Category Archives: public-private partnerships

Avon and Somerset Police to end outsourcing deal after years of proclaiming its success

Posted on 20/06/2016 | 4 comments

avon and somerset police logoBy Tony Collins

Avon and Somerset Police has been consistent in its good news statements on the force’s “innovative” outsourcing deal with IBM-owned Southwest One.

These announcements and similar FOI responses have a clear message: that savings from the deal are more than expected.

But the statements have differed in tone and substance from those of Somerset County Council which ended up in a legal action with Southwest One.

Somerset’s losses on its Southwest One deal could leave the casual observer wondering why and how Avon and Somerset Police had made a success of its deal with Southwest One, whereas the county council has had a disastrous experience.

Now the BBC reports that Avon and Somerset will not be renewing its contract with Southwest One when the deal expires in 2018.

Southwest One is 75% owned by IBM and carries out administrative, IT and human resources tasks for the force.

Avon and Somerset Police’s “new” chief constable Andy Marsh – who took up the post in February 2016 – confirmed he has “given notice” that the Southwest On contract will not be renewed.

Andy Marsh, chief constable, Avon and Somerset.

Andy Marsh, chief constable, Avon and Somerset.

Instead he said he wants to work with neighbouring police and fire services. Marsh said,

“We will be finding a new way of providing those services. It is my intention to collaborate with other forces. I do believe I can save some money and I want to protect frontline numbers.”

Marsh came to Avon and Somerset with a reputation for making value for money a priority.

These are some of the statements made by Avon and Somerset Police on the progress of the Southwest One contract before Marsh joined the force:

  • “I am delighted with the level of procurement savings Southwest One is delivering for us, particularly as it is our local communities who will benefit most as front-line services are protected. “
  • “Using Southwest One’s innovative approach, we have been able to exceed our expected savings level.”
  • “I am looking forward to building on our close working relationship with Southwest One to deliver even greater savings in the future.”

FOI campaigner David Orr says of the police’s decision not to renew its contract with Southwest One,

“This controversial contract with IBM for Southwest One was signed in 2007 with the County Council, the Police and Taunton Deane Borough Council.

“We were promised £180m of cash savings, an iconic building in Taunton at Firepool, as well as new jobs and a boost to the economy. None of that ever materialised. “

Comment

If Avon and Somerset Police is happy with its outsourcing deal with Southwest One, why is it not renewing or extending the contract?

It’s clear the “new” chief constable Andy Marsh believes he can save money by finding a new way of delivering services, including IT. This sounds sensible given that the client organisation will at some point have to contribute to the supplier’s profits, usually in the later years of the contract.

Savings by ending outsourcing

Public authorities, particularly councils, when they announce the end of an outsourcing contract, will often say they plan to make substantial savings by doing something different in future – Somerset County Council and Liverpool Council among them.

Liverpool Council announced it would save £30m over three years  by ending its outsourcing deal.

Dexter Whitfield of the European Services Strategy Unit which monitors the success or otherwise of major outsourcing deals, is quoted in a House of Commons briefing paper last month entitled “Local government – alternative models of service delivery” as saying,

“Councils have spent £14.2bn on 65 strategic public-private partnership contracts, but there is scant evidence of full costs and savings”.

According to Whitfield, this is due to “the lack of transparent financial audits of contracts, secretive joint council-contractor governance arrangements, poor monitoring, undisclosed procurement costs, a lack of rigorous scrutiny and political fear of admitting failure”.

If it’s so obvious that outsourcing suppliers will eventually try to make up later for any losses in the early stages of a contract – suppliers are not registered charities – why are such deals signed in the first place?

Do officials and councillors not realise that  their successors will probably seek to save money by jettisoning the same outsourcing deal?

The problem, perhaps, is that those who preside over the early years of an outsourcing contract are unlikely to be around in the later years. For them, there is no effective accountability.

Hence the enthusiastic public announcements of savings and new investments in IT and other facilities in the early stages of an outsourcing  contract.

It’s likely things will go quiet in the later years of the contract when the supplier may be trying to recoup losses incurred in the early years.

Then, suddenly, the public authority will announce it is ending its outsourcing deal. Outsiders are left wondering why.

Good news?

Given Avon and Somerset’s determination to end its relationship with Southwest One, can we trust all the good news statements by the force’s officials in past years?

With facts in any outsourcing deal so hard to come by, even for FOI campaigners, selective statements by public servants or ruling councillors about how successful their deal is, and how many tens of millions of pounds they are saving, are best taken with a pinch of salt.

Especially if the announcements were at an early stage of the contract and things have now gone quiet.

Thank you to David Orr for alerting me to the BBC story and providing links to much of the material that went into this post.

From hubris to the High Court (almost) – the story of Southwest One.

Too easy for councils to make up savings figures for outsourcing deals?

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Posted in Campaign4Change, culture, excessive secrecy, Freedom of Information, IT-related failures, legal disputes, local democracy, local government, NHS, outsourcing, public services, public-private partnerships, supplier relationships

Cornwall a model of openness as outsourcing deal with BT turns sour?

Posted on 10/09/2015 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

Will Barnet Council ever be as open as Cornwall Council has been over the performance of its IT outsourcing supplier?

Two years ago Cornwall signed a 10-year £260m strategic “partnership” with BT. The word “partnership” seems odd now that BT has taken out an injunction against Cornwall to stop the council ending the relationship 8 years early.

The two sides will go to court in December to determine if the council has a right to terminate the contract now.

If it loses  the case, Cornwall will have to retain as its main IT services supplier a company that has been its High Court adversary. The judge may also order the council to pay BT’s legal costs.

The odds may be against Cornwall’s winning because BT has much experience in outsourcing legalities. It’s possible that its managers have been collecting evidence of  any council shortcomings from day 1 of the contract,  in case the relationship turned sour.

But independent Cornwall councillor Andrew Wallis says on his blog that BT is dragging the council to court because of BT’s own failings. The council says BT has not achieved its key performance indicators or met to its guarantees on creating new jobs.

Cornwall council logoCornwall threatened to terminate for breach of contract but did not do so while it was in talks with BT’s senior corporate executives. When an amicable termination could not be agreed BT instructed its lawyers to seek an injunction preventing the council from terminating, which they did at a hearing on 12 August.  The result was that the High Court agreed to an expedited trial that will start on 1 December 2015.

It’s all a far cry from the time two years ago, before the contract was signed, when BT and council officers were promising much, and saying little about what could go awry.

In its literature, amid beautifully-executed artwork and graphics, BT highlighted its success at South Tyneside Council, its sponsorship of events such as Comic Relief, Children in Need and Childline and its presence as one of the largest employers in the South West.

Similarly, Cornwall officers, in 2013,  wrote reassuringly about any forthcoming deal with BT. They said:

“It should also be borne in mind that strategic partnerships are nothing new. BT – and other councils – have been involved in them for more than 10 years.

