Tag Archives: Francis Maude

Cabinet Office promises unprecedented openness on risky projects

Posted on 13/06/2012 | 2 comments

By Tony Collins

The Cabinet Office has defended its decision not to publish “Gateway” review reports on the progress or otherwise of large and risky IT and construction projects.

Gateway reviews are regular, short and independent audits on the state of medium and high-risk projects. Their publication would allow  MPs and the public to have an early warning of a major project in trouble – rather than know of a project failure only after it has happened.

Campaigners have sought for a decade to have the review reports published; and the  Information Commissioner, in requiring the publishing of ID Card gateway reviews under FOI,  dismissed the generalised arguments put forward by officials for Gateway reviews to remain confidential.

The Conservatives, when in opposition, promised to publish Gateway review reports if they came to power. But departmental heads and senior officials have stopped this happening.

Now the Cabinet Office, in a statement to The Guardian, has suggested that the first annual report of the Major Projects Authority will more than compensate for the non-publication of Gateway review reports.

The statement says that the Authority’s ( delayed)  first annual report will “bring unprecedented scrutiny and transparency to our most expensive and highest risk programmes, changing forever the culture of secrecy that has allowed failure to be swept under the carpet”.

The statement continues:

“Historically, fewer than a third of government major projects have delivered to original estimates of time, cost and quality. Since April 2011 the Major Projects Authority has enforced a tough new assurance regime and begun raising leadership standards within the Civil Service.”

The Guardian asked the Cabinet Office whether the traffic light red/amber/green status of Gateway reviews will be published.  The spokesman replied:

“The annual report will contain details of the status of major projects.“

Comment:

We applaud the Major Projects Authority in scrutinising, and in rare cases helping to stop,  departmental projects that don’t have adequate business cases. The Authority’s work is vital in pre-empting ridiculous schemes such as the NPfIT.

But project  disasters that rely on  IT continue, at the Ministry of Justice for example.  Like the National Audit Office, the  Major Projects Authority has limited resources and cannot scrutinise everything. Even if it could, the system of government is not set up in such a way as to allow the Authority to have final say over whether a project is stopped, curbed or re-negotiated.

Preventing failure

Gateway review reports are a critical component in preventing IT-related project failures. If officials know the whistle is going to be authoritatively blown on their failing schemes they are likely to do all they can to avoid failure in the first place. If they know that nobody will be aware of doomed schemes until those involved have left or moved, they will have less incentive to make projects a success.

An annual report is no substitute for the contemporaneous publishing of Gateway review reports. Each Gateway review is several pages and puts into context the traffic light red/amber/green status of the project. An annual report will not contain every Gateway review report. If just the traffic light status is published that will be a start, but without the context of the report what will it mean?

[And it’s worth bearing in mind that the first annual report of the Major Projects Authority is already six months late.]

The non-publication of Gateway review reports is  a victory by senior officials over ministerial promises.  How can we believe that the coalition is committed to unprecedented openness when the final say remains with Sir Humphrey?

Cabinet Office promises to challenge culture of secrecy on IT projects.

Whitehall to relent on secrecy over mega projects?

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Posted in change, change management, cost avoidance, cost reduction, excessive secrecy, Freedom of Information, Gateway reviews, government, Government IT, IT projects, IT-related failures, openness and transparency, operational issues, Politics, reducing cost strategically

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Francis Maude talks open govt – and Whitehall does the opposite

Posted on 12/06/2012 | Leave a comment

By Tony Collins

“If people do not know what you’re doing, they don’t know what you’re doing wrong.” – Sir Arnold Robinson, Cabinet Secretary in a discussion on open government in Yes Minister.

Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, said all the right things at the Intellect World Class Public Services conference 2012.

He said that:

– smaller, innovative and efficient suppliers were finding themselves locked out of the supply of services to Government because of what was described by Parliament as a powerful “oligopoly” of large suppliers

– for the first time in Government “we are using agile, iterative processes, open source technology platforms and world-class in-house development teams alongside the best digital innovation the market can offer”

– “We must eliminate failure waste. At the moment, a large proportion of our service delivery costs are incurred through incomplete or failed digital transactions. And these transactions create cross-channel duplication, which burdens the user and costs Government a huge amount in repeated costs. For HMRC alone, they estimate that 35% of calls to its contact centres are avoidable, which would save £75m.”

– “Transparency is a defining passion for this Government …”

Comment:

How much influence does Maude really have? Can he persuade permanent secretaries to effect major change? The evidence so far is that departmental officials and Maude have different ideas on what reform means.

