Hmmm...
"Government project cost more than originally planned!"
In other news, the bear are Catholic, and popes defecate in the woods.
Wait, I got something wrong there...
The government has revealed that the ContactPoint children's directory will cost just under £44m a year to run, £3m more than previously stated. Children's minister Beverly Hughes provided the figures in a parliamentary written answer on 9 March 2009. "Most will go directly to local authorities to fund staff to ensure the …
But that's about 6.8% over 3 (or 4 depending on when your counting from) years. thats a compound rate of inflation of c2.15%, which seems pretty close to the real world.
Er, well done on that.
Note My basic view remains this is a massivley excessive and intrusive database which will be misused and should never have been built in its present form to begin with.
Have they factored into the budget to cope with those of us who aren't willing participants in all of this? I reckon every parent should bang in a subject access request for themselves and also one for each of their children, just to make sure what's stored on there is 'fully correct and up to date' (or ideally, total bollocks and completely useless). Chucking in a sprinkling of false child names in the requests ought to liven it up a bit as well, in case the prospect of a null result causes consternation in the data centre.
> "This work has shown that, in general, children and young people understand the benefits of ContactPoint," she [Hughes] wrote. "Understandably, they want reassurance that the system will be secure and accurate; that practitioners will use their information appropriately and respect their privacy, and that access to ContactPoint will be limited to those who need it to do their job."
As if respecting their privacy, and limiting access on a need to know basis, were paramount to children. Children assume, in their earlier years, their parents know everything - and that's why they always manage to pick up the pieces.
What a weasel remark to say "they want reassurance that the system will be secure and accurate". The minister does not say whether children have been informed of the risks - presumably they haven't (since MiniLuv always tells the truth, and MiniTrue practises love).
Logic says the more accurate the data, the less secure the children.
If the government figure of 390 000 people with access to this is correct its about £113 ea per yr.
They could not have possibly fallen for the old "This system is so simple to use you won't need to train them" rubbish and failed to budget for training time?
Again.
Or
1100 staff @ £40k / year. Presumably setting up user ID's, data entry and admin will be de-centralised. Every major council, NHS trust and education authority will need someone.
A simplistic architecture that did not realise how many sites would be dealt with, and how much support they would need (in the early stages at least) on site could grow staff numbers pretty fast. IMHO.
Hmmmm.
Outsourced hell desk service contract anyone? Isn't that one of Cap Gemini's stocks-in-trade?
The cheapest way is still to ditch it.