“Similarly the outsourcing market is mature and well understood. The UK local government IT and Business Process Outsourcing market is the biggest outsourcing market in the world and there are over 100 deals in operation.

“Risks are sometimes managed well and sometimes managed badly. The risks have been mitigated by using expert advisors and the Council has senior officers who understand this territory well.”

A BT spokesman told Government Computing this week:

“BT has commenced legal action to ensure fair and proper handling of the issues which have arisen about BT Cornwall, and while this is taking place, it would be inappropriate for us to comment.”

Comment

How is Capita’s performance on its contract at Barnet? We don’t know. The success or otherwise of the deal is blanketed in secrecy. In May Barnet blogger Mr Reasonable offered to make a charity donation of £250 if the council showed it was making the promised savings. The money went unclaimed.

There is no evidence of any failure of Barnet’s outsourcing deal. But would the public or media ever know if the supplier’s performance was falling short of the council’s expectations?

Cornwall has many independent councillors (36 compared with the 37 ruling Liberal Democrats). Debates tend to be on the merits of the matter not on the basis of party politics.

Barnet’s policy is tied in with a political ideology: ruling councillors want to turn Barnet into a “commissioning council” which involves outsourcing as much as possible.

In  practice the bedrock of this ideology is the relationship with Capita. If it went wrong would Barnet have too much to lose to go into dispute? For the sake of its ideology would Barnet accept any quality of service Capita delivers?

Cornwall

In threatening BT with termination because of breaches of contract, Cornwall Council could be criticised for not letting a 10-year outsourcing bed down. It’s unusual for a strategic partnership to end up in court less than 3 years into a 10-year contract.

On the other hand BT promised to create jobs in year 1 and 2 of the contract that the council say have not materialised. Councillors and officers are unhappy about many other aspects of the deal.  BT took on about 280 full-time equivalent council employees, about 130 of whom worked in Information Services.

What’s striking about the history of outsourcing discussions at Cornwall, and the run-up to the signing of a contract, is its openness. It would be easy for BT’s defenders to say that Cornwall’s open, feisty and unforgiving attitude are factors in the strained relationships so far.

On the other hand the problems Cornwall has experienced in the first 2 years of the relationship may be normal in outsourcing deals at other councils. It’s  just that ruling councillors and officers don’t talk about them in public.

All the more credit to Cornwall for its openness.

Barnet’s outsourcing deal may be more successful than Cornwall’s – but how does anyone outside a small group at Barnet really know? Local government and democratic accountability are often uncomfortable bedfellows.

Thank you to Dave Orr who drew my attention to the latest developments at Cornwall Council. 

Cornwall Council rushes to sign BT deal before elections

Cornwall Council tries to pull the plug on BT Cornwall

BT Cornwall is not working for Cornwall as it should

Overview of BT Cornwall’s performance against commitments and guarantees – as perceived by Cornwall’s officers

KPI measures Achieved (185/289) – 64%

PI measures Achieved (266/402) – 66%

Service Transformation (percentage of plans completed) – 38%

Financial contractual baseline savings (10% & 11.6%) – 100%

Trading gain share received (est £17.4m over 10 years) – £0

Guaranteed new jobs in Cornwall (yrs 1 & 2 111 new jobs target / 35.1 created) – 32%

Committed new jobs in Cornwall (yrs 1 & 2) – 0


Some of BT’s pre-outsourcing deal literature for Cornwall’s councillors

  • BT is a FTSE 100 company
  • We are one of the largest employers in the UK and the SW
  • We currently employ > 5,900 people in the South West including 1,028 Cornwall residents
  • BT already makes a financial impact of over £749m a year in the region
  • BT spent >£145m with local suppliers in 2011/12 and will increase this substantially through the Partnership
  • We generate 142,000 fraud referrals each week for the DWP across 50 data sources from 260,000,000 records
  • We undertake c.1,000,000 criminal record checks per annum at Disclosure Scotland to safeguard vulnerable groups.
  • We provide the highly secure directory services for the 260,000 military and civilian defence staff
  • We collect circa £580,000,000 in tax revenues each year on behalf of our local authority partnerships
  • The NHS Spine platform exchanges £3.5m prescription messages per week
  • We are delivering in excess of £500,000,000 savings in partnership with six UK Councils through efficiency and transformation programmes
  • We run one of the worlds largest data warehouses to enable the timely anonymous collection of patient data and information for clinical and billing purposes other than direct patient care .
  • Yes, we do poles and wires…but did you also know in the public sector we process over 532,000 benefits assessments for new applications and change of circumstances each year in our Local Government Partnerships?

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Posted in BT, Campaign4Change, legal disputes, local democracy, local government, managing change, openness and transparency, outsourcing, public sector, public-private partnerships

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Are councillors in Somerset ignoring the wisdom of their auditors?

Posted on 14/07/2015 | 2 comments

By Tony Collins

It’s good to see auditors in local government doing their job well  – not accepting verbal assurances and seeking proof that all is well with an outsourced system .

But what if councillors apply a lower standard – and accept verbal assurances without checking them?

A  strong report by the South West Audit Partnership [SWAP] went to councillors at Somerset County Council’s Audit Committee on 2 July 2015. The report was about problems with an outsourced system, the Adults Integrated Solution [AIS].

Although not the original supplier, IBM has provided AIS to Somerset County Council under a 10-year outsourcing contract/joint venture – Southwest One –  that was signed in 2007.

The SWAP report said limited progress has been made in implementing the AIS-related recommendations from its 2012-2013 audit report. It added that:

– AIS performance and response times could be “less than adequate for users’ needs”.

– Southwest One was unwilling to develop a service level agreement specifically for the AIS application.

– “Poor response time has led to the disabling of enhanced audit trails/logs that would make it possible to trace and attribute user activity in the system.” SWAP added that this was “worrying” given that the data involved was “sensitive and personal”.

– SWAP had been refused access to the contract between IBM and Northgate, the original supplier of AIS.

Are verbal assurances worth anything?

Having studied AIS from time to time over 2 years, and spoken to its users, SWAP’s auditors have been reluctant, on some of their concerns, to accept verbal assurances that all is well.

When they have sought documentary evidence to support assurances it hasn’t always been forthcoming.

SWAP said in its latest report:

“Verbal assurances were provided that the ToR for AIS Programme Board had been reviewed and that roles and responsibilities in relation to system ownership had been clarified. However, no evidence was provided to support these assurances.”

Now Somerset’s audit committee has done what its auditors wouldn’t do and has accepted verbal assurances that all is well with AIS.

SWAP’s auditors had expressed a multitude of concerns about AIS. But Somerset’s officers verbally assured audit committee councillors that a single upgrade had solved all the problems.

One officer, in a statement, told Dave Orr, a Somerset resident who campaigns for openness over IBM’s relationship with the council:

“I can confirm that all of the fundamental issues raised through the [SWAP] Audit Report [on AIS] have now been addressed…

“The AIS application is one of the top systems used by local authorities for social care services in the UK. The performance issues referred to in the Audit Report were resolved by a system upgrade.”

