Another government IT project failure
 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23963867

Usual names in the frame as well, Accenture and Capgemini + IBM and HP

This is an interesting article:

http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2...iversal-Credit

Reading between the lines, the big hitters were, as per usual, happy to take the money knowing full well they already had one arm tied behind their back and were destined to fail.

What do you honestly expect ?
Too much money available to them and utterly uncountable for any of it, and far too many people wanting to make money on the side for supping kit that's unsuitable. Any non commercial software will be written by someone that has no concept of how the project works and how the people using it wants its to work.

I used to work for the government in IT, what a utter shambles and absolutely zero idea on buying equipment.

Richard

and in the next breath:

Can they ever say anything without lying? I dearly wish all MPs would just f**k off and stop with this daily stream of BS! :mad::mad:

If you took the BS out of MPs, what would they have left to say?

So it hasnt failed....yet. The truth is that all large scale government IT will fail to some extent.

I think if anything the Universal Credit does demonstrate that lessons have been learnt and they have acted much more quickly than in the past to keep it on track.

1) There arent enough good skilled people on the government side to correctly spec, procure and monitor the delivery of very large scale (often specialist) IT. So at best they end up with contractors - who, even if they do bring the skills, will disappear the next time they have a budget restriction

2) The procurement for government is too slow and too costly. It ends up being tied down to the nth degree up front which leaves no flexibility when the requirements inevitably change/evolve. Government is a very poor customer. Private firms usually manage to evolve large deals in-life much more successfully as they're not so paranoid about having the procurement challenged and have far less approval bureaucracy.

And I've been on the supplier side of a large scale government IT contract deal that's just entering its 9th year for some time.

And even if it DOES fail, what's it matter?

WE will still be being fekked for taxes, and there will be juicy directorships for Tory and LibDem Mps...

There are a couple of websites that seem to work on a national scale being HMRC and DVLA.

Attempts at a decent NHS site have cost millions.

My mate was head of purchasing at the Home Office, a big spend. Wise old boy who didn't trust any big gov't IT project so he did his own for just his department and kept quiet about it.

dl

Not so sure the DVLA one is that good.

I put in for a road tax refund in May, with the disc running out at the end of June. I got the normal "thanks for letting us know that you've sold the vehicle" letter in May, and then in July, I got a letter from them saying I couldn't have a tax refund as they didn't know the reason for it. I returned the letter ticking the box saying I had sold the vehicle in May, and they've just written back to me saying I won't be refunded any monies, because they can't be back dated, and I only provided the information as to why I wanted a refund on the 18th August........

Mind you, I'm not sure that's an IT issue, more a bureaucracy one, but still one that makes you want to punch somebody.

dl

The NHS IT fiasco didn't waste millions, it was a shed load more.............at the last count we chucked 13 billion down the pan !

Shaun

The NHS was paying £2000 a day for IT contractors. Not £13 billion surely :eek:

Just heard there is another £300m floating around on the Universal Credit scheme which no one is quite sure about.

dl

Really?? We pay less in taxes than just about anywhere in Europe.

As I keep saying, we are very unlucky with the abilities and sense of responsibilities of our politicians these days.

Trouble is they never seem to be under any kind of personal threat when they make these major screw ups!

Les

Just like any senior banker, utilities company senior staff, etc, etc.

Once they get to a certain level, a major job perk seems to be raping the nation with no accountability.

Proof?

And include them all, including all labour's stealth taxes please?

dl

Yep, the EPR (Electronic Patient Record) fiasco cost the NHS 13 billion........... just spent the day writing on bits of paper LOL

"Dogged with problems" in 2008

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...ient-care.html

Now abandoned.

Shaun

Well we get £9,440 at zero % income tax, and the following £32,010 at 20%. So a salary of say £35,000 is taxed at just 15%.

The same salary is taxed at 45% in France, 45% in Germany, 45% in Italy, 42% in Spain.





Corporation tax is dropping to 20% here, 33% in France, 30% in Germany, 30% in Italy, 30% in Spain.





When VAT was 17.5% it was the lowest in Europe (of the VAT charging countries), and now at 20% is only 1% above Germany and France and still lower than Italy and Spain.





Fuel in the UK is cheaper than Germany, Italy and France.





Capital gains tax is cheaper in the UK than the other big four countries.





UK VED / Road Tax is £275 for my Scooby, could be up to £500ish. In Spain it's E220, in Germany it's approximately E250 but can rise to E500 and the French have pretty expensive toll roads.




The French also have to pay council tax, buy TV licences, 5% stamp duty when buying homes, 19% VAT when building a new home, they pay social security.




Unless you want to compare the UK with countries like Albania, Serbia, Romania, or tiny tax havens like Monaco, then we really are taxed far less heavily than mainland Europe.