different design in order to draw out supplier behaviour in line with an accelerated delivery environment.

There is a always the risk that any development methodology will fail to deliver and whilst this methodology itself provides early warning of failure, there is recognition that in such a circumstance the prioritisation of customer journeys with high-value returns would be needed.

There was much evidence of the reliance of UC on successful delivery of the HMRC PAYE Real-Time Information (RTI) programme. There was also recognition that whilst ‘just-in-time’ decisions as a consequence of policy development could be made within UC, the RTI requirement would need to be more rigidly fixed as the traditional ‘waterfall’ development methodology in use cannot so easily absorb such changes without consequence.

There was some concern that fraud would remain a major issue for UC and appropriate Information Assurance should be built into the requirement from the outset – rather than being a ‘bolt-on’. Also, as UC and its interface with PAYERTI [PAYE RTI] will become part of the UK Critical National Infrastructure, appropriate discussions should be maintained. There was evidence that DWP have gripped these requirements.

Overall, the use of an Agile methodology remains unproven at this scale and within UK Government; however, the challenging timescale does present DWP with few choices for delivery of such a radical programme.

That said, there has been evidence of strong support at all levels and DWP do have some expertise within their own organisation that they can call upon from the outset. The review team not only felt that an Agile development is an appropriate choice given the constraints, they also believe that DWP are well placed with their level of support, knowledge and enthusiasm to act as a pilot for its use at such a scale.

Compound failure

DWP has made a strong start in identifying risks to delivery.   This could be developed further by thinking through the likelihood and impact of a number of risks being realised simultaneously (eg lack of synchronisation between reduced income and UC top-up, plus wrong employer data plus labour market downturn).and what the responses might be.

The programme could extend its preparedness by drawing on a wider range of experience the elements of recovery and their prioritisation; and test their robustness in advance, including an early warning system for Ministers.

Agile and Universal Credit – Secret report.

Agile can fix failed GovIT says lawyer.

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Posted in Agile, change management, Government IT, innovation, managing change, openness and transparency, procurement, public sector, public services, Uncategorized

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Making the right noises about the social economy

Posted on 03/10/2011 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

Andrew Tyrie’s comments about the Big Society perhaps haven’t been overwhelmingly helpful when it comes to promoting  the growing role of mutuals and co-operatives. Hopefully when David Cameron gives his keynote speech at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester on Wednesday, he’ll have some more  positive things to say about open public services, and specifically something about the well-flagged funding and procurement issues.

These issues have been well summed up in two recent blogs I came across by Craig Dearden-Phillips, and by Matthew Taylor from the RSA. They’re worth a read.

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Posted in Campaign4Change, managing change, mutualisation, mutuals, public sector, public services, social economy, social enterprise

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Agile and Universal Credit – secret report

Posted on 30/09/2011 | 4 comments

By Tony Collins

Below are excerpts  from the supposedly confidential “Starting Gate” report by the Cabinet Office’s Major Projects Authority on Universal Credit.

The main finding is that, despite inherent challenges, “the programme can deliver Universal Credit”.

Media reports on Universal Credit have depicted the scheme as an impending disaster that may blight the coalition in the run-up to the next general election, but the Authority’s report says the programme has got off to an impressively strong start.

This will encourage advocates of agile in government as Universal Credit is the Government’s biggest agile development.

We requested the Starting Gate report on Universal Credit under the Freedom of Information Act but the Department for Work and Pensions refused to release it; and turned down our appeal.

We obtained the report outside the FOI Act, via the House of Commons Library. It appears that one part of the DWP was trying to keep the report secret while another part had released it to two Parliamentary committees [the Public Accounts Committee and the Public Administration Select Committee].

It may be that the DWP, when it comes to FOI, doesn’t know clearly what it’s doing – or is all but indifferent to the FOI Act and chooses secrecy to keep things simple. The DWP’s FOI reply to us was, at best, in  perfunctory compliance with the FOI Act. It made no attempt to set out the arguments for its decision not to disclose the report, other than to say disclosure was not in the public interest.

The Starting Gate  report was dated March 2011 and was largely positive about the start of the Universal Credit . These were some of the findings.