Comment:

It’s difficult if not impossible to see how a single upgrade could address all the points SWAP made – such as the lack of a service level agreement to cover AIS or the refusal by IBM to supply a copy of its contract with Northgate.

Whenever auditors produce a hard-hitting report there will be 2 opposing sides: defenders of what’s being criticised and the auditors.

It is up to the auditors to cut through any dissimulation, obfuscation and prevarication to identify what’s going well, what isn’t, and what the uncertainties and risks are.

Auditors would not be doing their job if they always accepted verbal assurances at face value.

But what if auditors are undermined by councillors who readily accept verbal assurances from their officers who wish to defend the suppliers?

A supplier that doesn’t have to provide documentary evidence can say anything in defence of its systems and the quality of service.

Somerset’s councillors are lucky to have auditors as independently-minded as SWAP.

It’s unlikely that SWAP would accept at face value the Somerset officer’s suggestion that because AIS is widely used it’s unlikely to be a poor system.

This would be like Ford saying a particular Mondeo is unlikely to be at fault because thousands of people happily own one.

Every IT installation is different, even if the main software package is widely used. The hardware, network configuration, load on the network, facilities and interfaces installed will render every IT installation unique.

It’s conceivable that every council client of AIS could have a trouble-free service except Somerset.

Are the council’s audit committee councillors gullible to accept verbal assurances about the problems with AIS being solved without requiring proof?

Where does this leave the 775 users of Somerset’s AIS, many of whom may be having to do difficult work in managing vulnerable adults while trying to cope with what may be one of the UK’s worst outsourced systems?

Thank you to Dave Orr for providing information that made this post possible.

Pity the 775 users who use this outsourced council system?

SWAP report on AIS for Somerset County Council’s Audit Committee 2 July 2015

SWAP 2012-2013 audit report on AIS

 

 

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Posted in Campaign4Change, data protection, excessive secrecy, IBM, IT-related failures, local democracy, local government, operational issues, outsourcing, public-private partnerships, supplier relationships

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Pity the 775 users who use this outsourced council system?

Posted on 02/07/2015 | 2 comments

By Tony Collins

Adult care systems are a cinderella IT service for councils.

It’s rare for journalists to write about them, for good or ill, perhaps because they help council staff deal with vulnerable adults. Such systems help with payments to care home and hospice providers. They help staff organise facilities for adults with learning disabilities or dementia, and respite care for adults at risk of abuse.

One such system has 775 users in Somerset. It’s a “critical” application according to the county council there.  The Adults Integrated Solution was originally supplied by Northgate. The system became IBM’s responsibility under a 10-year outsourcing and joint venture, Southwest One.

The latest in a series of excellent reports on the system’s enduring problems by auditors the South West Audit Partnership goes to Somerset County Council’s Audit Committee today (2 July 2015).

How bad is bad?

The report says the system’s response times have been so poor  that audit trails and logs have been disabled. So how can IBM and the council trace and attribute user activity in the system – particularly one handling sensitive and personal data?

The report says this disabling of the audit trial and logs is “worrying”.

Auditors reported on the system’s weaknesses in their 2012/2013 audit report.  Since then there has been only “limited progress” in implementing recommendations, says today’s report.

On some of their priority recommendations, auditors say they have been unable to obtain documentary evidence to support implementation. They have received verbal assurances – but they remain concerned.

The report says that AIS performance and response times “can still be less than adequate for users’ needs” and IBM is unwilling to develop a service level agreement specifically for the AIS application.

Indeed IBM has refused to give the county council a copy of the AIS contract with Northgate and it was not made available to the South West Audit Partnership for its audit of the system.

This may prompt councillors to ask how the council can properly manage a critical application if it has no control over the system or the outsourcer.

Repeated audit reports on the problems appear to have left matters unresolved.

Below are some of the concerns of the South West Audit Partnership as mentioned in its 2012/2013 audit report. It reports today that it has received only “partial” assurances that these problems have been solved.

Applications could be unavailable a month or more

Said the South West Audit Partnership: “We have identified in previous audit reports that there is no tested IT disaster recovery strategy. This is a strategy that would be put into effect in the event the Somerset County Council data centre was unavailable for any reason. Although a contract has been signed with Adam Continuity, applications could still be unavailable for a month or even more.”

No formally-named business system owner

“As of November 2014, Helen Wakeling (AIS System Owner) has left Somerset County Council. The responsibility of AIS system ownership needs to be reassigned and formalised.”

Payments to care providers not properly checked?

“… there does not appear to be a process to ensure payments are authorised, appropriate, complete and accurate…

 

IBM has no contractual duty to provide a good system

“There is no contractual requirement or service level for Southwest One [IBM] to provide a platform that delivers performance and response time that is acceptable to ASC [Adult Social Care] Operations.”

Data validation?

“Data quality in AIS data is undermined by the lack of robust input validation within the AIS application.

“Client records can be created with a minimum of information. Key personal identifiers such as data of birth, NI number and NHS number do not need to be entered and this both increases the risk of duplicate records and provides less data with which to identify those that have been created…”

Is IBM hiding AIS contract from the council?

“Southwest One currently owns the contract with Northgate and would not provide SWAP with a copy. As a result SWAP [South West Audit Partnership] was not able to evaluate Northgate’s compliance with the terms of the contract including licensing requirements…”

Personal data at risk?

“It was noted that developers have access to the production environment, unmasked live production data is used by developers and vendors for testing purposes and desktops are not locked down.”

Potential for fraud?

“In addition the authorise function, a security feature available in AIS has not been implemented resulting in all authorisations occurring outside of AIS. As a result data loss, potential corruption of data, incorrect and potentially fraudulent use of the application, missed, inappropriate or additional payments, will not be identified and acted upon.”

Corrupt data?

“In spite of a recent security incident that appeared to result in some data corruption, there is no reporting in place or review of user, super user or generic user access for appropriateness.”

Can former staff still log on?

“Terminated users were identified with valid AIS access credentials. Just less than 10% of managers with access were found to be no longer employed. In addition user ids are not disabled after not being used for a period of time.”

Unattended screens?

“The time-out for the application is 1 hour. Although users typically leave the application on and lock the screen when they go out to lunch, this process is inefficient, leaving sessions unavailable for others and insecure, since the user could forget to lock their screen and allow bypass of all security.”

System security?

“We also identified in our capacity management audit that desktop lock-down is not in effect and as a result AIS data can be downloaded and copied to USB flash storage. SWAP recommended data security policies be developed and implemented …”

**

Dave Orr who has followed events at Somerset closely since the county council signed the Southwest One contract in 2007 has written to audit committee councillors about the AIS system.

One of his questions is how the council could have transferred a critical application to IBM without its being protected by any specific service level agreement.