In “Yes Minister” civil servants were proud of a new hospital that was the best run and most hygienic in the country, with no medical staff, 500 administrators and no patients.

Maude may also recall that Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, the acclaimed writers of Yes Minister, spoke of the Whitehall law of inverse relevance – “the less you intend to do about something, the more you have to keep talking about it”.

Open government? 

Perhaps civil servants are letting Maude get on with talking the talk while they find every way to keep things much as they are. A good example: The Guardian reported yesterday that a key part of the Government’s transparency drive has stalled amid reports of ministry opposition.

The paper’s political editor Patrick Wintour reported that plans to publish regular ‘traffic-light’ progress reports on large, costly and risky IT projects “appear to have been shelved”.

When it comes to IT this could have been the coalition’s most important single reform. It would have given MPs and the public a way of knowing when mega projects such as Universal Credit are failing. Usually we don’t know about a failed IT-related project unless there is a leak to the media, or the National Audit Office finds out and decides, with its limited budget, to do a study.

Sir Bob Kerslake, who is head of the civil service,  had indicated to MP Richard Bacon that “Gateway” review reports on large and risky IT and construction projects may be published in the civil service reform plan which is expected to be released this month.

Gateway reports to go unpublished?

Now it seems that departmental civil servants  have persuaded the Sir Bob not to publish “Gateway” reports. So the secrecy over the progress or otherwise of government mega projects is set to continue.

Yes, civil servants will allow the Cabinet Office to have its way on the publication of data about, say, some government spending. But it’s becoming clear that the civil service will not allow any publication of its reports on the progress or otherwise of major projects. It has been that way since Gateway reviews were introduced in 2001.

Some senior officials – by no means all – say they want a confidential “safe space” to discuss the progress of projects. The reality is that they do not want outsiders – MPs, the media and NAO auditors – meddling in their failing schemes – schemes such as Firecontrol and e-filing at the Ministry of Justice.

Unlike Maude, senior civil servants have what Jay and Lynn call a “flexible approach to open government”. This means in practice that Whitehall will happily release data – but not project reports on which the civil servants themselves can be judged.

Activity is not achievement

Maude’s speeches will give the impression of activity. But activity is the civil service’s substitute for achievement. I quote Jay and Lynn again, in part because their depiction of Whitehall seems to have been taken as serious wisdom by those officials who think Sir Humphrey a character worth living up to.

It’s time Maude and his team got a grip on departments. Until they do, permanent secretaries and their senior officials will regard Maude as trying to get out of situations that don’t need getting out of.

Whitehall to relent on secrecy over mega projects?

The empty hospital – Yes Minister

Government’s transparency drive stalls.

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Posted in Campaign4Change, change management, cost avoidance, cost reduction, culture, excessive secrecy, Gateway reviews, Government IT, IT-related failures, Major Projects Authority, openness and transparency, oversight, Politics, SME

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Whitehall to relent on secrecy over mega projects – after 10-year campaign?

Posted on 29/05/2012 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

The Cabinet Office may be about to change its decade-old policy of not publishing reports on  the progress or otherwise of its large, costly and risky IT-based projects.

A change of policy from secrecy to openness would give MPs and the public warning of when a major project is in trouble and needs rescuing or cancelling.

Parliament last to know

For more than a decade campaigners have sought to persuade successive governments to publish “Gateway” reviews, which are short independent audits on the state of big projects.  The secrecy has meant that Parliament is usually the last to know when new national schemes go wrong. IT-related failures have hit many public services including those related to tax, benefits, immigration, passports, the fire service, prisons, schools examinations, student loans, the police and health services.

Now Sir Bob Kerslake, head of the civil service, has hinted to campaigning Conservative MP Richard Bacon that the Cabinet Office may change its policy and publish the “red, amber, green” status of large projects as they are routinely assessed.

Kerslake was replying to Bacon at a hearing of the Public Accounts Committee meeting on transparency. Bacon pointed out at the hearing that the Public Accounts Committee had, years ago, called for Gateway reviews to be published.

Not learning from mistakes

“Something I have always been puzzled by is why government does not learn from its mistakes particularly but not only in the area of IT where things go wrong again and again, again and again,” said Bacon. “I have come to the conclusion government does not learn from its mistakes because it does not have a learning curve. If you don’t have a learning curve you are not going to learn.”

He cited the example of how Ian Watmore, Permanent Secretary at the Cabinet Office, had, at Bacon’s request, arranged for an “Opening Gate” report on Universal Credit to be published in the House of Commons library.

