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

Posted on 28/05/2014 | 4 comments

By Tony Collins

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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DWP – and Cabinet Office – hide new Universal Credit secrets

Posted on 23/05/2014 | 2 comments

By Tony Collins

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Update:

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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Was Churchill more open with MPs in 1940 than DWP is over Universal Credit?

Posted on 22/05/2014 | 3 comments

By Tony Collins

As the DWP manoeuvres again to stop reports on the Universal Credit programme being published it’s worth asking: has the DWP got its 2-year legal battle to keep the reports secret out of perspective?

Work and Pensions minister Lord Freud personally signed off his department’s request to keep the UC reports secret; and his secretary of state Iain Duncan Smith seems untroubled by MPs’ criticisms that Parliament is not kept properly informed about the UC programme’s problems.

The lack of openness and transparency over problems with the UC programme is “not acceptable,” said the all-party Work and Pensions Committee in April.

The four reports would, if published, inform Parliament about how much senior civil servants knew about the problems with UC while ministers and the department  were assuring MPs the scheme was on time and to budget.

This isn’t the reason the DWP does not want the reports published: it has an unofficial rule not to publish any reports on the progress or otherwise of its big IT-based projects and programmes.

Not even Parliament is allowed sight of minutes of UC meetings, the updated UC business case, UC risk registers, issues registers, project assessment reviews or high-level milestone schedules.

In its arguments to the Upper Tribunal this week lawyers for the DWP argue in paragraph after paragraph that publication of the UC reports would have a “chilling effect” on senior civil servants.

But the DWP may not appreciate the extent to which its attempts to keep Parliament, the press and public in the dark trivialise the vigorous and noble attempts by some prime ministers in the last century to keep Parliament well informed on what was going well or not with major government plans.

Churchill stands out as a PM who was remarkably open, even during one of the darkest times in the history of Britain, in 1940, when the government had every reason to marginalise Parliament. It’s easy to believe Churchill was too busy to attend Parliament and that he had the best possible excuse for not keeping MPs informed: he didn’t want to forewarn Britain’s enemies.

In fact Parliamentary archives show that Churchill in 1940 was meticulous about keeping Parliament informed – about his concerns as well as as his reasons for optimism.

With London being bombed and a fleet of 1900 fully-armed ships and barges gathered at German-occupied ports ready to invade Britain, Churchill came to the House of Commons to account for government actions. He even answered a Parliamentary question in September 1940 on pensions.

On 30 July 1940 Churchill opened a public debate in the House of Commons on whether Parliament should go into secret session. France had just fallen and the government was preparing for what Churchill called the Battle of Britain. He had every reason to go into secret session. He allowed a free vote.

Churchill also rejected calls for automatic secret sessions of Parliament. There had to be a debate and free vote each time.

Compare Churchill’s determination to keep Parliament properly informed at a time when the freedom of every British citizen was in peril and the DWP’s repeated attempts to stop information reaching Parliament, the press and the public on what departmental reports were saying about the Universal Credit programme in 2012.

Churchill and other MPs, including Labour’s Josiah Wedgwood, argued that openness was needed because criticism of the government by an informed press and Parliament was an essential part of the democratic process. Criticism could be a stimulus to act.

But what we now have at the DWP are departmental civil servants and ministers who want information on the Universal Credit programme to be state-controlled, apart from the one-off reports of the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee which the DWP cannot control.

Only the Work and Pensions Committee provides regular scrutiny of the UC programme – but its MPs complain of being kept in the dark.

Churchill in Parliament’s secret sessions had good reason for secrecy. His notes published after the war show that he spoke in a secret session of Parliament in 1940 on the need for British forces to “get through the next 3 months” then they will “get through the next 3 years”. He discussed the Allies’ military errors and German strengths and weaknesses.

Now we have the DWP marginalising Parliament – not publishing the contents of departmental reports on UC – because of the chilling effect on senior civil servants.

There can be little dispute that Churchill was more open in Britain’s darkest hour than the DWP is today on Universal Credit programme.  For even  when Parliament went into secret session in 1940, all MPs, including the government’s opponents, were included in the discussions. Only “strangers” – non-MPs – were excluded.