Orr says: “I do not believe that an in-house IT service, with a head of IT in the direct employ of this council, would be allowed to leave these serious shortcomings in performance, audit logging and disaster recovery unaddressed.”

Comment

So much for the claims back in 2007, when the council and IBM formed Southwest One, that the services would be “beyond excellence”.

If this is the worst outsourced system in the UK where does that leave the 775 council users who no doubt are trying to do their best for the vulnerable adults in their community?

Thank you to Dave Orr for providing the information on which this article is based.

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Posted in Campaign4Change, excessive secrecy, IBM, local government, outsourcing, public-private partnerships, supplier relationships

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Medication errors 6 months after “admin” system goes live

Posted on 19/06/2014 | 3 comments

By Tony Collins

When Croydon Health Services NHS Trust went live with Cerner Millennium in October 2013 a spokesman told eHealth Insider:

“The new system will give everyone working at the trust better access to information and an accurate picture of what all of our services are doing. This will allow staff to make quicker, more informed decisions about the care patients need. It will improve the quality, safety and efficiency of care.”

The go-live has indeed brought some benefits. The trust says these include more efficient management of medicines, more detailed patient information being conveyed between shifts and departments, and better management of beds.

But earlier this week Campaign4Change reported on some of the problems associated with the go-live including 50,000 patients on the trust’s waiting list and a “serious incident” declared over diagnostic waits including extended waits for patients with suspected cancer.

Said the trust’s Audit Committee in March 2014 – 6 months after the go-live of the Cerner Millennium Care Records Service [CRS] :

“CRS Millennium Lessons Learned

“KB [COO and Deputy Chief Executive] outlined the context in which the implementation of CRS had taken place from the time the Business case had been approved in 2010 to the commencement of deployment in January 2011 and its subsequent implementation to date.

“She noted the 7 official “go live” dates which were reflected in the lessons learned report many of which fell during a period of organisational change.

“She noted that the deployment in CHS [Croydon Health Services NHS Trust] had been the most comprehensive deployment to take place nationally.

“It was noted that Programme Team had considered the lessons learned from other [NPfIT] Care Records Service deployments as part of the implementation programme at CHS and that there was no evidence of harm to patients despite the challenges around delivery of service.

” However significant operational challenges were experienced and a deep dive into the implementation of CRS was carried out and the findings submitted to the Finance & Performance Committee and the Trust Development Authority.

“In relation to ‘no harm to patients’ SC [Chairman] asked what empirical evidence there was to support the findings of the Deep Dive.

“KB explained from October 2013 to date there were 50,000 patients on the waiting list, but a patient validation exercise had taken place which had confirmed that no patients had come to any harm.

“The potential backlog would be cleared by the end of March but in the meantime those patients on waiting lists would be subject to a further clinical review to ensure that there was no harm.”

In fact the trust is still working through the backlogs; and long waiting times are not the only matters arising from the Cerner Millennium implementation. A medication safety report for the month of March 2004 highlights these lessons:

“The patient was prescribed Furosemide for acute pulmonary oedema on 12/03/2014. The drug was not administered and the reason not documented. On review of the incident, it was identified that there was a mis-communication between both nurses and the fact that they have started using a new computer system had caused confusion which led to the error. Once error identified the dose was given and ward sister has ensured that staff will go for further training if unsure on how to use the CRS Millennium system…

“Third incident was a failure to administer fluids (Normal Saline) in an acute kidney injury patient with an admission creatinine of greater than 700. Again there was confusion with the electronic prescribing system and the nurse thought that patient did not have a drug chart as the electronic prescribing system had gone live whereas in fact there was a paper drug chart for the fluid. The position of the venflon on the patient arm also contributed to the delay. Once error identified the fluids were given but were not running to time and patient improved. Ward sister has ensured that staff will go for further training if unsure on how to use the CRS Millennium system and staff were also briefed about poor documentation of the incident…

“Fourth incident occurred involved a patient prescribed ACS protocol for NSTEMI, Positive trop T. The aspirin 300mg, clopidogrel 300mg and fondaparinux 2.5mg were not administered and not signed for. Omission of medicines was discussed with doctor looking after the patient and the patient did not come to any harm. Omission occurred as agency staff did not know how to use CRS Millennium. On review of incident all staff were briefed on importance of patients being administered medicines on time and in particular a discussion took place between agency staff and for agency staff to have adequate CRS Millennium training. There are champion users nurses on wards who are able to train Agency staff.

NPfIT

Cerner Millennium is provided to the trust under a national contract hosted by the Department of Health and managed via a Local Service Provider (LSP) contract with BT. The contract covers trusts in London and the south of England.

The DH contract expires on 31st October 2015 after which point the DH will no longer fund any of the services currently hosted by them. This includes both the software and licencing costs for Cerner Millennium as well as the BT data storage facilities and other costs.

The DH requires all trusts with Cerner under the NPfIT to commit to an exit strategy before 31st October 2015.

Comment

Is Cerner Millennium merely an administrative system as officials at Croydon Health Services NHS Trust claim it is?  The implication is, with an administrative system, that it cannot be involved in any harm to patients. Officials at Connecting for Health when they ran the NPfIT used to describe Cerner Millennium as an administrative system.

It is the deployment of this “admin” system at Croydon that is implicated in medication errors, a waiting list of 50,000 people, and long waits for diagnostic tests for people with suspected cancer.

If Whitehall and NHS officials cannot see the system as other than administrative, this is a mistake that may help to explain why a poor service for patients, which sometimes has serious potential clinical implications,  is so commonplace, even months after go-live.

50,000 on waiting list and cancer test delays after NPfIT go-live

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Posted in BT, BT Health, Campaign4Change, Cerner, Department of Health, e-health, health, health records, LPfIT, NHS, npfit, project management, public sector, public services, public-private partnerships, SPfIT

Should Liverpool Council smile now it’s ending BT joint venture?

Posted on 14/03/2014 | 3 comments

By Tony Collins

Liverpool Direct Ltd describes itself as the largest public/private partnership of its kind in the UK. BT and Liverpool City Council formed the joint venture in 2001. At one point it employed more than 1,300 people.

Last year the joint venture had a visit from  Prince Edward who met its apprentices and trainees.

Now Liverpool City Council is taking full ownership of the joint venture. BT is handing back its 60% share in Liverpool Direct to the council. But the way the dissolution is being handled is like a theatre compere smiling exaggeratedly at the audience while he pushes off stage a performer who has overstayed his welcome.

Indeed the council’s report on why BT is being pushed out has an oversized grin on every page. Too much self-conscious praise for BT, perhaps. Which may show how political outsourcing deals have become.

This is the first sentence of the council’s report on why the joint venture with BT is ending:

“BT and Liverpool City Council have enjoyed a long and successful partnership through the joint venture company Liverpool Direct Limited.”

And then:

“The ethos of the Partnership was to place the ‘customer at the heart’ of the organisation through the development of innovative new ways of working building on BT’s global brand and reputation.”