But, said Bacon, when an IT journalist applied to the Department for Work and Pensions, under the FOI Act, for the release of all Gateway reports on Universal Credit, the DWP would not publish any of them  – and even refused an FOI request to release the report Watmore had arranged to be placed in the House of Commons library, which Bacon obtained.  “So there is still a culture of intuitive, instinctive secrecy,”  Bacon said. Kerslake replied:

“Yes, actually we are looking at this specific issue as part of the Civil Service Reform Plan….I cannot say exactly what will be in the plan because we have not finalised it yet, but it is due in June and my expectation is that I am very sympathetic to publication of the RAG [red, amber, green] ratings.”

Bacon pointed out that the Cabinet Office Structural Reform Plan Monthly Implementation Updates had said Gateway reviews would be published.  But the commitment was removed for no apparent reason. When the Cabinet Office was asked why,  it said the Structural Reform Plans were only ever “drafts”.

Bacon asked Kerslake if the Government now plans to publish the Gateway reports.  “The Cabinet Office Structural Reform Plan Monthly Implementation Updates originally said Gateway reviews would be published  and then it somehow got downgraded into a draft; and from what’s publicly available at the moment the position of the government is not to publish Gateway reviews.  You sound as if you’re saying that’s going to change. Is that right?” asked Bacon.

“Watch this space,” replied Kerslake. “I am sympathetic. I generally broadly welcome, in principle, the idea of publishing information but there are lots of risks …”

Peter Gershon introduced Gateway reviews when he was Chief Executive of the Office of Government Commerce, which is now part of the Cabinet Office’s Efficiency and Reform Group. The reviews are carried out at key decision times in a project and are sometimes repeated:

  • Gateway Review 0 – Strategic assessment
  • Gateway Review 1 – Business justification
  • Gateway Review 2 – Procurement strategy
  • Gateway Review 3 – Investment decision
  • Gateway Review 4 – Readiness for service
  • Gateway Review 5 – Benefits realisation

Are Gateway reviews a success?

Gateway reviews are now supplemented by regular assurance audits carried out for the Cabinet Office’s Major Projects Authority. None of the reports is published.

Gateway reviews have not stopped costly failures such as Firecontrol or the NPfIT.  One permanent secretary told an MP that the reviews in his department were considered unimportant by senior responsible owners, for whom the reports are written. This may be because SROs often have charge of many projects; and even their SRO responsibilities are often in addition to their main jobs.

But Gershon had high hopes of Gateway reviews when they were introduced in February 2001. This is evident from the number of times he referred to Gateway reviews at one hearing of the Public Accounts Committee in December 2001.

 “… as the Gateway review process cuts in, which I have referred to on a number of occasions when I have appeared at this Committee …”

“… Through things like the Gateway process we are helping to sharpen the focus on the whole life aspects of these and other forms of complex projects in public sector procurement…”

“ …First, we have the introduction of the Gateway review process…”

“ … The Gateway process is a demonstrable example of how we have introduced a technique to support that whole life approach…”

“… If you look at the guidelines around the Gateway review process that is one of the things that is tested by these independent reviews …”

“… we recognised that that was a problem some time ago, which is why in the Gateway review one of the things that is explicitly tested is things like the skills and capabilities of the team at the design and build stage and that the skills and capabilities of the team at the procurement stage …”

“… in this area with the Gateway review process, from when we first launched it last February, we have been helping the department take a whole life approach to these forms of complex projects …”

“… Part of the Gateway Review process is to get a much sharper insight on to where we see good things happening where we can encourage other clients to replicate them…”

“… Now, with the Gateway Review process, my experience has been because of where we have deliberately focused the attention on the early life of projects where there is the greater scope for management to take corrective action, the accounting officers are paying a lot of attention to the recommendations that are emerging because, much to my surprise, most of them do not seem to like coming here defending what has gone wrong in the past. They seem to welcome the recommendations that we are providing to them to help try to get projects on to much stronger foundations in the future…”

“… With the Gateway Review, my experience has been that the Accounting Officers respond to the recommendations very positively…”

“…Gateway Reviews explicitly test how the department is planning in the pre-contract phase to secure ongoing value for money in the post-contract phase…”

“… Take, firstly, the Gateway Review process. That is testing various points in the life cycle of the project, from the very earliest stage…”

“… I would certainly expect in Gateway Reviews that the review team would be testing what methods were in place to facilitate the ongoing management of the contract…”

“… I think it is encouraging that Sir Ian Byatt thought the Gateway Review process had sufficient value to recommend it in his own review…”

And so forth.

Comment:

We applaud Richard Bacon MP for his persistent call for Gateway reports to be published.