That’s a million miles from what’s happening at the DWP. All ordinary MPs are excluded from the DWP’s detailed discussions on the UC programme.  The DWP is shielding Parliament from knowing what is in the UC programme reports.

As I asked earlier: is the DWP’s fear of openness over UC reports out of perspective?

 

 

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Posted in Campaign4Change, DWP, excessive secrecy, FOI, Freedom of Information, Universal Credit

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

Posted on 22/05/2014 | 3 comments

By Tony Collins

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

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

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

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

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

The four reports in question are:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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Criminal Justice IT – still criminally backward?

Posted on 20/05/2014 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

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

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

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

Comment

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

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

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

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

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

The Criminal Justice System 

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

Is working on Universal Credit a risk to health or career?

Posted on 14/05/2014 | 4 comments

By Tony Collins

IT-related projects are about solving problems – and  if you cannot own up to the most serious of them, how can they be solved? For those working on Universal Credit it may be stressful, perhaps even hazardous to health, if they cannot discuss serious project problems openly.

Could it be that the DWP’s unnatural grip on information – what the National Audit Office called a good news reporting culture that “stifled open discussion and challenge”  – is a major factor in the delays, rising costs and lack of success in the Universal Credit programme?

Could it also explain why the programme has had so many leaders – who perhaps found that speaking their minds was culturally unacceptable?

I had a taste of the DWP’s grip on information when I asked a department press officer last week about Howard Shiplee, Director General  of Universal Credit who went off sick with bronchitis. Was he back at work? He may no longer be working full time, suggests Computer Weekly.

The DWP appointed Shiplee in May 2013 and he went off sick in December 2013. He took over the UC programme from David Pitchford who quit to return to his native Australia. Terry Moran who ran the universal credit programme at its inception retired from the DWP last year after an extended  period of sick leave.

Philip Langsdale, a highly respected IT expert with public and private sector experience, took over responsibility for the UC programme in September 2012 but died four months later.

Another short-serving incumbent was Hilary Reynolds, a departmental civil servant who was appointed programme director in November 2012 but moved to another role four months later. She replaced Malcolm Whitehouse, who had stepped down as UC programme director.

Andy Nelson, Chief Information Officer at the DWP who had partial control of UC, has resigned after little more than a year in the job.

Truthful?

Government press officers and other public-facing officials usually like to be helpful, open and truthful. But they also reflect an organisation’s culture, whether it is open or closed, or liable to dissemble. The DWP press officer I spoke to last week seemed unable to depart from her pre-agreed script. Clearly she was allowed to say that Shiplee was “at work and fully engaged in delivering Universal Credit” – but no more about him.

“Howard Shiplee is at work,” she said.

Is it accurate to say he is “at work” when it’s for one day a week only?

“He is at work and fully engaged in delivering Universal Credit.”

Isn’t it misleading for the DWP to imply that Howard Shiplee is working full time on Universal Credit when he is only working one day a week?

“He is fully engaged in delivering Universal Credit.”

So he is working full-time on Universal Credit?

“He is at work. And we have announced the next steps in the Universal Programme …”

That started a different line of questioning on whether the DWP was being misleading in its announcement that the “full” Universal Credit benefit will be rolled out in the north-west of England in June.

I asked what “full” meant, when the reality is that new UC claimants must be single, without children, newly claiming a benefit, fit for work, not claiming disability benefits, not have caring responsibilities, not be homeless or in temporary accommodation, and have a valid bank account and National Insurance number. Specifically excluded from UC “pathfinder” claims – although the original plan was include them – are income support, housing benefits, working tax credits, child tax credits and difficult cases.

The DWP’s latest announcement on the next steps in the UC programme refers four times to the “full” UC benefit:

From the DWP’s May 2014 UC announcement:

“The expansion of the full [my emphasis] Universal Credit benefit to the rest of the North-West of England will start in June, it was announced today. On top of that claimants in 10 parts of the country are also benefiting from the better work incentives of the full benefit.”