There’s much more praise for BT. From the council’s report:

Groundbreaking achievements have included:

  • Establishment of the first ever 24x7x365 local government contact centre including a call centre which is top quartile
  • The only ‘Benefits Plus’ service in the UK.
  • A comprehensive and integrated network of One Stop Shops serving 350,000 visitors each year.
  • First class ICT infrastructure.
  • Creation of 300 new jobs supporting 3nd party business won by LDL.

But there’s a give-away line in one of the sets of bullet points on some of the benefits of the partnership. In 2011 came a refresh of the 10 year-old deal. The benefits of the refresh:

  • Further price reduction of £22.5m.
  • Increased share of third party business. Potential investment of £17m.
  • Continued sponsorship of ( e.g. BT Convention Centre 2012-2017)
  • The ‘write off’ by both parties of potential legal claims against Liverpool City Council estimated by BT of approximately £56m.
  • Increased ownership level from 20% to 40% in favour of the council.

Spot the anomaly – a write-of legal claims against each other of £56m? So the partnership wasn’t quite so wonderful. But that was 2011. Why is the council now pushing out BT from the Liverpool Direct joint venture – what the council calls officially “The Way Forward”?

Amid all the praise for BT it is not easy to see at first glance why Liverpool Direct is being taken into the council’s full ownership. It turns out that austerity is the reason. The council needs to make more cuts than BT is willing to make, and it recognises that BT needs to make a profit. Which raises the question of whether the council was willing to pay BT a decent profit during bountiful times until cuts began to bite.

From Liverpool Council’s report:

“In the early Autumn of 2013, both parties were in active discussions in an effort to resolve the serious financial savings Liverpool City Council needed to make between 2014 and 2017.

“As a result of these discussions and negotiations, BT agreed a further price reduction of £5m contribution to the budget process for 2014/15 together with a further £5m for the following financial year.

“Whilst the Council really appreciated BT’s continued commitment to the city, the current budget deficit would require a far more substantive financial contribution from the Contract both for 2014/15 and for future years.

“Unfortunately BT feels unable to commit to any further price reduction within the Contract as they need to sustain their own financial position. Moreover, the City Council is now well placed, as a result of the long collaboration with BT and the learning gained from the Partnership, to continue to drive forward business transformation and run the services with consequent cost savings to the city.”

The result is that negotiations will continue with a view to transferring BT’s 60% share in Liverpool Direct to the council by 31 March 2014; and the good news doesn’t stop there.

“The City Council and BT both believe that the transfer will enable additional savings to flow to the council including all income from third party contracts.

“BT remains committed to serving residents and businesses in Liverpool and its long and successful relationship with Liverpool City Council will carry on with BT continuing to provide a range of services to the council. During negotiations in late 2013 BT announced it plans to recruit a further 240 staff in Liverpool to support the growth of high-speed broadband services and has recently committed to being a major sponsor of the 2014 International Festival of Business.”

A dark side?

Behind the smiles Liverpool City Council has, it seems, an unusually secretive side.   Richard Kemp CBE has been a member of Liverpool City Council for 30 years having held major portfolios in both control and opposition. He is leader of the Liberal Democrats on the Council. He was Vice Chair of the Local Government Association of England & Wales for more than 6 years.

He says on his blog that has “taken the very unusual step of asking for two independent enquiries into activities of Liverpool City Council”. He adds: “The cases are related and refer to the tangled web of relationships which surround the Liverpool/Liverpool Direct Ltd/Lancashire/One Call Ltd/BT activities.

“In the first instance I have asked that the Lancashire Police extend their Lancashire investigation into Liverpool. In the second I have asked the Information Commissioner to look at the appalling record of the council in responding to freedom of information requests about any matter relating to Liverpool Direct Ltd.”

He says the council has an excellent record of responding to FOI requests – except when it comes to LDL. “When I raised this with the Mayor at the Mayoral Select Committee I didn’t get any answers …”

He also says:

“I find it amazing that I have been told that no contract exists between Liverpool, Lancashire and BT only to find that there is a legal agreement! As a layman I am unclear as to what the difference is between these two positions.

“We now need external scrutiny and investigation to examine these tangled relationships and work out not only who agreed what and when but also whether Liverpool and Lancashire tax payers are getting value for money for this deal.

“In a system where there is no internal scrutiny, Liverpool Labour members have to ask permission to raise issues in the scrutiny process, I feel that I have no alternative but to ask for help in looking at these affairs outside the council.

“In my career I have not only been a councillor for a long time but also asked to work in other councils which were in severe difficulties with their governance structures. Liverpool feels as bad as any council that I have worked in. There is no clear definition of Member and Officer roles.

“ No effective challenges exist within the system and a centralised almost Stalinist decision-making process pertains … I hope that these external investigations will take place and then that they force change in this secretive and opaque council.”

Infighting

A local paper, the Liverpool Echo, has also been investigating the council and its deal with BT.

It says the deal “has been dogged by accusations of infighting between BT and the Council, after top QCs were brought in to settle disputes over how much work would be awarded to LDL under the terms of its contract”.

An internal council report obtained by the Echo before agreement for the contract refresh in 2011 “showed the it took place amid the threat of costly legal claims by BT if city bosses pulled the plug and did not stay in partnership with them until 2017”.

Private/public deals too secretive – MPs today

A report by the Public Accounts Committee published today Private Contractors and Public Spending says private and public partnerships are too secretive – and they lie largely outside the FOI Act. Indeed a BBC File on 4 investigation into the growing influence of accountancy companies such as Capita in public life reached similar conclusions. File on 4 suggested that even if the contract between Service Birmingham, Capita and Birmingham City Council were published in full it could prove impenetrably complicated.

Margaret Hodge MP, chairman of the Public Accounts Commitee, said today:

 “There is a lack of transparency and openness around Government’s contracts with private providers, with ‘commercial confidentiality’ frequently invoked as an excuse to withhold information.

“It is vital that Parliament and the public are able to follow the taxpayers’ pound to ensure value for money. So, today we are calling for three basic transparency measures:

– the extension of Freedom of Information to public contracts with private providers;

– access rights for the National Audit Office; and

– a requirement for contractors to open their books up to scrutiny by officials.

Comment:

It’s remarkable how council outsourcing deals are becoming more cabalistic despite many initiatives toward more open government.

It’s a pity that things have reached a point where Richard Kemp, a Liverpool councillor of 30 years, ends up reporting his authority to the police and the Information Commissioner.

Meanwhile Liverpool City Council, which is one of the most self-image-protecting authorities in the UK, ends a long-standing joint venture with BT by giving the supplier nothing but praise – in public.

Democracy is a form of government in which all eligible citizens participate equally, either directly or indirectly through elected representatives. Clearly that’s not happening properly in Liverpool – or  some other parts of local government.