Gateway reviews have defeated expectations that they would stop failures; and the National Audit Office tells us that central departments don’t even request Gateway reviews on some big and risky projects although they are supposed to be mandatory.

But Gateway and other project assurance reports could prove invaluable if they are published. In the public domain the reports would enable Parliament and Francis Maude’s “armchair auditors” to hold officials and SROs to account for projects that are in danger of failing. That would be an incentive for officialdom to fail early and fail cheaply; and Gateway reviewers may take greater care to be neutral in their findings – not too lenient, or too harsh – on the basis that the reports would be open to public scrutiny. SROs would also have to take the review reports seriously – not just put them in a draw because nobody knows about them anyway.

We welcome Kerslake’s comments but hope that he and his colleagues plan to publish more than the RAG (Red/Amber/Green) status of projects. Otherwise they will be missing an opportunity.  Gateway reports and other assurance reviews are expensive. Reviewers can earn up to £1,000 a day. This money  could be well spent if the reviews are to be published; but it will add to public waste if the reports are kept secret and continue to be deemed pointless or unimportant by departments.

It is ironic, incidentally, that the Ministry of Justice, which introduced the FOI Act, gives advice to departments to keep the RAG status of Gateway reviews confidential. In its advice on Gateway reviews and the FOI, the MoJ tells departments that the “working assumption” is that the substance of the Gateway reports should be kept confidential until at least two years have elapsed.

It’s time for a culture change. Maybe the Civil Service Reform Plan next month will be worth reading.

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Posted in change management, cost reduction, culture, excessive secrecy, Freedom of Information, Gateway reviews, Government IT, IT-related failures, Major Projects Authority, managing change, NHS, npfit, openness and transparency, oversight, Politics, project management, public sector, public services, Universal Credit

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Farewell to Ian Watmore – the antithesis of Sir Humphrey

Posted on 17/05/2012 | 4 comments

By Tony Collins

A good insight into the departure of Ian Watmore comes from Peter Smith of Spend Matters who says:

 “He (Watmore) lives in Cheshire still (and does a weekly commute to London) and this seems to be driven by personal factors – he wants to do more non-executive stuff,  work with charities, education bodies, and support his wife who is being ordained as a vicar shortly.

“There will be a competition to replace him but Melanie Dawes (?) will be the interim Perm Sec.”

Watmore leaves in June at the height of his civil service career. It would be too easy to cite his background as UK Managing Director of Accenture to say that he came to the civil service with a sympathy for big suppliers and not upsetting the smooth-running of the government IT machine.

Indeed he will not go down in civil service history as a heavy-handed enforcer of central government reforms: he respects too much the work of senior civil servants and particularly CIO colleagues to be seen as an opponent whose will cannot be overcome.

Rather he has been an authoritative go-between, a pragmatist who has sought to implement the radical cost-saving measures demanded by the Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude without giving departments any excuse to cite central diktats as the reason for disruption to frontline services.

Watmore gave an insight into his relationship with Maude at a Parliamentary committee hearing earlier this year. His comments also exploded the myth that the private and public sectors can be run on comparable lines.

“I have been on both sides of the divide on private and public,” said Watmore. “The thing that is different about  the public sector is the combination of leadership from the ministerial class and the civil service class. There is no corporate analogue for it. People talk about the way it analogises to the business world—I don’t think it does; it is different…

“I work on a daily basis with Francis Maude. I am not going to make any political comments about Francis, but as a man I feel that he cares about what he is doing;  he knows his stuff and he drives us very hard. In response, I give, shall we say, robust advice in return. Mostly, he listens and sometimes I defer to him and we come back to the same place we started, but more often than not we flesh out the differences behind closed doors and then we come out on a united front. I think that is the best way to get civil service and ministerial leadership. If you have a weakness in one part or the other, the whole thing breaks down.”

At Campaign4Change we will remember Watmore’s career in the civil service for his openness, honesty and lack of ego.

When answering questions before Parliamentary committees, some permanent secretaries seem to see MPs as adversaries. These civil servants’ replies are characterised by clever, evasive or adversarial comments.  They apologise if the mistakes were before their time but usually they’re protective of their departments, as if defending their children against criticism by outsiders.

Watmore is the antithesis of the archetypal civil servant.  Whereas, for example, most civil servants want to keep confidential internal “Gateway” reports on the progress or otherwise of high-risk IT and construction projects, Watmore is on record as saying he would like them published (though they haven’t been).

And he has earned respect among MPs for his straightforwardness. He’ll speak lucidly on his department’s achievements, but not his own.