“In total 90 jobcentres, or one in eight jobcentres in Britain, will offer the full Universal Credit once the North-West expansion is completed.”

“During the summer the new benefit will also be made available for new claims from couples in a number of jobcentres that already deliver the full Universal Credit, expanding to all the current live sites over time.”

The DWP press officer did not answer my question directly.  She said couples will soon be able to claim UC in parts of the country. It appears she was not allowed to lie. But was she also forbidden from telling the truth?

For nearly 2 years the press office’s script was that the UC programme was “on time and on budget”. As the Guardian reported in April last year:

“The DWP has repeatedly claimed that the development is on schedule and on budget.”

But after the National Audit Office reported in depth in September 2013 that the UC programme was in a mess and that tens of millions had been written off the press office changed its script. Now press officers are instructed to say, if asked if the programme is on time and to budget, that it is “on track”, whatever that means.

The Work and Pensions Committee has criticised the DWP’s lack of openness and transparency on the Universal Credit programme. It said:

“On two occasions, the Government has made public the details about major changes to the timetable for UC implementation only when forced to do so by the prospect of oral evidence in front of the Committee. This lack of openness and transparency is not acceptable.”

The National Audit Office identified a ‘fortress’ mentality within the programme team; and the Public Accounts Committee said that the DWP’s UC team became

“isolated and defensive, undermining its ability to recognise the size of the problems the programme faced and to be candid when reporting progress”.

Now the DWP may be looking for Shiplee’s replacement. If so, how long will the appointee stay in post – a few months at best? Can any good UC project leader survive the DWP’s closed and dissembling culture?

Comment

As competent and talented UC leaders come and go it’s becoming easier to see why turnover is so high. The DWP and Accenture successfully built the enhanced National Insurance Recording System (NIRS2), in part by having daily round-table discussions about project problems.  I sat in on one of them. The meetings were marked by the openness of the exchanges.

For that reason IDS may unwittingly be the worst sort of person to be boss of a big IT-based programme. Can the UC’s programme leaders take their workplace problems to IDS without their suffering stress or worse?

The DWP was becoming innately secretive, not open to internal or external challenge, even before IDS was appointed. Since he took over in 2010 the department has become more defensive, introspective, closed, and excessively sensitive to its public image and reputation.

Can anyone run a big IT-based government programme amid a good news culture that permeates all levels of the hierarchy and IT teams at the DWP? It especially infects the DWP’s entrenched US-based major IT suppliers.

IDS has the advantage of understanding the UC programme and he is right to slow down its introduction, but if he stood down as UC’s political leader, the programme’s leaders could find their lives becoming less stressful, less hazardous perhaps.

[A more suitable political leader of the UC programme would, perhaps, be a pragmatist who is a good listener and is not preoccupied with self-image and looking strong – perhaps Frank Field (Labour), Norman Lamb (Liberal) or Richard Bacon (Conservative). ]

Privately the DWP’s ministers would probably argue that being open would give ammunition to the opposition which exploits for party political reasons every supposed UC problem. But openness could have pre-empted that.

If the DWP would publish the UC reports it has so far repeatedly refused to publish it could show in detail how it is tackling the problems in a measured and open way.

Nothing will change its culture. All we can hope for is that scrutiny will be intensified. The Work and Pensions committee is doing a good job, as is the NAO, the Public Accounts Committee, the Information Commissioner and the Information Tribunal but the scrutiny is spasmodic, not month to month or week to week, let alone day to day.

So where is the UC programme heading?

It seems that the Universal Credit programme will remain inherently flawed until after the general election when a new administration may own up to the depth of the problems and a new long-term rollout will be announced, perhaps extending beyond 2020.

You won’t hear that from the DWP, and particularly not its press officers.  But if they’re not allowed to tell the truth spare a thought for those working on the programme. Some of them are highly paid. But what’s money when your health is at stake?

