UK govt signs IT contracts 'without understanding' the needs
- Reference: 1646731807
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/03/08/uk_government_it_contracts/
- Source link:
Speaking at a Whitehall event examining priorities for the Central Digital and Data Office, the Cabinet Office's central technology team formed a year ago, Yvonne Gallagher, digital director of the NAO, said engaging commercial partners on major IT projects was "problematic on all sides."
"We found in large scale programmes that, before things start for real, [there is] insufficient thinking, analysis, architecture and design. Often this is actually skipped over," she told the [1]Westminster Forum event yesterday.
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Contracts tended to be created on the basis of outline business cases for projects "without a very good understanding of the requirements," she said.
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"Putting contracts in place too early means that the detail of requirements and complexity start to emerge over time as the programme gets underway," Gallagher told the conference. "It can be a considerable time before they are all known and months can go by in the programme, and then it hurts both sides when all parties get to really understand what's going on, but delivery arrangements have already been fixed with inflexible contracts. I think this is what we see as a major issue that needs more thought [through]."
In [5]its report last year , the NAO singled out the government's hapless Emergency Services Network for being overbudget and overdue. It said the project's costs went from £6.2bn in 2015 to £9.3bn in 2019 – an increase of £3.1bn – while the schedule slipped seven years behind.
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Joanna Davinson, who in her role at the Home Office spent the last three years overseeing the ESN, was [7]appointed to executive director of the UK government's Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO) last year . She is now set to [8]leave her post .
Too few of the most senior civil servants understood digital change projects, Gallagher said, creating risks that they might fail.
"There are generalists in government – I'm not talking about digital specialists – who make a lot of the decisions about the scope, shape, and potentially the outcomes of major digital programmes, when really they are not qualified to do that. Within this, there are often unrealistic ambitions for untested technologies. Anything to do with overambition and then cutting-edge technology is a major problem."
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The problems created by a lack of digital knowledge in senior management extended to managing and migrating from legacy systems. "It means that whilst we have in government a lot of very experienced CIOs, sometimes they just aren't listened to because the non-digital leader can't really understand or fathom what it is that the CIO might be telling them about some of the risks and complexity involved," Gallagher said.
[10]Capgemini wins £30m deal to work on UK customs
[11]NHS Digital's demise bad for 55 million patients' privacy – ex-chairman
[12]HMRC: UK techies' IR35 tax appeals could take years
[13]UK starts to ponder how Huawei ban would work
The NAO director said the number of cross-government projects over the last 25 years revealed how difficult it is to achieve results.
"The ambition for world-class services using joined-up systems and data goes back to the mid-1990s. And from there we can trace a steady stream of policies and initiative right through to the national data strategy in the late 2020s. They've all been good strategies. Most of them cover similar ground. But for us that really points to how hard genuine transformation is. The fact that government has repeatedly set out this vision for radical digital change – and really the pace has been so slow – we had to conclude that it underestimated how easy it is to achieve change in the real world."
Megan Lee, CDDO director of strategy performance and operations who was also speaking at the event, said the CDDO had established a group of permanent secretaries, the most senior civil servants in each Whitehall department.
"Recognising that digital and data is inherently part of how we all do business, we've established a permanent secretary level digital and data board to raise the profile of our agenda across government. We're [also] strengthening our links to communities in the transformation space, in the operation space and beyond," she said.
Lee joined the CDDO from management consultancy McKinsey, which last year [14]won a £3m government contract "seeking expert consultancy support to design the cross-departmental approach to tackling core digital, data and technology (DDaT) priorities, developing cross-government business cases and work plans."
Last summer, an independent report on Organising for Digital Delivery written by the Digital Economy Council, [15]warned of "uncertain quality of technical product delivery" with central government. It added that projects would fail due to a failure to support best practise. ®
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[1] https://www.westminsterforumprojects.co.uk/conference-diary
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Yic3Wca7guDf8@LE2M02hQAAABI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/23/nao_govt_it_projects/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Yic3Wca7guDf8@LE2M02hQAAABI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/13/esn_boss_promotion/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/11/uk_chief_digital_officer_departs/
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Yic3Wca7guDf8@LE2M02hQAAABI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/07/capgemini_uk_customs/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/04/nhs_digital_privacy_bmj_article/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/22/lengthy_ir35_disputes/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/18/uk_huawei_consultation/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/13/mckinsey_awarded_3m_8_week_contract/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/13/mckinsey_awarded_3m_8_week_contract/
[16] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: No shit, Sherlock?!