How much effect he has had on other departments is hard to gauge. It’s difficult to see how the most ruthless enforcer in the Cabinet Office could ever have much influence in other departments.

For though the Cabinet Office has powers from David Cameron to enforce cost-savings,  departmental heads remain accountable for their own decisions. Watmore has spoken of the tensions between the Cabinet Office and departments.  He told MPs earlier this year:

“There are lots of examples where we and Departments have common cause. There will be times when we challenge what they want to do and it can be a tense relationship. Sometimes we agree with what they were going to do anyway, and other times they agree with us, but it means that we are engaging with them.”

Chair: How well is it working on a scale of one to 10 … on the cross-departmental working?

Watmore: “On the whole cross-departmental working, I would say it is somewhere around the six or seven mark. There is more to do.”

Watmore shuns the trappings of high office.  He doesn’t even have an office. “I refuse to have one,” he told MPs this year. “I don’t believe in physical offices for managers. I hot-desk wherever I happen to feel it is appropriate to work that week…

“What I tend to do is I move around and I sit with a different group in the Cabinet Office for a week. Initially people think it is a bit odd having the Permanent Secretary sitting next to them but once you carry on as normal they realise you are just another person working there.

“You actually get to find out quite a lot about how the operation works by being there with the staff for a week as well as hearing from them in a more formal setting…

“It is how I operated when I was in business so it is a long-term way of working. But when I came into Government I discovered it by accident; when I wanted to move the staff from two different bits of Government into a new building and introduce flexible working, hot-desking and all the rest of it, I said, ‘If it is good enough for the rest of the staff, it should be good enough for me…’

Will Maude find someone authoritative and influential but without a big ego to replace Watmore at the top of the Cabinet Office? A difficult assignment.

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Posted in capacity building, efficiency savings, governance, Government IT, Major Projects Authority, openness and transparency, procurement, public sector, supplier relationships

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Whitehall defies NAO and Cameron on publishing status of big projects

Posted on 02/05/2012 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

Government action to cut the number of failures of big projects including those with a major ICT component has made a difference, the National Audit Office reports today.

In its report “Assurance for major projects”  the NAO is largely supportive of actions by the Government, , the Cabinet Office’s Major Projects Authority and the Treasury in setting up reviews of major high-risk projects, including ICT-based programmes, to ensure that if they are failing they are put back on track or cancelled.

The NAO says the Government’s decision to “dismantle” the NPfIT was taken after the project was assessed by the Major Projects Authority.

But the report also shows how civil servants have managed to defy a mandate from the Prime Minister, and a separate NAO recommendation in 2010, for information on the status of big ICT and other high-risk projects to be published.

Says the NAO report

“The ambition to publish project information, as part of the government’s transparency agenda, has not been met.

“Our 2010 report recommended that the government should publicly report project status. We consider that public reporting of project information is key to providing greater accountability for projects and improving project outcomes… Regular transparent reporting of performance which highlights successes and non-compliance would also help to build an enduring assurance system.”

Separately in the report the NAO says

“There has been a lack of progress on transparency.  The [Cabinet Office’s Major Projects] Authority has not yet met its commitment to publish project information in line with government’s transparency agenda. The Authority cannot deliver this objective on its own. Senior level discussions are ongoing, between Cabinet Office, HM Treasury and departments, on the arrangements for public reporting.”

Should ministers intevene to force publication?

But the NAO report does not raise the question of why ministers have not intervened to force civil servants to publish the status information on high-risk projects.

Campaign4Changehas argued that publishing status reports on big ICT projects and programmes would be the most effective single action any government could take to reduce the number of failures. (see “Comment” below)

Prime Minister’s 2011 mandate

The NAO’s 2010 recommendation for status information on major projects to be published was backed by a mandate from the Prime Minister in January 2011 which included the undertaking to “require publication of project information consistent with the Coalition’s transparency agenda”.

The House of Commons’ Public Accounts Committee has recommended that departments publish information on the state of their major IT-based projects and programmes; and the Information Commissioner has rejected civil service arguments for not publishing such information.

In addition Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, said, when in opposition, that the Conservatives, if they gained power,  would publish “Gateway” review reports soon after they are completed.  Gateway reports are similar to the assurance reviews carried out for the Major Projects Authority.

Yet none of this has happened.

The “rebel” civil servants

How is it that a group of civil servants who are opposed to publishing information on the status of large risky projects can defy the Prime Minister, Francis Maude, the National Audit Office, and the all-party Public Accounts Committee? Those recalcitrant civil servants argue that assurance reviewers would not tell the whole truth if they knew their assessments would be made public.