Brian Wernham on UC leadership changes

 

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Posted in Accenture, change management, DWP, excessive secrecy, HP, IBM, IT-related failures, public sector, public services, Universal Credit

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Judge refuses DWP leave to appeal ruling on Universal Credit reports

Posted on 30/04/2014 | 28 comments

By Tony Collins

An information tribunal judge has unexpectedly refused consent for the Department of Work and Pensions to appeal his ruling that four reports on the Universal Credit programme be published.

The ruling undermines the DWP’s claim that there would be “chilling effect” if the reports were published.

The judge’s decision, which is dated 25 April 2014, means the DWP will have to publish the reports under the FOI Act  – or it has 28 days to appeal the judge’s refusal to grant consent for an appeal.  The DWP is certain to appeal again. It has shown that money is no object when it comes to funding appeals to keep the four reports secret.

In 2012 John Slater, who has 25 years experience working in IT and programme and project management, had requested the UC Issues Register, Milestone Schedule and Risk Register. Also in 2012 I requested a UC project assessment review by the Cabinet Office’s Major Projects Authority.

Last month the “first-tier” information tribunal ruled that all four reports should be published. It rejected the DWP’s claim that disclosure would inhibit the candour and boldness of civil servants who contributed to the reports – the so-called chilling effect.

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

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

Now Judge David Farrer QC says his tribunal has understood the chilling effect but found no evidence that it was relevant to the four reports in question. Indeed the judge implies that if the chilling effect existed there would be evidence of it.

“The so-called chilling effect implies Government departments and other public authorities have by now extensive experience of decisions requiring them to disclose information which they sought to withhold for the reasons advanced by DWP here,” says the judge in dismissing the DWP’s request for permission to appeal.

“If the chilling effect is a widespread and damaging result of the fear of disclosure, there is every reason for central government to investigate the matter, enabling a government department to present a case based on its research.

“Quite apart from that, those receiving reports, conducting discussions and reading advice might be expected to observe, over a period, any trend in changing style and content of their colleagues` written work, so as to be able to present examples and relate them to the perceived threat of disclosure.

“Obviously the form of document will remain the same but it is hard to believe that the experienced observer could not spot and demonstrate a general loss of trenchancy, of innovation or of boldness in the content over a period if that were indeed the effect of possible public exposure.

“Such changes would constitute ‘concrete and specific effects’, adopting DWP`s wording.”

Although the reports requested under the FOI Act are now old – they date back to 2011 – their publication could throw light on how much DWP ministers and civil servants knew about the many problems with Universal Credit IT at a time when the department was issuing unswervingly positive press releases about the UC programme.

Judge Farrer hinted that DWP ministers and civil servants could have misled the public about the real state of UC programme.

Having read the four reports in question, the judge said in his ruling that the Tribunal was “struck by the sharp contrast with the unfailing confidence and optimism of a series of press releases by the DWP or ministerial statements as to the progress of the Universal Credit Programme during the relevant period”.

At the information tribunal in January 2014 a senior civil servant Sarah Cox, on behalf of the DWP, spoke on the supposed effects of disclosure on the candour and boldness of reviewers.

But the Tribunal noted that a Starting Gate review of Universal Credit was published [in 2011] which the DWP had refused to release under FOI. The Information Tribunal noted that Ms Cox did not suggest that the revelation of this document had inhibited frank discussion within the Universal Credit programme.

The Tribunal said reports such as the risk register and project assessment review are important indicators of the state of a project. Their disclosure can give the public a chance to test whether ministers and civil servants are giving out correct information on the state of a project.

This week the judge says that the Tribunal “read and heard the evidence of Ms. Cox, considered the subject matter and the withheld material, took account of her experience, applied its own experience of these cases and its commonsense and, on this issue, found her testimony unpersuasive, as it was entitled to do.”

In conclusion the judge says the Tribunal “rejects the claim that its handling of the ‘chilling effect’ issue involved an error of law.”

Comment:

The DWP was claiming in 2012 that all was well with the UC programme when in reality they knew there wasn’t even an agreed project plan.

That is a good reason for the DWP to want to keep the reports secret – but the main reason its senior civil servants want to stop publication is tradition. The DWP does not publish any of its reports on the state of big IT-enabled projects and programmes.

