By David Bicknell
A debate is running over the Government’s plans for G-Cloud. It follows Chris Chant’s Unacceptable IT is pervasive blog on his departure, a response to the comments received on Chant’s blog by his successor, Denise McDonagh, about Cloud Cynicism, and now, and this must break some new ground, a government-hosted ‘crowdsourcing’ opportunity for you to have your say and influence the debate.
Please add your thoughts here
By David Bicknell
The Government has published data on £70 billion of potential future government contracts, with Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude arguing that the move marks a new era in openness about its long-term business needs.
“We have published details of £70 billion of potential Government business. Publishing data on what we plan to buy – whether it’s tunnels or computers – means we can identify skills gaps sooner and give industry a heads up so UK businesses are in a better position to compete,” he said.
The data published of potential future contracts over the next five years, covers 13 different sectors including construction, property, medical and police equipment. The publication of the data increases the potential opportunities for SMEs to bid for government business.
Information Age magazine has reported that the £70bn includes £2.5bn worth of IT projects.
Data on the contracts can be found at Contracts Finder
£70 billion of potential government business published to boost UK growth
Posted in Campaign4Change, government, Government IT, procurement, SME
Tagged Francis Maude, procurement, SME
By David Bicknell
There are some insightful comments from Co-operatives UK’s secretary general Ed Mayo and the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham’s Andy Rennison on mutuals in this piece by People Management.
Mayo is quoted as saying, “At the moment we are asking people in public services to climb a wall of technical complexity, and the most urgent task for the mutuals programme is now to simplify it.”
He highlights taxation and procurement as the areas in most need of attention, and would ultimately like to see public sector mutuals given the same special dispensation as they have in Italy.
Rennison, Hammersmith & Fulham’s mutual lead, provides an interesting description of a well-attended bidders’ day held where 28 private organisations expressed an interest in being backers of the tri-borough’s (Westminster City Council and the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea are also involved) schools IT services mutual project.
“The feedback from one organisation was that we had too many people, we’ve got to cut this and cut that. But we felt that, actually, no, we’re already quite lean with a clear business plan which we’re confident we can deliver. That demonstrated their lack of understanding about what this business does – it’s a people-focused business.”
Posted in Campaign4Change, employee ownership, local government, mutualisation, mutuals, procurement, public services, social economy, social enterprise
Tagged Co-operatives UK, London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham, London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, mutuals, people, People Management, procurement, public services, taxation, Westminster City Council
By David Bicknell
Something unexplained appears to be happening in the contractual relationship between US federal procurers and Oracle.
As this story from InformationWeek details, the US federal government has cancelled Oracle’s services contract on the the General Services Administration’s (GSA) IT Schedule 70. The US government spent $388 million on Oracle products and services through Schedule 70 in the 2011 financial year.
The GSA is an agency that helps with procurement services for other government agencies. As part of this effort, it maintains the GSA Schedule, something akin to a collection of pre-negotiated contracts from which other agencies can use to buy goods and services.
Procurement managers from government agencies can view these agreements and make purchases from the GSA Schedule knowing that all legal obligations have been taken care of by GSA.
IT Schedule 70 is the largest and most widely used acquisition vehicle in the US federal government. Schedule 70 is an indefinite delivery indefinite quantity (IDIQ) multiple award schedule, providing direct access to products and services from over 5,000 certified industry partners.
The GSA detailed its cancellation of the Oracle contract in a tightly worded announcement on its website. There has been no further explanation for the contract cancellation and no comment to date from Oracle.
The contract cancellation has also been reported on other blogs in the US:
GSA cancels Oracle IT contract
Six months after suit between them settles, GSA ends contract with Oracle
Posted in procurement, US Government
Tagged General Services Administration, GSA, IT contract, Oracle, procurement, Schedule 70, US Government
By David Bicknell
Just spotted a tweet from Allison Roche from Unison on Twitter about the Communities and Local Government Committee’s inquiry into ‘the co-operative council’, including the services role played by mutuals.
You can read more about the inquiry here
The Committee is seeking answers to the following questions:
The closing date for submissions is 11th May.
By David Bicknell
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) cut the cost of an Internet Explorer upgrade by up to £50m by awarding a contract to an SME, instead of a major systems integrator.
According to an article by Bill Goodwin on Computer Weekly, HMRC chose a small US company to upgrade from Internet Explorer 6 to IE9, after it found that large IT suppliers were unable to offer a cost-effective solution.
The Redmond-based company, Browsium, managed to complete the work for £1.28m, against quotes of £35m to £50m from much bigger companies.
Goodwin reports that HMRC CIO Phil Pavitt believes the contract will act as a proof of concept for other government departments facing similar IE6 upgrade problems.
Posted in Campaign4Change, Government IT, HMRC, IT projects, procurement, SME
Tagged Browsium, HMRC, IE6, Phil Pavitt, SME
By David Bicknell
The Government has detailed how it is developing and implementing Rights to Provide to “empower front line staff across the public sector to take over the services they deliver,” possibly through the creation of new mutuals.
The Government said it has identified local authorities’ services, fire services, probation and adult social care as some of the areas for developing new mutuals. This it says, will be backed by enhanced support available to staff through the Mutuals Information Service and the Mutuals Support Programme.