Deliverability

“The review team finds that the Programme has got off to an impressively strong start given the demanding timetable and complexity of the design and interdependency with other departments.

“This involves liaison with HMRC in particular, but also with CLG and local government in respect of the replacement of Housing Benefit as part of the Universal Credit.

“We found that the foundations for a delivery Programme are in place – clear policy objectives, a coherent strategy, Ministerial and top management support, financial and human resources – with no obvious gaps.

“The strong working relationship with HMRC and the inclusive approach with other key stakeholders within and outside DWP have quickly established a high level of common understanding.  All this gives a high degree of confidence that, notwithstanding the inherent challenges, the programme can deliver Universal Credit.

“There is a greater degree of uncertainty around the achievability of the intended economic outcomes because of factors which are not within DWP’s control e.g. the general state of the economy and availability of jobs.

“There are other risks which derive from trying new approaches: the Agile methodology offers much promise but it is unproven on this scale and scope.  The actual response of different customer groups to UC may pose a risk to its transformational impact if, for example, factors other than net pay turned out to be a greater barrier to take up of work than expected.

“The development of a range of approaches to contingency planning (which could be beyond changes to UC) could cover off unintended customer behaviour, whether ‘no change’, or ‘change for the worse’.”

Campaign4Change will publish more excepts next week.

Links:

Agile can fix failed Gov’t IT says lawyer

DWP FOI team hides Universal Credit report

Universal Credit – guaranteed to fail?

DWP gives IBM and Capgemini 60 application maintenance and development apps

DWP partners with IBM to help deliver Universal Credit

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Posted in Agile, Campaign4Change, change, change management, government, Government IT, innovation, Lean, managing change, openness and transparency, procurement, public sector, public services, Uncategorized, Universal Credit

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FOI team hides already released Universal Credit report

Posted on 27/09/2011 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

Universal Credit is one the government’s most important IT-enabled programmes, along with HMRC’s “Real-time Information” scheme, Whitehall Shared Services and the MoD Change Programme.

If the Universal Credit programme goes wrong benefits claimants could have payments held up or receive incorrect amounts.

For this reason it is important that the coalition doesn’t repeat Labour’s mistake of wrapping IT-related projects and programmes in so much secrecy that the public, MPs and the media only discover problems when it is too late to effect a rescue.

Early warning of faltering projects

There is an early-warning of projects and programmes that are likely to falter or are actually faltering: “Starting” gate reviews and “Gateway” reviews, which are independent assessments of big or risky schemes.

The coalition in opposition promised to publish Gateway reviews if they came to power but civil servants have persuaded ministers to drop the proposal: does the minister want opponents and the media picking up authoritative internal information on projects that may be going wrong?

Our FOI request

Because of the continued suppression of the reports Campaign4Change, on 20 May 2011, made a request under the Freedom of Information for the Department for Work and Pensions to release a copy of Gateway reviews on the Universal Credit project.

The reply was nearly helpful. “There have been no Gateway reviews on the Universal Credit programme.  There has been one Starting Gate review on the Universal Credit programme.” The reply, by Jack Goodwin of the DWP’s Universal Credit Briefing Team, did not include a copy of the Starting Gate review report, so we sent a follow-up email.

We pointed that that Public Administration Committee had already requested a copy of the Universal Credit Gateway Zero Review and, in response, the DWP had sent the Committee a copy of the Stating Gate review, though the Committee decided not to publish it.

On 13 July the DWP said it needed extra time to consider our request. Gina Talbot at the DWP’s “Freedom of Information Focal Point” said: “I need to extend the time limit because the information requested must be considered under one of the exemptions to which the public interest test applies. This extra time is needed in order to make a determination as to the public interest. Accordingly, I hope to let you have a response by 10 August 2011.”

DWP wasting public money

This extra time and consideration was unnecessary and a waste of public money because the DWP had already given the report to the Public Administration Select Committee. Indeed the Universal Credit Starting Gate report had also been lodged in the House of Commons library after an MP asked the Cabinet Office’s Ian Watmore for a copy in May 2011.