But how do we know they tell the whole truth when the reports are kept confidential? The Information Commissioner has pointed out in the past that civil servants have a public duty to be candid and honest. If they are not because their reports are to be published, they are failing in their public duty.

Today’s NAO report says there are differences of opinion among civil servants over whether to publish status information on projects.

Says the NAO

“There has been some support for greater transparency from departments who believe that tracking and publishing major milestones could create helpful tension in the system.

“However, concerns have been raised that increased transparency could limit the value of assurance, as it could inhibit assurance reviewers and project staff holding full and frank discussions.

“Some senior project staff also have concerns that public reporting could have a negative commercial impact, and would prefer delayed rather than real-time public reporting.”

The Cabinet Office told Campaign4Change in 2010 and 2011 that instead of publishing status reports on each major project, it will publish an annual report on the state of its programmes.

But that hasn’t happened either.

Says the NAO:

“As well as the objective to publish project information, the [Major Projects] Authority has not yet met its objective to publish an annual report on government’s major projects.

“The Authority initially expected to publish an annual report in December 2011 but is now expecting the report to be published in May or June 2012. The format of the annual report, and the information it will contain, has yet to be decided.”

Comment:

Many times over the last 20 years I have said that publishing status reports on major IT-based projects and programmes would be the most effective single action any government could take to deter departments from going ahead with overly ambitious schemes that are doomed to fail. If, against good sense, impractical schemes are approved, publishing status information will make all the difference.

Permanent secretaries will not lose sleep over a failing project, but they will not want information on it published – which is why that information should be published.

Publishing status information would give civil servants a good reason to tackle weaknesses as they developed.  Permanent secretaries may not mind losing public money on a failing project or programme. They will always fear embarrassment, however.

Who is really in control of Whitehall – civil servants or No 10? David Cameron’s office has issued a mandate that requires status information on projects to be published. The NAO has issued a similar recommendation. How long can the civil service hold out against the political will?

Links:

NAO report – Assurance for major projects

Firecontrol – same mistakes repeated on other projects

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Posted in cost reduction, culture, excessive secrecy, Freedom of Information, Gateway reviews, Government IT, IT projects, IT-related failures, Major Projects Authority, openness and transparency, operational issues, private sector lessons for the public sector, project management, public sector

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Government publishes data on £70 billion of future contracts

Posted on 27/04/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

The Government has published data on £70 billion of potential future government contracts, with Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude arguing that the move marks a new era in openness about its long-term business needs.

“We have published details of £70 billion of potential Government business. Publishing data on what we plan to buy – whether it’s tunnels or computers – means we can identify skills gaps sooner and give industry a heads up so UK businesses are in a better position to compete,” he said.

The data published of potential future contracts over the next five years, covers 13 different sectors including construction, property, medical and police equipment. The publication of the data increases the potential opportunities for SMEs to bid for government business.

Information Age magazine has reported that the £70bn includes £2.5bn worth of IT projects.

Data on the contracts can be found at Contracts Finder

£70 billion of potential government business published to boost UK growth

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Posted in Campaign4Change, government, Government IT, procurement, SME

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Maude responds to fears over data-sharing between government agencies

Posted on 26/04/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has responded to a Guardian story which reported that ministers are planning to shake up the law on using confidential personal data to make it easier for public-sector organisations to share confidential information supplied by the public.

The article had argued that “the proposals are similar to ‘database state’ legislation abandoned by the last Labour government in 2009 in the face of fierce opposition. That legislation was intended to reverse the basic data protection principle that sensitive personal information provided to one government agency should not normally be provided to another agency for a different purpose without explicit consent.”

Maude has responded to the Guardian piece, saying, “One of the guiding principles of this Government is the restoration of civil liberties and rolling back the intrusive state; that is why one of our first legislative acts was to scrap ID cards. So it is wrong to say our proposals are similar to the previous government’s abandoned “database state” legislation.

“We want people to be able to interact with government online, for example, in applying for benefits or a disabled parking permit, in a way that is quick, easy and secure. To do this we need to give them a way of proving their identity online, but only if they choose to. This would be done without a national, central scheme.

“This is all about putting the citizen in charge, not the state. But we are still taking great care to carefully consult on our plans. Throughout all our work in this area we have proactively engaged with privacy and consumer groups including NO2ID, Privacy International, Which?, London School of Economics, Oxford Internet Institute and Big Brother Watch.

“In June the Cabinet Office will publish, in a white paper, plans for improving data-linking across government. What will not be published in this white paper are any “fast-track” proposals that would require changes to the existing legislative landscape. Any such proposals will need careful consideration with the involvement of the public and interest groups with whom we will continue to engage.

