UK stats body snoozes legacy tech overhaul as Treasury tightens purse strings
(2025/04/07)
- Reference: 1744017314
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/04/07/ons_legacy_migration/
- Source link:
The UK's Office for National Statistics (ONS) is slowing migration away from legacy systems in response to budget limitations set by HM Treasury.
In its [1]Strategic business plan: April 2025 to March 2026 , the ONS – the independent arm's-length body responsible for creating official statistics – warned it would have to put the brakes on a few of its programs because of straitened public spending.
"We have also chosen to protect budgets (in nominal terms) for our range of economic statistics and essential security to protect the data we hold. Finding significant additional funding for survey operations within a 'flat cash' settlement for 2025/26, while absorbing the costs of inflation and civil service pay awards, has required tough choices," it said.
[2]
Included in a number of programs on the back burner is the transition away from legacy IT systems, which it acknowledged would have a financial downside in the long term.
[3]
[4]
"We will limit the pace of our transition away from legacy systems and our ability to move to more agile and productive alternatives, reducing our ability to mitigate our strategic risk in this space, and increasing uncertainty related to future costs," the missive said.
Information from May 2021 suggests the ONS counts the Ingres database and the Lotus Notes information platform among its legacy systems, both of which date back to the last century.
[5]UK government told to get a grip on £23B tech spend
[6]UK govt data people not 'technical,' says ex-Downing St data science head
[7]British govt wants to mainline AI, but its arteries are clogged with legacy tech
[8]Legacy systems running UK's collector are taxing – in more ways than one
"We have made significant progress towards our objective of replacing 80 percent of our legacy services. The migration of legacy services into the VMware-managed service in AWS is underway and will be a key deliverable in exploiting additional services that AWS cloud offers," [9]the update said [PDF].
[10]Contract information suggests [Excel] the ONS had the right to use Lotus Notes software from HCL until March 31, 2024. The Register has asked the ONS to comment.
[11]
The UK's statistics provider has also said it would "remove data science support to the rest of government" as a result of budget restraints.
The move comes as the government aims to make data and digital technologies a central plank of its plans to improve efficiency in the public sector. But a former Number 10 advisor [12]warned last week that a lot of people in government who have senior digital or data roles are not "technologists or data people." ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://uksa.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/publication/strategic-business-plan-2025-to-2026/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Z_OiS1889TeecXgYWLPGDwAAA1Q&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z_OiS1889TeecXgYWLPGDwAAA1Q&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z_OiS1889TeecXgYWLPGDwAAA1Q&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/03/uk_government_told_to_get/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/28/uk_government_data_people/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/26/legacy_systems_uk_ai/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/10/legacy_costs_hmrc/
[9] https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/ictimtisstrategyandorganisationcharts/foi3318onsdigitalandtechnologystrategy202105171.pdf
[10] https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/onscontractsregisterprocurementstrategydocumentandcontactdetails/contractlist.xlsx
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z_OiS1889TeecXgYWLPGDwAAA1Q&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/28/uk_government_data_people/
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
In its [1]Strategic business plan: April 2025 to March 2026 , the ONS – the independent arm's-length body responsible for creating official statistics – warned it would have to put the brakes on a few of its programs because of straitened public spending.
"We have also chosen to protect budgets (in nominal terms) for our range of economic statistics and essential security to protect the data we hold. Finding significant additional funding for survey operations within a 'flat cash' settlement for 2025/26, while absorbing the costs of inflation and civil service pay awards, has required tough choices," it said.
[2]
Included in a number of programs on the back burner is the transition away from legacy IT systems, which it acknowledged would have a financial downside in the long term.
[3]
[4]
"We will limit the pace of our transition away from legacy systems and our ability to move to more agile and productive alternatives, reducing our ability to mitigate our strategic risk in this space, and increasing uncertainty related to future costs," the missive said.
Information from May 2021 suggests the ONS counts the Ingres database and the Lotus Notes information platform among its legacy systems, both of which date back to the last century.
[5]UK government told to get a grip on £23B tech spend
[6]UK govt data people not 'technical,' says ex-Downing St data science head
[7]British govt wants to mainline AI, but its arteries are clogged with legacy tech
[8]Legacy systems running UK's collector are taxing – in more ways than one
"We have made significant progress towards our objective of replacing 80 percent of our legacy services. The migration of legacy services into the VMware-managed service in AWS is underway and will be a key deliverable in exploiting additional services that AWS cloud offers," [9]the update said [PDF].
[10]Contract information suggests [Excel] the ONS had the right to use Lotus Notes software from HCL until March 31, 2024. The Register has asked the ONS to comment.
[11]
The UK's statistics provider has also said it would "remove data science support to the rest of government" as a result of budget restraints.
The move comes as the government aims to make data and digital technologies a central plank of its plans to improve efficiency in the public sector. But a former Number 10 advisor [12]warned last week that a lot of people in government who have senior digital or data roles are not "technologists or data people." ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://uksa.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/publication/strategic-business-plan-2025-to-2026/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Z_OiS1889TeecXgYWLPGDwAAA1Q&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z_OiS1889TeecXgYWLPGDwAAA1Q&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z_OiS1889TeecXgYWLPGDwAAA1Q&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/03/uk_government_told_to_get/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/28/uk_government_data_people/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/26/legacy_systems_uk_ai/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/10/legacy_costs_hmrc/
[9] https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/ictimtisstrategyandorganisationcharts/foi3318onsdigitalandtechnologystrategy202105171.pdf
[10] https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/onscontractsregisterprocurementstrategydocumentandcontactdetails/contractlist.xlsx
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z_OiS1889TeecXgYWLPGDwAAA1Q&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/28/uk_government_data_people/
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Like a badger
All seems consistent: Why rely on humans checking facts and methods, when you can just ask ChatGPT (or any other LLM) to hallucinate a solution to a problem, and fabricate the evidence?
Our AIGov will be so much quicker and cheaper, and the outcomes won't be any worse than traditional approaches. The purpose of politicians was correctly identified by Sir Ernest Benn: "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies". How can AI make that any worse?
"remove data science support to the rest of government"
Coming about five minutes after the PM announced AI was going to be our salvation.