So the DWP was considering at length whether to release a report that the Department had already released twice – to two separate committees of the House of Commons.

Grounds for appeal

In August the DWP formally refused Campaign4Change’s request, so we appealed. These were some of the reasons we gave:

i) Universal Credit is one of the government’s “mission-critical” projects and its success will be potentially important to tens of millions of benefit claimants.

ii) In the public interest, MPs, the media and public should understand the project’s feasibility risks and chances of success – in short whether it has got off to a good start. The Starting Gate report could help provide such an insight.

iii) The Public Accounts Committee has recommended that Starting Gates be published. The refusal of our request would appear to be a denial of the wishes of the Committee.

iv) Sometimes statements in published Gateway reviews have turned out to be too weak, sometimes too strong. There is no reason to believe that if the reviewers know their reports are for public consumption they will weaken their comments; and if they do weaken them the published reports will allow the quality of advice to be questioned or challenged by what the Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude calls armchair auditors.

v) The objection to publishing the reviews is that publication may inhibit candour. Starting Gate reviewers have a public duty to give the best advice they can (and indeed are paid for doing so). If they alter their advice to make it more acceptable to the public, media and Parliament they are failing in their public duty to give the best possible advice in all circumstances. Equally, if they give their advice in the expectation it will be kept confidential and therefore that they will not be held accountable for it, and alter their best advice on this basis, they could be failing in their public duty.

vi) There is no certain means for Parliament, the media or the public to know how large IT-based projects and programmes are progressing. Sometimes the National Audit Office reports on large IT-based projects, sometimes not.  The NAO cannot be relied on to produce the equivalent of a Starting Gate review on a large IT-based project or programme. Gateway reviews are not usually published contemporaneously.

vii) Coalition ministers have made it clear in numerous speeches that the public have a right to know how their money is being spent. Universal Credit is costing, as an IT-based  programme, several hundreds of millions of pounds. It is not in keeping with the spirit of ministerial statements on openness that the DWP keep confidential the Starting Gate review on Universal Credit. It is the only independent report on the feasibility of the project.

viii) Universal Credit is known to be a risky programme which senior civil servants have acknowledged. The Starting Gate review is likely to show whether or not those risks are understood.

ix) In refusing our request the DWP has not given any reasons for stating that it is satisfied that the “public interest in maintaining this exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosure”.

DWP rejects our appeal

Our appeal came to nothing. It was refused by the DWP’s David Hodgson Stakeholder Manager, who said in a letter:

“The case has been examined afresh, and guidance has been sought from domain experts to ensure all factors were taken fully into account. I have reviewed the original decision carefully and have decided to uphold the original decision withholding information for the following reason.

“While we recognise that publication of this information would provide an independent assessment of the key issues and risks, we have to balance this against the fact that the review document includes operational details of a sensitive nature whose publication would prejudice effective conduct of public affairs.

“The Department is satisfied that the public interest in maintaining this exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosure.”

The report was  released months ago

The DWP lodged the report in the House of Commons library months ago so it is in the public domain anyway. The department’s effort and time twice refusing the release of the report wasted public money.

Campaign4Change has now obtained a copy of the report via the House of Commons’ library.  We  will, separately, publish an article on the contents of the Starting Gate review report on Universal Credit.

Comment:

This episode suggests that officials at the DWP default to secrecy whatever the coalition says about openness and transparency. There are many superficially valid reasons officials can give to keep Gateway and Starting Gate reports secret. It is up to ministers to challenge that secrecy. If they don’t, the same mistakes and cycles will be repeated:

a) IT-related projects and programmes will continue to falter in secret, as they did under Labour

b) MPs and the media will try and find out the truth

c) Ministers will go on the defensive

d) The truth will eventually emerge and the coalition will be branded as inept when managing large IT-based projects and programmes – as inept as Labour.

If ministers publish Gateway progress reports now – as early warning reviews – we and others will applaud if early action is taken to stop or rescue a failing project. If ministers continue to pander to civil service secrecy the media and Parliamentarians will be right to criticise the coalition. Ministers have a chance to avoid the stigma of mismanagement of public funds. But will they take it?