“This is not a question of increasing the volume of data-sharing that takes place across government, but ensuring an appropriate framework is in place so that government can deliver more effective, joined-up and personalised public services, through effective data-linking.”

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Posted in data sharing, government, Government IT, openness and transparency

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How the Government plans to ensure IT projects have a lifetime cost of under £100m

Posted on 29/03/2012 | Leave a comment

By David Bicknell

The Government has issued a Procurement Policy Note that sets out its thinking behind the policy that individual ICT contracts or projects should have a lifetime cost of less than £100m.

It says the £100m limit will apply to all future ICT projects, “unless a strong case can be made that doing so increases the overall cost to the taxpayer, notably increases the risk of failure or increases the security threat to the public body or Government as a whole.”

It adds that in future, “government IT contracts will be more flexible, starting with two areas (application software and infrastructure IT). The Government is introducing set breakpoints in IT contracts so there is less money locked into large lengthy contracts. The Government will look to disaggregate future contracts and deliver more flexible, cheaper solutions. This opens up opportunities for SMEs and reduces the cost to taxpayers.”

Its guidance, which takes effect from 1st April, applies to all central government departments, their agencies and non departmental public bodies and is particularly intended for those with a purchasing role.

In background notes, the briefing says:

  • The £100m threshold relates to all ICT contracts or projects where the total value over the life of the contract exceeds £100m regardless of how the contract is funded. It includes frameworks as well as individual call offs from frameworks. A case may be made for exemption from this policy on the grounds of national security or continuity of a critical Government service.

Based on this, the policy aims are as follows:

  • To reduce the risk of single supplier failure within a large project;
  • To increase competition and innovation by enabling more suppliers to bid and take part in projects, thereby increasing value to the taxpayer;
  • To procure contracts in a way which ensures maximum possible benefit to the maximum number of parties – for example, ensuring that infrastructure/services which are procured can be used by more than one department.

In a foreword, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude says:

“The Government believes that business is the driver of economic growth and innovation, and that we need to take urgent action to boost enterprise and build a new and more responsible economic model. We want to create a fairer and more balanced economy, where we are not so dependent on a narrow range of economic sectors, and where new businesses and economic opportunities are more evenly shared between regions and industries. This guidance is founded on a desire to minimise the risk around high value contracts and ensure that Government always seeks the best possible value for money when procuring large ICT contracts.

“In the Coalition Programme the Government made a commitment to promote small business procurement in particular by introducing an aspiration that 25% of government contracts should be awarded to small and medium sized businesses. To deliver this aspiration the Prime Minister and The Minister for the Cabinet Office announced, on the 11th February 2011, a far reaching package of measures to open up public procurement to small and medium sized enterprises. The Government ICT Strategy, published at the end of March 2011 outlined a new approach to ICT procurement that improves contract delivery timelines and reduces the risk of project failure, enables greater use of SMEs, a much shorter timescale and lower costs to all parties.

“We will end the practice of attempting to cover every requirement in great detail and cover every legal eventuality in every project and contract, thereby increasing the procurement cost and timescales to all parties to unacceptable levels. We will do this by focusing on the 80/20 rule, simplifying to the core components of the requirements at every level and at every stage of a project.

On SMEs, G-Cloud and Open Systems, the policy note says procurement will:

  • Ensure value for money, competition and innovation by ensuring that small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are freely able to bid. Ensuring that any procurement process we use does not unnecessarily exclude them due to price, risk or resource associated with bidding activity. This includes reviewing our criteria and evidence required as part of the contract award process for items that might be relevant to a large company only. However, SMEs will be treated no differently in evaluation of capability, financial stability, or their ability to provide ongoing support, etc.
  • Ensure visibility of innovation and encourage mass purchasing of solutions available from both within the public sector and the private sector by creating a quality assured Government Cloud based procurement vehicle for Government, which enables all sizes of organisations to showcase their products, services, solutions etc. This service would also enable government to market and sell any unwanted assets it might own.
  • Encourage and maximise the use of Open Source/Open Standards whenever possible and where it represents a value for money solution, allowing department to re-use code, designs, templates etc. ensuring that work is not duplicated.

Comment

The Government’s aspiration to have individual ICT contracts or projects with a lifetime cost of less than £100m is a worthy one. But the proof of the pudding, as always, is in the eating. And we haven’t seen the pudding yet.

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Posted in Campaign4Change, Cloud, G-Cloud, government, Government IT, IT projects, open source, SME

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Should Francis Maude say “no” to so many projects?