Reasons I have asked police and Information Commissioner to come in 

BT ad Capita  –  outsourcing joint ventures under pressure in Liverpool and Birmingham 

Private contractors and public spending – Public Accounts Committee report published today

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Posted in BT, Capita, excessive secrecy, FOI, Freedom of Information, legal disputes, local democracy, local government, managing outsourced services, outsourcing, public sector, public services, public-private partnerships, reducing cost strategically

Officials black out IT security report after it’s published in full

Posted on 05/02/2014 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

In one of the most bizarre regressions since the FOI Act came into force in 2005, officials at Somerset County Council have redacted an audit report on SAP security weaknesses after the report was published in full.

The result is that anyone can see links to both reports. This is the report with parts of it redacted – blacked out. These are links to the full versions, which were published before the redactions – here and here.

The report was written by auditors Grant Thornton for Somerset County Council and highlights weaknesses in a database that is shared by the council, Taunton Deane Borough Council and Avon and Somerset Police.  The database is part of a SAP system run by Southwest One on behalf of the three authorities.

Southwest One is an IBM-led enterprise that provides IT and other services to the three authorities under a controversial outsourcing contract. Dave Orr has written comprehensively about the deal.

Somerset published the Grant Thornton report in full. The media including Campaign4Change published some details of the IT security weaknesses mentioned in the Grant Thornton report. It appears that Avon and Somerset Police asked officials at Somerset to black out details of some of the weaknesses.

Somerset-based FOI campaigner Dave Orr says the blacking out is to save the blushes of the police.

Says Orr: “Much of the redaction in the Somerset County Council IT Controls report by Grant Thornton, especially generic and available password advice in Section 3, is not based in a genuine security threat, but looks to be rooted in a Police culture that seeks to avoid criticism and/or embarrassment.”

Somerset MP Ian Liddell-Grainger says:

“SAP was built on the cheap by IBM to serve three different customers – the County Council, Taunton Deane district council and the Police. It would have made sense to bung in a few partitions to stop council eyes taking a peek at police matters, or vice versa. But that would have cost money – perish the thought.”   

 Police SAP systems’s “significant” security weaknesses. 

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Posted in Campaign4Change, Freedom of Information, IT security, local democracy, local government, outsourcing, public sector, public services, public-private partnerships, SAP, security, supplier relationships

Top 5 posts on this site in last 12 months

Posted on 02/01/2014 | 1 comment

Below are the top 5 most viewed posts of 2013.  Of other posts the most viewed includes “What exactly is HMRC paying Capgemini billions for?” and “Somerset County Council settles IBM dispute – who wins?“.

1) Big IT suppliers and their Whitehall “hostages”

Mark Thompson is a senior lecturer in information systems at Cambridge Judge Business School, ICT futures advisor to the Cabinet Office and strategy director at consultancy Methods.

Last month he said in a Guardian comment that central government departments are “increasingly being held hostage by a handful of huge, often overseas, suppliers of customised all-or-nothing IT systems”.

Some senior officials are happy to be held captive.

“Unfortunately, hostage and hostage taker have become closely aligned in Stockholm-syndrome fashion.

“Many people in the public sector now design, procure, manage and evaluate these IT systems and ignore the exploitative nature of the relationship,” said Thompson.

The Stockholm syndrome is a psychological phenomenon in which hostages bond with their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them.

This month the Foreign and Commonwealth Office issued  a pre-tender notice for Oracle ERP systems. Worth between £250m and £750m, the framework will be open to all central government departments, arms length bodies and agencies and will replace the current “Prism” contract with Capgemini.

It’s an old-style centralised framework that, says Chris Chant, former Executive Director at the Cabinet Office who was its head of G-Cloud, will have Oracle popping champagne corks.

2) Natwest/RBS – what went wrong?

Outsourcing to India and losing IBM mainframe skills in the process? The failure of CA-7 batch scheduling software which had a knock-on effect on multiple feeder systems?

As RBS continues to try and clear the backlog from last week’s crash during a software upgrade, many in the IT industry are asking how it could have happened.

3) Another Universal Credit leader stands down

Universal Credit’s Programme Director, Hilary Reynolds, has stood down after only four months in post. The Department for Work and Pensions says she has been replaced by the interim head of Universal Credit David Pitchford.

Last month the DWP said Pitchford was temporarily leading Universal Credit following the death of Philip Langsdale at Christmas. In November 2012 the DWP confirmed that the then Programme Director for UC, Malcolm Whitehouse, was stepping down – to be replaced by Hilary Reynolds. Steve Dover,  the DWP’s Corporate Director, Universal Credit Programme Business, has also been replaced.

4) The “best implementation of Cerner Millennium yet”?

Edward Donald, the chief executive of Reading-based Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust, is reported in the trust’s latest published board papers as saying that a Cerner go-live has been relatively successful.

“The Chief Executive emphasised that, despite these challenges, the ‘go-live’ at the Trust had been more successful than in other Cerner Millennium sites.”

A similar, stronger message appeared was in a separate board paper which was released under FOI.  Royal Berkshire’s EPR [electronic patient record] Executive Governance Committee minutes said:

“… the Committee noted that the Trust’s launch had been considered to be the best implementation of Cerner Millennium yet and that despite staff misgivings, the project was progressing well. This positive message should also be disseminated…”

Royal Berkshire went live in June 2012 with an implementation of Cerner outside the NPfIT.  In mid-2009, the trust signed with University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre to deliver Millennium.

Not everything has gone well – which raises questions, if this was the best Cerner implementation yet,  of what others were like.

5) Universal Credit – the ace up Duncan Smith’s sleeve?

Some people, including those in the know, suspect  Universal Credit will be a failed IT-based project, among them Francis Maude. As Cabinet Office minister Maude is ultimately responsible for the Major Projects Authority which has the job, among other things, of averting major project failures.

But Iain Duncan Smith, the DWP secretary of state, has an ace up his sleeve: the initial go-live of Universal Credit is so limited in scope that claims could be managed by hand, at least in part.

The DWP’s FAQs suggest that Universal Credit will handle, in its first phase due to start in October 2013, only new claims  – and only those from the unemployed.  Under such a light load the system is unlikely to fail, as any particularly complicated claims could managed clerically.

 

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Posted in Accenture, Agile, BT, Campaign4Change, Capgemini, Cerner, Cloud, Cloud Computing, CSC, DWP, excessive secrecy, FOI, Freedom of Information, G-Cloud, Government IT, health records, HP, IBM, IT projects, IT-related failures, legal disputes, local democracy, local government, LPfIT, Major Projects Authority, NHS, npfit, outsourcing, public-private partnerships, Real-Time Information, SAP, Universal Credit

Tagged , ,

Will truth ever be told when things go wrong?

Posted on 28/11/2013 | 5 comments

By Tony Collins

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has criticised civil servants who don’t always tell ministers what is going on in their departments. He used the Universal Credit project as an example.

He told the Financial Times: “There were a lot of failures in DWP and it isn’t good that it took a review commissioned . . . by the secretary of state to disclose what was going on.”