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Posted in Campaign4Change, change, change management, Freedom of Information, Government IT, improving communications, managing change, procurement, public sector, public services, reforms, Universal Credit

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Civil Service too risk averse at a micro level

Posted on 23/09/2011 | 1 comment

 Faced with big challenges, the Civil Service thought small thoughts.  [Tony Blair, memoirs]

A report by the House of Commons Public Administration Committee has warned that the Coalition Government needs a more transparent and flexible Civil Service when it comes to commissioning public services from charities, social enterprises, mutuals and private companies.

The Committee’s report says the Civil Service needs to transfer power out of Whitehall and into communities and as a result fundamentally change the way it works.

It says the challenge of this new role will be compounded by the need to meet sizeable reductions in administrative budgets set out in the 2010 Spending Review.

Its conclusions are that while the Government seeks to embrace change, it has failed to recognise the scale of reform required or to set out the change programme required to achieve this reform. It says there is a reluctance to produce what they see as the latest in a long line of reform initiatives in Whitehall. This antipathy to a plan for reform fails to take note of the critical factors for success in Civil Service reform initiatives and wider corporate change programmes: coordination from the centre and strong political leadership. As a result, it warns, key policies like the ‘Big Society’ agenda and decentralisation will fail.

The Committee says: “We have recommended that the Government should produce a comprehensive change programme articulating clearly what it believes the Civil Service is for, how it must change and with a timetable of clear milestones. Such a change programme would enable real change in Whitehall and avoid the fate of previous unsuccessful reform initiatives.

“Such a change programme must also include proposals for the Civil Service to retain and to develop the new skill sets required to meet the demands of the Big Society policy agenda, and to address long-running concerns about the decline in specialist expertise in Whitehall, the failure to innovate and to take risks, and the failure to work across departmental silos. Such a plan is required to combat inertia and deliver government policies where Ministers and departments may otherwise be unwilling or unable to drive change.

“To reflect the changing role of the Civil Service, we have also recommended that the Government should consider the development of a new Haldane model of accountability which can sustain localism and decentralisation; or they must explain how the existing model remains relevant. The new realities of devolving power out of Whitehall to local government and elsewhere should be codified in the Civil Service governance structures.

“Ministers seem to believe that change will just happen. It is essential that the Cabinet Office take leadership of the reforms and coordinate the efforts in individual departments and across Whitehall as a whole. The scale of the challenges faced by the Civil Service calls for the establishment of a world class centre of Government, headed by someone with the authority to insist on delivery across Whitehall.”

In particular, the report says the main change of task, which will affect many but not all departments, will be an increase in commissioning and contracting. More onerous and time-consuming, however, will be monitoring the contracting process and dealing with problems and complaints arising.

The report says Whitehall has traditionally performed three core roles: policy advice, the management of public services, and the supervision of public bodies. If the Civil Service is to connect with Ministers’ ambitions for public service reform a fourth capability will need to be added to this trio: the ability to engage with groups from the voluntary and private sectors through the contracting and commissioning process. Every government department must focus on developing this fourth capability, and the Cabinet Office must ensure that this is embedded in the Civil Service change programme across government.

The report explains why SMEs have made so few inroads into government work. 

It goes so far as to depict ministers as not understanding Civil Service inertia, which means they cannot come up with a plan to do anything about it. Cabinet Office Minister, Francis Maude, described a paradoxical situation where Government took huge risks at a macro level, but at a micro level tended to be very risk averse and hostile to innovation.

He added, “You do not often hear of someone’s career suffering because they preside over an inefficient status quo, but try something new that does not work and that can blot your copybook bigtime.”

 An example of one SME’s innovative ideas

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Posted in Campaign4Change, change management, government, innovation, managing change, mutualisation, mutuals, public sector, public services, SME

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Firecontrol: same mistakes repeated on other projects

Posted on 20/09/2011 | 2 comments

By Tony Collins

A report published today by the Public Accounts Committee on the £469m Firecontrol project reads much like its others on government IT-enabled project disasters.