Posted on 23/03/2012 | Leave a comment

By Tony Collins

When Jack Straw was Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor, he told MPs on the Constitutional Affairs Committee in 2007 that when he abandoned projects there was a fuss at first and soon nobody noticed the project did not exist.

“There is always the option to abandon things. I did that in the Foreign Office with much complaint that the world might end.

“What happened was that we saved a lot of money and no one ever noticed the fact that that scheme did not exist…it is very frustrating that so many people, including the private sector, are taken in by snake oil salesmen from IT contractor who are not necessarily very competent and make a lot of money out of these things. I am pretty intolerant of this.”

Andrew Tyrie (Conservative): Do you suggest that the public sector has been taken in by snake oil salesmen?

Straw: I am saying that we are all taken in. There are plenty of disastrous IT examples in the private sector, BP and Sainsbury being two of them.

Tyrie: I was looking at the public sector.

Straw:

“I was looking at both. I think we all face problems whereby unless we are total IT experts there is a danger of being taken in by snake oil salesmen… It is a real problem and it is one that is inherent in IT; it is not just a problem for the public sector.

“The difficulty is that in the case of the public sector it is taxpayers’ money, not shareholders’ or customers’ money, and the mistakes are much more visible, but plenty of companies in the private sector have similar problems.”

Comment:

Should the Cabinet Office Francis Maude say “no” to so many projects? Clearly he’s doing the right thing if Straw’s remarks are anything go by. Would a  private sector board that has to watch every penny launch costly IT-related projects that weren’t really needed?

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Posted in Campaign4Change, cost avoidance, efficiency savings, Government IT, IT projects, IT-related failures, private sector lessons for the public sector, project management, public sector, reducing cost strategically, supplier relationships

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Francis Maude reforms by saying “no” – a “massive” number of times

Posted on 23/03/2012 | 1 comment

By Tony Collins

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has intervened to reject departmental projects a “massive” number of times says Ian Watmore, Cabinet Office permanent secretary and former Government CIO.

Evidence Ian Watmore gave to the Public Administration Committee last week suggests that the Cabinet Office’s saying “no” repeatedly to departmental projects has changed behaviours within the civil service.

Watmore, the Cabinet Office’s permanent secretary, told Tory MP Charlie Elphicke, that Francis Maude and his officials now have the power to challenge departments’ civil servants who try and ignore Cabinet Office recommendations.

“In the past, those controls did not exist so they [officials in departments and agencies] could ignore us if they wanted to and carry on as before,” said Watmore. “Under the new regime, they cannot do that because in the end, if they ignore the recommendations that we come to, then they have to seek approval for the expenditure they were going to make on their projects and Francis Maude would, in his own words, happily say ‘no’ in such situations, and say ‘no’ again until people actually came to the table and changed what they were doing.”

Elphicke: Has he done so to date?

Watmore: Yes, an absolutely massive number of times.

Changing behaviour

Since departments have found it harder to get the Cabinet Office to endorse their projects, departmental officials are now “bringing their plans to us much earlier in the timeframe because they do not want us saying ‘no’ when it is well advanced”,  said Watmore.

“So we are getting into a dialogue with them early on about what the best way of doing something is. When we have agreed on the best way of doing something, when it comes back for approval, it gets nodded through and that is working much more effectively.”

Watmore added that the Cabinet Office’s controls will become redundant over time “because people will behave the right way”. He said: “Like the Carlsberg complaints department was the analogy I had in my head; it exists but it is never used.. At the moment we use it a lot because, left to their own devices, people would do things that were suboptimal when you look at it from across Government.

“Francis Maude is in a position to say, ‘No, you are not doing that. You are going to do it this way and reuse somebody else’s system or somebody else’s way of doing things’. He is very hands-on and vigorous at doing that.

Comment:

Watmore’s evidence confirms that Maude remains the mainspring of change in the way government works. Without Maude the unreasonably costly status quo would prevail.  He may be in danger of spinning. But how many ministers like to say “no”? He is invaluable for that reason alone.

What will happen when Maude is promoted, stands aside or retires?  The minister who likes to say “yes”  will earn the respect of some of his civil servants. The refreshing thing about Maude is that he is happy to take his plaudits from taxpayers, not officialdom.

Watmore’s evidence to the Public Administration Committee, 13 March 2012.

Institute for Government open letter on civil service reforms – the problems and opportunities.

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Posted in Campaign4Change, CIO, compliance with spending review, efficiency savings, Government IT, IT projects, managing change, private sector lessons for the public sector, procurement, project management, reducing cost strategically

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