It’s perhaps because the DWP has always buried itself under the covers of secrecy that it is so imperious – to the point of arrogance – in its handling of FOI requests and appeals. It acts like an institution that is not used to having outsiders, including the information tribunal and National Audit Office – peep into its affairs.

Perhaps this is why the NAO found that the UC programme was being managed so badly. When complex institutions operate in secrecy and without effective day to day scrutiny standards can continue to fall to a point when even the best leaders are powerless to intervene.

There may come a time – if that time hasn’t been reached already – when the DWP will be held together, and only remain credible in the eyes of the public and Parliament, because of the solid work of its major IT suppliers that have been there for decades, bolstered by a plethora of media announcements and ministerial assurances.

We are certainly getting the media announcements and ministerial statements, but without the publication of reports on UC’s progress, do the official pronouncements mean anything at all?

FOI ruling judge refuses DWP leave to appeal

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Posted in Accenture, Campaign4Change, change management, DWP, Government IT, HMRC, HP, IBM, IT-related failures, Major Projects Authority, managing outsourced services, openness and transparency, procurement, public sector, public services, Universal Credit

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Why the DWP wants Universal Credit reports kept secret

Posted on 24/04/2014 | 5 comments

By Tony Collins

Yesterday the Department for Work and Pensions, via Andrew Robertson, a lawyer in the Treasury Solicitor’s Department, issued the grounds for its appeal against an Information Tribunal ruling that four reports on Universal Credit be released.

The four reports in question are:

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

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

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

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

The DWP keeps losing appeals to stop the reports being published– but public money being no object when it comes to justifying departmental secrecy, it keeps spending on appeals. The latest appeal is to the “Upper Tribunal”. A decision on whether the appeal can go to the Upper Tribunal will come shortly from the “First-tier” tribunal.

The DWP says its main grounds for appeal is that the Information tribunal “wholly misunderstood the nature and/or manifestation of any ‘chilling effect’. [The chilling effect suggests that public servants will not tell the whole truth in project reviews if they know the reports will be published. The counter argument is that it is the job and duty of public servants to tell the truth, which they are more likely to do if the reports are published and they could be held accountable if it transpires later they had not told the whole truth.]

The DWP said the Tribunal’s misunderstanding about the chilling effect “amounted to an error in law” and was “perverse”.

The DWP’s appeal document is here: Application for Permission to Appeal & Grounds of Appeal 16.04.14 (as fi…

Comment:

The DWP’s appeal document shows the ease with which its lawyers could credibly argue – with an entirely straight face – that day is night, and night is day, on the basis that daylight in one part of the world always signifies darkness in another part of the world.

The DWP’s lawyers could also credibly argue that black is white, and white is black, on the basis that colour is simply a perception based on the light reflected back to our eyes and that if an object can reflect back all the light we see it is white, and black will be perceived only superficially since it is necessary to doubt everything when assessing the world from a fresh perspective, clear of any preconceived notions.

It is in this Orwell-parodying vein that the DWP’s lawyers argue that four Universal Credit reports need to be kept secret. Below are 2 extracts from the DWP’s appeal document. Anyone who understands what either of these paragraphs means deserves a prominent place in the DWP legal team. Here’s a clue. Having read the paragraphs below three times I think they’re saying that it is difficult to prove whether a leaked document has had a chilling effect.

Says the DWP appeal:

“Any argument as to the ‘chilling effect’ of disclosure is necessarily speculative, because it makes assumptions about the future effect of an event that has not yet occurred (i.e. the future effect of disclosure of particular information). Any argument as to the ‘chilling effect’ of disclosure in the past of any ‘chilling effect’ is likely to be the assertion of persons whose experience in particular working environments has enabled them to assess and evaluate how candour and frankness may alter, or may have altered, in the light of premature disclosure of information…”

Here’s another excruciating extract from the DWP’s appeal document:

“The Tribunal’s assumption that it would be ‘quite easy to assemble’ a ‘before’ and ‘after’ documentary comparison itself exemplifies its erroneous understanding of how a ‘chilling effect’ can be proved. Far from being easy, it would in the majority of cases be impossible to demonstrate that a particular type of document had changed fundamentally as a result of disclosure. That is because the likely effect of disclosure will very probably not be a change in the form in which a document (such as a risk register) is produced. It will rather be a change in the substantive content of the register, as a result of a conscious or subconscious decrease in the candour of those contributing to it. But it will equally be impossible to show what those contributors might have said, had it not been for disclosure: because they will not, in fact, have said it.”