He added:

“You’ll find a lot of ministers don’t know a lot of things going on in the department because there’s no way you’ll find out.”

Maude’s comments touch on a common factor in IT-related project disasters in government – that ministers get mostly “good news” from their officials, and learn little or nothing about the seriousness of problems until a debacle is only too apparent to be denied.

But can ministers or the boards of large private companies ever expect their senior staff to be the bearers of bad news?

The Performing Right Society did not find out the truth about its failing IT-based project until it appointed a new head of IT who had no emotional equity in what had gone on before. [Crash – chapter 1)

The National Audit Office report “Universal Credit: early progress” referred to a “good news” culture at the Department for Work and Pensions that “limited open discussion of risks and stifled challenge”.

Ministers in charge of the Rural Payments Agency’s Single Payment Scheme said they were kept in the dark about the seriousness of IT-related problems. “When delays occurred, many stakeholders only found out at the last minute,” said a report of the Public Accounts Committee.

“Conspiracy of optimism”

The PAC report of March 2007 is worth a further mention:

“Lord Bach [minister in charge of the Single Payment Scheme] told us that he felt very let down by the advice he had received from the RPA [Rural Payments Agency], upon whom he said the Department relied very heavily in these circumstances, and the “conspiracy of optimism” on the part of the Agency.”

Lord Bach told MPs that he kept being told by officials that all was well.

“I frankly have to say that I do not think that that was satisfactory from senior civil servants whose job is to tell ministers the truth.”

Let down by civil servants – Universal Credit

Now the FT reports that Francis Maude has “entered the controversy over the implementation of the government’s universal credit scheme”. Maude told the FT he believed that Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, had been let down by his civil servants.

Maude said senior civil servants in charge of projects should tell ministers bluntly if they felt they were being misdirected and insist on a formal “letter of direction” to show that they had raised their objections. If they did not, they should be accountable for failings on their watch.

Maude did not comment directly on whether Robert Devereux, the top official in Mr Duncan Smith’s department, should take the rap for the much-criticised implementation of universal credit, but said: “I think everybody has to take responsibility for what they were part of”.

SROs accountable to MPs?

He suggested that civil servants who are in charge of big projects, known as senior responsible owners (SROs), should account directly to parliament, which would “toughen the relationship with ministers” and give officials a greater incentive to challenge developments they believed were wrong.

He said: “If you have an SRO who knows that he or she is going to be hauled up in front of select committees and interrogated . . . then I think you’re much more likely to have what is a very healthy thing in our system which is push-back. . . There’s a great phrase ‘speaking truth unto power’ and it’s very important – it doesn’t happen enough.

He added: “I’ve never had a civil servant come to me and say ‘Would you like us to stop doing this?’ The answer might easily be, ‘yes’.”

Comment:

Do ministers and boards of large private companies always have to commission their own independent reports to find out if their organisation’s biggest IT-based projects are failing? Probably.

The problem is not one of lying. Civil servants tend not to lie. Neither do senior executives when reporting to their boards. But the sin of omission – the art of not telling the truth while not lying – is well practiced in public life.

A succession of IT-based project disasters in the US, Australia and the UK show that truth is the first casualty of any large failing IT-based project.

Barnet Council and Capita

It’s isn’t just IT-based projects that bring out the sin of omission. Outsourcing deals do too. Barnet Council’s outsourcing deal to Capita is mired in controversy over truth.

Why did Barnet’s officials give Capita £16m after saying that the council had no spare cash, and that Capita would make the necessary upfront IT investments?

Officials have given a long-winded explanation which is a little like the drawn-out, incomprehensible explanation a six year-old may give in the playground when teacher asks why he took his friend’s bar of chocolate.

Liverpool LDL, BT and excessive mark-ups?

Liverpool Direct Ltd, a joint venture between Liverpool council and BT, is also mired in a controversy over truth. According to the Liverpool Daily Post, Local Government Minister Brandon Lewis has questioned whether LDL is proving value for money. There are allegations of excessive mark-ups on IT and services supplied by BT to the council.

It seems that BT makes a mark-up on what it supplies to LDL and LDL makes a further mark-up on what it supplies to the council.

But a council spokesperson said: ““The mark up incorporates a calculation of the cost of setting up a particular piece of hardware or software by LDL. The important figure is the profit after tax per item which is much lower, and on some items, LDL actually makes a loss.”

The minister said Liverpool Council needed to open up its books if it wants to insist it gets value for money from the BT deal. Will Liverpool Council open up?

Hardly.

Politicise parts of the civil service?

There is a strong argument for politicising the top echelons of the civil service so that ministers are not so reliant on officials who are thought to be neutral but evidence shows can be biased towards good news and suppressing the bad.

Ministers and boards of large companies do not need various versions of the truth when things go wrong. They need their own version.

As Richard Nixon said when accepting the presidential nomination in 1968 [pre-Watergate]:

“Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth—to see it like it is, and tell it like it is—to find the truth, to speak the truth, and to live the truth.”

Doubtless Nixon believed it when he said it. Just as countless officials and executives in public and private life believe they are speaking the truth when they ministers and boards on their big IT-based projects. It may be the truth. But how much of it are they telling?

Update:

In a tweet BrianSJ3 makes a great suggestion: Genchi Genbutsu – “go and see for yourself” he says.

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Posted in BT, Campaign4Change, Capita, DWP, excessive secrecy, Government IT, IT projects, IT-related failures, local democracy, local government, public-private partnerships, Universal Credit

Tagged , ,

More IT-based megaprojects derail amid claims all is well

Posted on 30/10/2013 | 2 comments

By Tony Collins

If one thing unites all failing IT-based megaprojects in the public sector it is the defensive shield of denial that suppliers and their clients hold up when confronted by bad news.

It has happened in the US and UK this week. On the Universal Credit  project, the minister in charge of the scheme, Lord Freud, accepted none of the criticisms in a National Audit Office report “Universal Credit: early progress”.   In a debate in the House of Lords Lord Freud quoted from two tiny parts of the NAO report that could be interpreted as positive comments.

“Spending so far is a small proportion of the total budget … and it is still entirely feasible that [universal credit] goes on to achieve considerable benefits for society,” said Lord Freud, quoting the NAO report.

But he mentioned none of the criticisms in the 55-page NAO report which concluded:

“At this early stage of the Universal Credit programme the Department has not achieved value for money. The Department has delayed rolling out Universal Credit to claimants, has had weak control of the programme, and has been unable to assess the value of the systems it spent over £300 million to develop.

“These problems represent a significant setback to Universal Credit and raise wider concerns about the Department’s ability to deal with weak programme management, over-optimistic timescales, and a lack of openness about progress.”

And a shield of denial went up in the US this week where newspapers on the east and west coast published stories on failing public sector IT-based megaprojects.  The LA [Los Angeles] Times said:

As many as 300,000 jobless affected by state software snags

“California lawmakers want to know why Deloitte’s unemployment benefits system arrived with major bugs and at almost double the cost estimate. The firm says the system is working.”