You seem to be describing the Seagull Management System.
Fly in through the window, flap around and cause problems.
After a short while, head back through the window leaving a mess, sh1t and other problems behind you.
I am wondering if the events in Ukraine are Vlad the Invader seeking to leave such a legacy.
Re: No shit, Sherlock?!
It matches many of my experiences in Defence, as well.
There are two points that I'd make: first of all that management consultants and IT/IS vendors cultivate the "non-digital leader" (hereinafter PHB) because it is to some extent there that the fulcrum of their marketing leverage rests. It's then hard for the PHB to listen to their own staff contradicting some of those smooth marketing messages, because (a) the contradictions aren't dressed up in marketing jargon, and (b) they don't come with lunch and a really nice Chablis.
Secondly, there is the fact that fuzzy requirements are somewhat to the contractors advantage . Post-contract changes are pretty lucrative, but the relationship of Profit to Requirement Definition is not linear. A few changes will yield some nice income, and a manageable time overrun. Get in on a contract where the customer can't tell A from the track of a duck, though, and then both parties are in the shit.
" The UK government can be prone to signing contracts for major IT projects before it has a good understanding of the requirements, according to a National Audit Office (NAO) director. "
Can't wait for the next article about water continuing to be wet, although I would argue that it's not just IT projects that get signed off without understanding what it's about. Literally every other aspect of government that requires a signature to unleash funds is done without understanding what is needed. It happens in Health (especially), Education etc.
But do you know what part of the whole system that gets signed off with 100% clarity, foresight and understanding? Aspects relating to wages, expenses, and how to get a peerage.
Ui/UX?
Surely they must have people who have done user experience before committing to billion pound budgets? This is at the very heart of any digital planning.
Re: Ui/UX?
Don't be silly man. That would infer some competence.
""We found in large scale programmes that, before things start for real, [there is] insufficient thinking, analysis, architecture and design. Often this is actually skipped over,"
But why expect governments to do IT differently to the way they do everything else?
It might be argued that when governments have to face unexpected events - pandemics, wars or the like they have to make decisions on the fly. But even in those cases the decisions would be easier and more effective if there had been some preparation made to deal with such events.
There's also the electoral cycle. By the time the shit hits the fan, it's possible that the original perpetrators will be gone anyway, so it'll be somebody else's problem.
I was just going to say that I find it in some small way comforting that Government is representative of "The People".
Reality
The problem is that if a proper set of requirements and specs, from concept through to support, are done then the estimated costs will be too high and the projects won't get started. I suspect that there are some bright people in the civil service whose main job is to get enough of the project started to make it self sustaining without breaking the current administration's 5-year budget.
I've managed a couple of MoD development projects. They had a full set of requirement specs, but at the preliminary design reviews it was apparent that that the MoD had left some areas of their requirements either undefined, vague or disguised. Their assumption was that once we were on the hook (fixed price) then their commercial people were better than our commercial people and they'd get the extra stuff for free and not have to ask for more money from the chancellor. It didn't work out well - for either of us.
Only one person can save us
Dido Harding!
Re: Only one person can save us
Dido Harding is in the library. Dido Harding has been saved.
"signing contracts [..] before it has a good understanding of the requirements"
I am shocked. Shocked, I tell you.
Re: "signing contracts [..] before it has a good understanding of the requirements"
It's almost as if the objective was to sign the contract and transfer the money, rather than the objective being whatever the IT project was about.
No shit, Sherlock?!
This has been evident for many years, at all levels of government - I witnessed one particularly egregrious f***-up in local government about 30 years ago. Wont listen or take advice from underlings that know what theyre about, try to insist that shit is pure gold, and then waltz off with a huge pay-off to mess up some other organisation.