Jonathan Swift, in perhaps the best satirical book of all time, Gulliver’s Travels, described lawyers as a society of men “bred up from their youth in the art of proving by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as they are paid”.

It’s not that the DWP’s lawyers lie. They don’t need to. This latest appeal is a legal nicety, a way of stringing things out, a display of conformance with the FOI game. Nothing will convince the DWP that it should publish the UC reports in question. Nothing will convince the DWP that it should publish any of its reports on any of its major IT-related projects or programmes.

If they need to, Iain Duncan Smith or Lord Freud, his minister, will simply sign a ministerial veto preventing publication of the UC reports under the FOI Act. If there is a legal challenge to the veto, as with the veto on the release of Prince Charles’ letters, IDS will be pleased to have the matter kicked into touch; and while the legalities stretch out over years the UC reports will continue to moulder in locked DWP cupboards.. Eventually they may be released – when they are so old nobody will care what they say. Or they will have disintegrated ( and no, the DWP doesn’t always keep its most secret reports electronically).

That’s what open government means to the DWP… precisely nothing.

Millions of pounds of secret DWP reports

Judge rules that key Universal Credit reports should be published

DWP throws money at keeping Universal Credit reports secret

Too much dishonesty and secrecy over Universal Credit project?

DWP criticised for “worrying” secrecy

DWP refused to release Universal Credit report to MPs

“Outrageous” secrecy at DWP (2005) 

MPs criticise secrecy in DWP IT probe (2004)

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Posted in Campaign4Change, DWP, excessive secrecy, FOI, Freedom of Information, Government IT, IT projects, IT-related failures, Universal Credit

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DWP throws money at keeping Universal Credit reports secret

Posted on 17/04/2014 | 2 comments

By Tony Collins

However much the Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude talks about open government he cannot change a DWP culture rooted in introspection, defensiveness and a resentment of outsiders who want to know how it conducts itself.

“We are determined to turn the rhetoric of transparency into practical effect,” said Maude in a speech. “We know transparency helps root out corruption, exposes inefficiency, and highlights incompetence.”

The message has had little or no effect on the Department for Work and Pensions which is continuing to pour public money into the legal costs of keeping reports on Universal Credit secret.

This week Andrew Robertson, for the Treasury Solicitor, has written to the Information Tribunal to request permission to appeal a Tribunal’s ruling that four reports on the Universal Credit project be published.

The four reports are:

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

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

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

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

In 2012, under the FOI Act, I had requested the UC Project Assessment Review. At around the same time John Slater, who has 25 years experience working in IT and programme and project management, had requested the UC Issues Register, Milestone Schedule and Risk Register.

The Information Commissioner ruled that the DWP could keep secret the Risk Register but should publish the other three reports.

Slater then appealed the ruling that the Risk Register not be disclosed – and won. The DWP appealed the Information Commissioner’s ruling that the other three should be published – and lost.

The “first-tier” Tribunal ruled last month that all four reports should be published.

Now the DWP has sought permission to appeal the Tribunal’s ruling.  As part of its first appeal the DWP’s spent two days in Leicester at an Information Tribunal hearing. The DWP’s legal costs are unknown. It appears unlikely that the DWP has set any limit on the costs of its legal fight to keep the UC reports from being disclosed.

John Slater says in an email to me that the DWP and secretary of state Iain Duncan Smith will do anything within the law to avoid publishing the information he and I have requested. Slater said he would not be surprised if IDS uses the ministerial veto to try and prevent publication.

If the Information Tribunal grants the DWP’s request, its appeal will then go to what is called the Upper Tribunal.