The LA Times continued:

“Problems are growing worse for the state’s Employment Development Department after a new computer system backfired, leaving some Californians without much-needed benefit cheques for weeks.”

The Department said the problems affected 80,000 claims but the LA Times obtained internal emails that showed the software glitches stopped payment to as many as 300,000 claimants.

Now lawmakers are setting up a hearing to determine what went wrong with a system that cost taxpayers $110m, almost double the original estimate.

Some blame the Department’s slow response to the problems. Others point the finger at a Deloitte Consulting.

The LA Times says that Deloitte has a “history of delivering projects over budget and with problematic results”. Deloitte also has been blamed, in part, for similar troubles with upgrades to unemployment software in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Florida, says the paper.

“We keep hiring the same company, and they keep having the same issues,” said Senator Anthony Cannella.  “At some point, it’s on us for hiring the same company. It’s faulty logic, and we’ve got to get better.”

In 2003 California planned to spend $58m upgrading its 30-year-old unemployment benefits system. By the time the state awarded Deloitte the contract in 2010  the cost estimate had grown by more than $30m.

The Department handed out $6.6bn to about 1 million unemployed Californians in 2012. The software was expected to ease the agency’s ability to verify who was eligible to receive benefits.

Problems began when the Department transferred old unemployment data to the new system. The software flagged claims for review — requiring state workers to manually process them.

The LA Times says that officials thought initially the workload would be manageable, but internal emails showed the agency was quickly overwhelmed. Phone lines were jammed. For weeks, the Department’s employees have been working overtime to clear the backlog.

A poor contract?

In a contract amendment signed two months ago California agreed to pay Deloitte $3.5m for five months of maintenance and operations costs. Those costs should have been anticipated in the contract said Michael Krigsman, a software consultant who is an expert on why big IT-based contracts go awry. He told the LA Times:

“It’s a striking oversight that maintenance was not anticipated at the beginning of the contract when the state was at a much stronger negotiation position.”

By the time the middle of a project is reached, the state has no choice but to stick with Deloitte to work out bugs that arise when the system goes live, he said.

System works

Loree Levy, a spokeswoman for the Department, said the system is working, processing 80% of claims on time. As for the troubles, she said, “There is a period of transition or adjustment with any large infrastructure upgrade like this one.”

Deloitte spokeswoman Courtney Flaherty said the new California system is working and that problems are not the result of a “breakdown or flaw in the software Deloitte developed”.

System not working?

While there seems to be no project disaster in the eyes of the Department and Deloitte Consulting, some of the unemployed see things differently. One wrote:

“I am a contract worker who had to fight for my unemployment benefits. I won my case and yet they still cannot pay me… It’s been more than 3 weeks since I won my appeal and as of this moment, I am owed 13 weeks of back payments. To add insult to injury, they cannot send me current weeks to certify and they refuse to even try to help me to get back into the online system.

“I blame Deloitte, but it is California that carries the heaviest burden of fault… We’re nearing November and they still haven’t fixed an issue that began over Labor Day? Nonsense!

“This is untenable for everyone affected …We are owed reparations as well as our money at this point. It’s a funny word, affected. That means families and individuals are going hungry but can’t get food stamps or welfare. It means evictions and repossessed cars. It means destroyed credit, late fees, years of turmoil and shame for people already dealing with unemployment. Shame on you California.”

Another wrote:

“ … Not communicating is NOT an answer. Unemployed individuals caught up in the nightmare were told to be patient.  Rents and other expenses were still accumulating.  But [when you] add on additional fees: late fees, restoral fees, interest fees, etc…….you get the picture.

“Dear Governor Brown,

“Please reimburse me for all additional fees I’ve had to absorb to survive this fiasco.  You are going to make me payback any overpayments, but ignore the cost to the unemployed taxpayer.  This is  appears to unfair.  Perhaps Deloitte should pay us back from their contracted funds before they receive their final payment.  I am saving all of my receipts to deduct from my 2013 tax return.

“BTW Gov Brown – I am still waiting on additional payments as of today and DMV registration for my vehicle was due on 10/20/13.  Are you going to waive the penalty for late payment? Am I the only one with this question?”

Scrutiny

California’s state Assembly has set a date of 6 November 2013 for a hearing into the Department’s system upgrade.

“We’re going to look at EDD, the contractors and others to see how the system broke down so we can avoid this in the future,” said Henry Perea, chair of the Assembly’s Insurance Committee, which has oversight over the jobless benefits program.

On its website Deloitte says:

“Deloitte continues to help EDD [Employment Development Department] transform the level of service it provides to unemployed workers and improve the quality of information collected by EDD. The next time unemployment spikes, California should be ready to meet the increased demand for services.”

Massachutsetts IT disaster?

On the opposite coast the Boston Globe reported on an entirely separate debacle (which also involved Deloitte):

          None admit fault on troubled jobless benefits system

“… even with the possibility that unemployed workers could face months more of difficulties and delays in getting benefits, officials from the Labor Department and contractor, Deloitte Consulting of New York, testified before the Senate Committee on Post Audit that the rollout of the computer system was largely a success.

“‘I am happy with the launch,’ said Joanne F. Goldstein, secretary of Labour and Workforce Development, noting that she would have liked some aspects to have gone better.

“Mark Price, a Deloitte principal in charge of the firm’s Massachusetts business, acknowledged that software has faced challenges during the rollout, but insisted, ‘We have a successful working system today. ‘’’

NPfIT shield

A shield of denial was up for years at the Department of Health whose CIOs and other spokespeople repeatedly claimed that the NPfIT was a success.

Comment

If you didn’t know that Universal Credit IT wasn’t working, or that thousands of people on the east and west coasts of the US hadn’t been paid unemployment benefits because of IT-related problems, and you had to rely on only the public comments of the IT suppliers and government spokespeople, you would have every reason to believe that Universal Credit and the jobless systems in Massachusetts and California were working well.

Why is it that after every failed IT-based megaproject those in charge can simply blow the truth gently away like soap bubbles?

When confronted by bad news, suppliers and their customers tend to join hands behind their defensive shields. On the other side are politicians, members of the public affected by the megaprojects and the press who have all, according to suppliers and officials, got it wrong.

Is this why lessons from public sector IT-based project disasters are not always learned? Because, in the eyes of suppliers and their clients, the disasters don’t really exist?

None admit fault on troubled jobless benefit system

State fired Deloitte

Complaints continue despite claims system is under control

As many as 300,000 affected by California’s software problems

California’s predictable fiasco?

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Posted in Campaign4Change, change management, CIO, consultants, contractors, culture, Deloitte, ERP, Government IT, IT projects, IT-related failures, managing outsourced services, npfit, openness and transparency, operational issues, outsourcing, oversight, private sector lessons for the public sector, public sector, public-private partnerships, supplier relationships, Universal Credit