Margaret Hodge, chair of the Committee said:

“This is one of the worst cases of project failure that the committee has seen in many years. FiReControl was an ambitious project with the objectives of improving national resilience, efficiency and technology by replacing the control room functions of 46 local Fire and Rescue Services in England with a network of nine purpose-built regional control centres using a national computer system.

“The project was launched in 2004, but following a series of delays and difficulties, was terminated in December 2010 with none of the original objectives achieved and a minimum of £469m being wasted.

“The project was flawed from the outset, as the Department attempted, without sufficient mandatory powers, to impose a single, national approach on locally accountable Fire and Rescue Services who were reluctant to change the way they operated.

“Yet rather than engaging with the Services to persuade them of the project’s merits, the Department excluded them from decisions about the design of the regional control centres and the proposed IT solution, even though these decisions would leave local services with potential long-term costs and residual liabilities to which they had not agreed.

“The Department launched the project too quickly, driven by its wider aims to ensure a better co-ordinated national response to national disasters, such as terrorist attacks, rail crashes or floods. The Department also wanted to encourage and embed regional government in England.

“But it acted without applying basic project approval checks and balances – taking decisions  before a business case, project plan or procurement strategy had been developed and tested amongst Fire Services. The result was hugely unrealistic forecast costs and savings, naïve over-optimism on the deliverability of the IT solution and under- appreciation or mitigation of the risks. The Department demonstrated poor judgement in approving the project and failed to provide appropriate checks and challenge.

“The fundamentals of project management continued to be absent as the project proceeded. So the new fire control centres were constructed and completed whilst there was considerable delay in even awarding the IT contract, let alone developing the essential IT infrastructure.

Consultants made up over half the management team (costing £69m by 2010) but were not managed. The project had convoluted governance arrangements, with a lack of clarity over roles and responsibilities. There was a high turnover of senior managers although none have been held accountable for the failure.  The committee considers this to be an extraordinary failure of leadership. Yet no individuals have been held accountable for the failure and waste associated with this project.”

Comment:

Firecontrol was a politically-motivated project which used  bricks, mortar and IT to try and change the way people worked. The users in the fire service didn’t want a single national approach of nine new regional centres – complete with new hardware and software – just as NHS clinicians, in general, did not want the National Programme for IT [NPfIT]. The Firecontrol regional centres were built anyway and the NPfIT went ahead anyway.

One lesson is that, in the public sector, you cannot engage users who won’t support the scheme. If they want to change, and they want the new IT, they’ll find ways to overcome the technology’s deficiencies. If they don’t want the scheme – and fire personnel did not want Firecontrol – the end-users will be incorrigibly harsh evaluators of what’s delivered, and not delivered.

It’s better to get the support of users, and involve them in the prototype design and test implementations, long before the scheme is finalised. It’s different in the private sector because the support of users is not essential – those who don’t accept business change and the associated IT will be expected to quit.

So what today is the mistake that is being repeated? The Public Accounts Committee touched on it when it said that the Department for Communities and Local Government – which was responsible for Firecontrol –  “failed to provide appropriate checks and challenge”.

During the life of Firecontrol, the Office of Government Commerce carried out “Gateway reviews” which independently assessed progress or otherwise. The reviews  could have provided an early warning of a project that was about to waste hundreds of millions of pounds. But the Gateway review reports were not published. They had a limited internal distribution and, it appears, were ignored.

According to the Public Accounts Committee, a Gateway review in April 2004, near the start of the Firecontrol project, said the scheme was in poor condition overall and at significant risk of failing to deliver.

Why was this Gateway review not published? If it had, Parliament and the media could have held ministers to account – and perhaps have campaigned to stop the project before millions were thrown away.

There was indeed a media campaign in 2004 – and before – to have Gateway reviews published, but ministers – and particularly civil servants – said no.

Now the same thing is happening. The civil service has persuaded the coalition government to carry on Labour’s tradition of keeping Gateway reviews secret. So Parliament and the media will continue to be kept in the dark on whether a major project is going wrong.

By the time details of the reviews are published, perhaps years later in a report of the National Audit Office,  it may be too late to rescue the scheme. By then tens or hundreds of millions may have been wasted. Gateway reviews should be published around the time they are written, not years later.