Comment:

Like an electronic birthday card that speaks the same message every time it is opened, the DWP says the same thing every time the Information Commissioner or the Information Tribunal rules that DWP reports on major IT-based projects and programmes should be published.

It doesn’t matter how many times the Commissioner dismisses the DWP’s arguments, the DWP will still argue that civil servants will not be completely candid in their reports if they know that their assessments of risks and problems will be disclosed.

It is unlikely that the DWP looks closely at the reports it is asked to disclose under FOI. More likely it decides to refuse the FOI request and then asks its lawyers to send the usual legal arguments to the requestor.

Clearly the DWP’s senior civil servants have a rigid mindset when defending the need for confidentiality – and it will probably always be so. They argue that the reports, if taken out of context by the media, will give the wrong impression.

The same civil servants don’t realise – or don’t care – that the same arguments were used by Parliamentarians centuries ago to stop the reporting of proceedings of the House of Commons.

Francis Maude has spent nearly four years trying to persuade the DWP and the rest of central government to be open and transparent. But perhaps he needs to have a word with the DWP minister for Universal Credit Lord Freud who has signed off refusals of FOI requests for UC reports.

As Maude says, openness and transparency expose inefficiency, waste and incompetence. Is this, subconsciously, why the DWP is so set against openness and transparency?

Judge rules that key Universal Credit reports be published

 

 

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Posted in Campaign4Change

A welcome boost for agile in government

Posted on 16/04/2014 | 2 comments

By Tony Collins

David Wilks, Digital Performance Manager at Government Digital Service, which is part of the Cabinet Office, says there has been “incredible” interest in clarified guidance that makes it easier for departments to obtain funding for agile projects.

The guidance applies to major projects.

Wilks says on the GDS blog that the guidance will “cut bureaucracy and encourage innovation, making digital transformation easier across government”.

It means that, in most cases, government organisations can spend up to £750,000 on the first two phases of a government agile project, discovery and alpha, on the basis of Cabinet Office spending controls – without needing an HM Treasury business case.

The guidance means:

  • more use of “light-touch” Programme Business Cases
  • using agile discovery to replace the Strategic Outline Case in most cases
  • avoiding the need for a separate Full Business Case stage where procurement uses a pre-competed arrangement such as the Digital Services Framework

“For agile and finance teams in government departments, this guidance clarification has produced incredible interest,” says Wilks.

Comment

It seems fashionable to criticise the use of agile in government, perhaps because agile requires a mindset and culture that may be alien in parts of the civil service. But done well agile could help to modernise and reform central government administration.  It’s not a cure for all the problems of bloated government IT and it has risks, among them:

–  Zeno’s paradox where a project is perpetually on the point of delivering successfully but never actually does, as with the BBC’s Digital Media Initiative.

–  A so-called agile project that combines waterfall and agile approaches. It’s either waterfall or agile. It’s difficult to see how a project can be both. Those projects where there has been a hybrid agile-waterfall approach have not been successful: Universal Credit, the BBC’s DMI and an Oracle IT-related project disaster in Oregon.

That said, investigators of the “Cover Oregon” failure seem now to advocate a purer form of agile as one solution. A highly critical official report into the failure has some positive comments on agile:

“Since September 2013, CO [Cover Oregon] has been utilizing a home grown development process which is based upon agile methodologies. There are seven functional areas within the process, referred to as tables, with each table having a dedicated table lead (a mini project manager) and a dedicated business analyst. This process appears to be well orchestrated.

“Each morning there are daily “scrum” meetings for the different functional areas. While not rigidly adhering to the formal agile scrum format, these meetings serve a valuable purpose in providing a regular opportunity for various parties from a functional area to provide the latest updates on the progress across the outstanding major defects/issues …”

 

With some reservations the Cabinet Office’s initiative to cut bureaucracy and make it easier for departments to adopt agile is welcome.

 

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Posted in Agile, Campaign4Change, Government digital Service, Government IT, Legacy ICT, Oracle, software quality, Universal Credit, US Government

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