Should this database be any different (better) than any other .gov.uk spawned/sponsored P.O.S.

I am sure a lot of us have come across these sorts of database applications. Maybe even had to work on them. The specification is thick and comprehensive and completely out of touch with the users and probably does not even folow management policy. The fact it makes staff using the system work harder is of no concern to management as long as they gain more control.

Staff will find ways of skipping through the screens faster. They will most probably create their own paper forms and employ data entry personel to enter these into the system If they get really smart they may write their own application in MS Access and have this feed the governments forms or backend database.

Anything done purely top down will look clean but function badly since it will not take account of the day to day realities of life. It's quite common for the bosses to dictate one thing whilst the staff get on and do it in a way that works. If it's a success then the boss thinks his system is working. I have discovered this sort of thing when gathering information for a specification. I struck a deal with the staff that I would do the system they wanted as long as they told the boss it was working well and would come to me with any problems. The boss was very pleased because it gave the outcome he wanted.

I watched 'The Apprentice: 10 Worst Decisions' on catch-up TV last night. One of those featured was that by a project manager charged with the task of designing a new children's toy. They had two contenders: A robot wars-style robot and a pack of cards called 'Secret Signals' which kids could use to send 'secret signals' to one another across the playground (SMS anyone?).

The team's response was immediate: Go with the robot. The focus group's response (in this case some young children) was immediate: We like the robot. There was some kind of marketing vote on it: 360-240 in favour of selling the robot. What did the project manager choose? The secret signals card game.

The relationship to this child database article? Why on Earth, after valuable review time and valuable research do people insist on pressing ahead with a bad idea? Maybe I'm expressing some wide-eyed innocence, but in a similiar fashion with ID cards, numerous groups have repeatedly said: it'll cost too much / the public don't want it / what will it achieve? / what are the technical issues? / the system has unresolved flaws. And yet the government continue on slow almost shambling plodding steps forward. With a final apathy-laden breath I ask: Why?

As the proud dad of a 5 year old this 1984 / King Herod database really does send a chill down my spine. What next Mr Brown (nose) are you going to tattoo a number on my kids arm or put an RFID in their head ? One word - GIGO !

Why IT?

(SH) IT !

Please vote for who you want rather than who you think has a chance. As with the Internet, if you can't find the web site you want then perhaps there is not one and you should start one. So if the candidate you want is not running then perhaps you should stand.

This government may look incompetant but that might mean you underestime them. Perhaps the bigger adgenda is not whether this database helps children rather does it gather more data on people which can be used to control them?

It is a database afterall, it contains some interesting people. People who's children are disabled are often very strong activists. They have had to fight burocrasy all the way for the drugs and treatments and support their children need. They know how the system works and how to game the system to get what they desparately need. They form groups and organisations and are quite determined and powerful.

Damn right the government wants to have something on them. Even if the software is clunky and ineffective for it's stated purpose.

I don't know how you can all possibly fail to see that the answer to all the governments empowerment paradigms are more and more optimized IT projects. In the 21st Century we shall see a ramp up of IT Plans that shall deliver all our brothers and sisters to an empowered brave new world through the granular empowerment of end users. Mr Brown shall provide us all with the greater clarity of thinking necessary to synergize our IT expenditure through the greater use of enhanced consultants in a scalable environment providing a value-added approach for a globalized ecosystem. Enhanced Consultants have the necessary visual overview and thoughtware to provide a holistic insight that we allow us to re-engineer in a bleeding-edge way all the aforementioned paradigms for more leveraged cross-platform solutions.

"The purpose of this database is to whack money extorted from the taxpayer back into the economy in a way that expands government power and patronage. Same as all government spending. It's perfectly fit for purpose, it's just that the purpose isn't what they're telling us it is."

In that case you might be interested in my modest proposal: http://copsewood.net/writings/kaytax.html . This thin end of a long wedge doesn't deny funding to hospitals and schools, just progressively changes who directs the way taxes are spent from mainly by "them" to mainly by taxpayers.

"all political parties are entirely composed of career politicians, and for a career politician to argue for less tax and more freedom to any meaningful extent would be like an entrepreneur arguing his business needs less revenue."

If this were entirely rather than mainly true ( s/all/most/ ; s/entirely/mainly/ ), my proposal would have zero chance of getting through. Actually it could be got through by a few MPs from a minority party with the balance of power in exchange for giving one of the other parties a lot of what they wanted, as it doesn't immediately impinge on the interests of most of the career politicians out there who tend to become as you claim they all are, and because of this tend to take a pretty short-term view. This weakness could well turn out to be their undoing.

Here in 'Murka, many projects materialize on the basis of whose pockets get lined (I cite Halliburton, KBR, and other well- connected gubmint contractors who got "cost plus" work in the current Iraq debacle as Exhibit A) or whose gubmint department can raise the scariest spectre of Impending Doom (I cite the Pentagram as Exhibit B), not whether the folks lined up to do the work are actually as good as they say they are, whether the work actually needs to be done, whether there are other/ better/ more cost- efficient options, and so on. Perhaps similar is going on here? Leave us not forget that a well- constructed fiasco means continued revenue for the "consultants" hired to sort out the mess (or at least get it limping along well enough to justify the fees and a "maintenance plan"), as any BOFH worth her/his salt should know.