In announcing an updated discussion paper David Cameron said increasing parental choice in schools, extending personal budgets so people can choose how they spend money on services and increasing the transparency of public service performance and user satisfaction are all part of the next steps to improve public services by opening them up. The paper updates the Open Public Service (OPS) White Paper published last summer.
Launching the new paper, Cameron said: “Nearly two years on from coming into office, brick by brick, edifice by edifice, we are slowly dismantling the big-state structures we inherited from the last government. We are putting people in control, giving them the choices and chances that they get in almost every other area of life. There is still a way to go and this kind of change will not happen overnight. But no one should doubt my determination to make our public services better, by opening them up.”
Specifically on mutuals, the paper says:
“Alongside the focus on digital delivery, and as a core part of work to reform the Civil Service, Government Commercial Teams are working with individual departments to identify where new commercial models would accelerate reform and improve services. In some cases, this may involve high-quality in-house delivery; in other cases outsourcing may offer best value.
“We are particularly interested in the potential offered by mutual models, including mutual joint ventures, that give employees much greater say in the way their organisation is run, for example the model being considered for MyCSP.
“To ensure that the benefits of mutualisation are available across the wider public sector, we are giving public sector staff new Rights to Provide – empowering employees to form public service mutuals to bid or request to take over the services they deliver. This will empower millions of public sector staff to become their own boss,freeing up untapped entrepreneurial and innovative drive.
“Public service mutuals are now well established in community healthcare, with thousands of public servants working in new mutuals with contracts worth almost £1 billion. We have extended these rights to new areas, including adult social care and NHS trusts, and we are looking to go further, in areas such as youth services, probation services, children’s centres, and fire and rescue services.
“We have been actively working with fledgling mutuals on the ground, for example through the Mystery Shopper service and the Mutuals Information Service; and we are supporting some of the most promising and innovative mutuals to reach the point of investment readiness, through the Mutuals Support Programme – a fund of more than £10 million to contract for support in the form of business and professional services to groups of staff who want to form mutuals or existing mutual organisations in the public sector. A steady stream of applications is developing into a pipeline of projects.”
The Government said all its departments will put in place a Right to Provide to empower employees in public services for which they are responsible to s pin out to create new public service mutuals. Public sector workers who want to formmutuals or co-operatives to deliver public services will be given a Right to Provide.
The Government will look to reflect these commitments in departmental business plans where appropriate.
Information from the Mutuals Information Service will inform departmental policy development, the new paper says.
It points out that “the Department of Health’s Right to Request is near completion, with 40 services now operating as independent social enterprises and further projects to go live by April 2012. The Right to Provide has generated interest across NHS trusts, foundation trusts and adult social care.
“The Department of Health is already exploring opportunities to support social enterprises and mutuals spinning out from the NHS, social care and adult social work. The status of other government departments is as follows:
• Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) Further Education – now starting
• Home Office – not yet started
• Ministry of Justice – now starting; commitments will be reflected in the Department’s business plan
• Department for Work and Pensions – not yet started
•Department for Education Youth Services, and Social Work – now starting
• Department for Education Children’s Centres – not yet started.
Other Links
Posted in Campaign4Change, managing outsourced services, mutualisation, mutuals, procurement, social economy, social enterprise
Tagged Department of Health, John Lewis, mutuals, Mutuals Information Service, MyCSP, NHS, Open Public Services White Paper, outsourcing, public service mutuals, public services, right to provide
By David Bicknell
The Government looks set to make an announcement about mutuals today as part of ‘Right to Provide’ plans due to be unveiled by David Cameron. The likelihood of an announcement appears to have been leaked.
Here’s today’s Daily Mail’s take on the proposed announcement.
More details to follow
Updated: Rights to Provide Plans focus on “potential offered by mutual models”
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
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
Tagged Cabinet Office, Ian Watmore, public sector
By David Bicknell
There is an intriguing row Down Under about the Australian Government’s decision to bar the Chinese telecomms company Huawei Technologies from competing for work on its national broadband network (NBN) project.
Australia told Huawei, one of the world’s largest telecomms equipment providers, that it could not tender for NBN contracts because of security concerns about cyber attacks emanating from China.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said she regarded the NBN as a crucial national infrastructure project.
”You would expect, as a government, we would make all of the prudent decisions to make sure that infrastructure project does what we want it to do, and we’ve taken one of those decisions,” she said, when asked about the Huawei decision at the ongoing nuclear security talks in Seoul.
The Australian Opposition said it regarded the government’s decision to ban Huawei from taking part in tenders as ”clumsy, offensive and unprofessional”.
Huawei’s spokesman Jeremy Mitchell said Australia was still getting used to privately owned Chinese companies, but Huawei would not give up on tendering for NBN projects, which are being managed by the Australian government-owned NBN Co Ltd.
”We’re not used to companies coming from China that are leading in technology and also global – 70 per cent of our work is outside of China,” Mr Mitchell said. “We see this as a setback. We’re obviously disappointed. But through looking at what we’ve done overseas, looking at what we’ve done in the United Kingdom, we can put in place measures that help the Australian government consider us as a partner in the NBN.”
Other Links
Australian Financial Review: China’s Huawei banned from NBN
BBC Business News: China’s Huawei barred from Australia broadband deal
Posted in Campaign4Change, China, Government IT, IT projects, procurement
Tagged Australia, broadband, China, Huawei, IT project, NBN, security, telecomms
Campaign4Change 