Ministers do not have to pander to civil servants. They are paid to stand up to them. They receive a premium over the salary of MPs in part to be independent voices – to provide a challenge.

Subservient ministers in the DWP are among those who continue to allow Gateway reviews to remain hidden. If you ask the DWP under the Freedom of Information Act for the release of the Starting Gate report on Universal Credit (which I am told is not the same as a Gateway review report) the DWP will refuse your request. It refused mine.

So we have to accept the word of civil servants that the Universal Credit programme is going well; but haven’t there been enough IT-related disasters in government for all to know that the word of civil servants on whether things are going well needs to be tested independently? The publication of Gateway reviews – and Starting Gate reviews – could help outsiders hold a department to account. It’s time ministers began to realise this.

Are ministers such as Iain Duncan Smith in control of their departments – or are their civil servants in control of them?

Links:

Margaret Hodge on BBC “Today” programme 20/9/11 – “what could go wrong did go wrong” – did PA Consulting get away without blame?

What the NPfIT and Firecontrol have in common.

Firecontrol:  should PA Consulting share some responsibility for what happened?

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Posted in Campaign4Change, change, change management, Government IT, managing change, npfit, procurement, public sector, public services, risk, supplier relationships

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Agile – a series of London Tea Parties

Posted on 15/09/2011 | Leave a comment

By Tony Collins

Anyone interested in agile techniques  – users and suppliers, public and private sectors – is invited to share ideas at a London Tea Party on 22 September at the Cafe Zest, 2nd Floor of the House of Fraser on Victoria Street, from 4pm – 6pm.

It is arranged by Abby Peel who has recently joined Mark O’Neill in the Innovation and Delivery team within the Government Digital Service. Peel is Head of Community.

Peel says that “AgileTea”  is an informal get-together for those who work with agile methods, are interested in it, or who know nothing about it but want to know more.

An example of agile in government is the Government e-petitions website which was launched recently to much public interest after being developed by the Innovation team in six weeks.

AgileTea will be the first of a regular series of informal, BarCamp style events that will bring together like-minded people to hear, contribute and engage in discussion of agile methods.

Each meeting will have guest speakers. Anyone can ask to give a short presentation of up to 10 minutes.  At the first AgileTea speakers will be Richard Pawson  from Naked Objects who’ll talk on “Experience of very large scale agile development at the Irish Department of Social Protection” and Mark Foden of Foden Grealy who’ll speak on “Where agile fits”.

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Posted in Agile, Campaign4Change, change, change management, collaboration, Government IT, innovation, Lean, managing change, SME, Uncategorized

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An NHS success story – what’s to learn from it?

Posted on 06/09/2011 | Leave a comment

By Tony Collins

IM&T at Trafford General Hospital makes visits to hospital safer for patients and gives managers the information they need to monitor the work of clinicians. Even doctors like the advanced technological environment and come up with ideas for improvements. So what lessons can be learnt? Here are four:

–           Be in control of your IT suppliers. Too often in the public sector it’s the other way around

–           Don’t buy from suppliers that seem excessively secretive and talk much about their proprietary information – which may include your data. Know their systems well enough to produce the reports you want, when you want them and in the format you want, rather than wait for your information to be given to you when the suppliers want to give it, and in their format.

–           Don’t impose change. Have the push come from the business users [in Trafford’s case clinicians] who understand what technology can do for them.

–           Keep IT in the background – not centre stage.

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Posted in change, change management, collaboration, innovation, managing change, NHS, npfit, openness and transparency, private sector lessons for the public sector, public sector, public services, SME, supplier relationships, Uncategorized

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Advanced health technology on a £1.5m yearly budget

Posted on 02/09/2011 | Leave a comment

By Tony Collins

[This is the final part of a 3-part series on how Trafford Healthcare NHS Trust’s IM&T team achieves much on a small budget]

Trafford General Hospital bought its main systems outside of the £11.4bn the National Programme for IT [NPfIT]. The hospital, though, is one of the most technologically-advanced in the UK.

Part one of our series on Trafford Healthcare NHS Trust covered the clinical support for IM&T, integrated systems, and the openness that’s required of the trust’s suppliers.

Part two covered the trust’s  control of its data, how NPfIT could ever have worked, how patients benefit from the IM&T,  why doctors keep their smartcards on them at all times, links between hospital and GP systems, the real-time view of free beds, why duplicated patient records are rare, board support for  integrated electronic patient record systems, and some of the remaining challenges.

Some of  Trafford’s further challenges include:

–           Securing the agreement of all GPs in the area to share a synopsis of their records. About half have agreed so far.

–           Scanning in all paper notes to the EPR. At present about 50% of patient notes have been scanned and are available to clinical staff as “PDF” files, normally with chapter headings. They include diagrams, charts and handwritten text.

–           Dealing with any uncertainties that arise when the Trust is acquired – in all probability by Central Manchester Foundation Trust .

–           Maximising the IM&T opportunities that the acquisition will bring both Trusts in terms of modernising systems and extending the concept of the shared electronic patient record across a wide area of Manchester.

Costs

Trafford has 14 people working on IM&T and IT infrastructure related matters who handle support, infrastructure and integration. The total yearly cost, including salaries, is about £1.5m in capital and revenue which covers the spend with all of Trafford’s  IM&T suppliers.

This compares with costs of between £23m and £31m for each NPfIT installation at acute trusts in London and the South – and these sums do not include the costs of running a hospital’s IM&T and associated infrastructure. Neither do the NPfIT costs include the salaries for an acute hospital’s IT and IM&T staff.

Steve Parsons, Head of IM&T, says of his hospital’s technology: “This is bargain stuff”.

If Trafford can do so much for so little, can centrally-bought NPfIT systems costing many times more – for less – still be justified? The Department of Health argues that NPfIT systems offer more than non-NPfIT. But how much more could Trafford offer its clinical staff, in terms of proven technologies and integration?

Asked where he’d put Trafford in a league table of UK hospitals with systems that clinicians need and want to use, Peter Large, Director of Planning, pauses and says with a slight smile: “Let’s be modest – in the top 10%.”

He’s probably not joking.

**

•           Since writing this article Parsons and his team have been short-listed by the eHealth Insider Awards for the trust’s electronic whiteboard project, in the category of “innovation in healthcare interoperability”.

Part one: How does this IM&T team achieve so much for so little money?

Part two: How does this IM&T team achieve so much for so little money? (2)

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Posted in change, change management, collaboration, innovation, managing change, NHS, npfit, public sector, public services, SME, supplier relationships

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Civil service “full of brilliant people terribly managed”

Posted on 01/09/2011 | 3 comments

By Tony Collins

Andrew Adonis was transport secretary in Tony Blair’s government. Last year he became director of the Institute for Government which Adonis describes as a thinktank that speaks truth to power.  Among other things it produced the excellent System error: fixing the flaws in government IT which advocates an agile approach to innovation at the front line.  

Now in an interview with Politics.co.uk  Adonis points out the institutional weaknesses of the civil service.  “My criticisms are about the machine,” he says. “My own view is that the civil service is full of brilliant people who are terribly managed.”

One of the biggest problems is what he calls the  “laughably” named permanent civil service. People change jobs because of a merry-go-round culture which makes no sense, he says.  It’s not a problem that’s going away: since the general election ten of the 16 departments of state have had changes in their permanent secretary.

“The machine really is very badly run,” he says.

Comment

What Adonis says is important because institutional resistance to change and innovation is largely because what exists is said to be work well. It doesn’t work well because government administration costs tens of billions much more than it should and the National Audit Office has found that fraud and error in two of the biggest departments, HMRC and DWP, are at unacceptable levels. 

It’s time that the point made by Adonis, and many others of some authority, is given more credence.  Systems within government need changing and, particularly, simplifying  – not in a rush and not without proper thought and testing.

The old argument that government administration aint broke so leave it alone doesn’t stand up to independent scrutiny. It is broke and it needs intelligent, inventive and cheap-to-implement change.

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Posted in Agile, Campaign4Change, change management, Government IT, innovation, Lean, managing change, procurement, public sector, public services, reforms, SME, Uncategorized

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