back to article UK.gov set to burn £500m on one-dole-to-rule-em-all IT, claims PAC chair

The UK government's deeply troubled Universal Credit omni-dole project is expected to lead to IT write-offs of more than £500m, according to Public Accounts Committee chair Margaret Hodge. In an interview for a special BBC Radio 4 programme on welfare reform, the Labour MP said that she believed money blown on the taxpayer- …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "According to Public Accounts Committee chair Margaret Hodge"

    That article lost all credibility as far as I'm concerned right there.

    1. Merchman

      Re: "According to Public Accounts Committee chair Margaret Hodge"

      Any reason why? She seems to have been doing a pretty good job as head of the PAC.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "According to Public Accounts Committee chair Margaret Hodge"

      It shouldn't have. Given the righteous shoe-ing she gave to HMRC and Capgemini on Monday she's got her eye on delivery and value for money, which is her job.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "According to Public Accounts Committee chair Margaret Hodge"

        It's all too easy to criticise something that's quite obviously f*cked up. Rather more difficult to suggest how to fix it. That might not be her job but Labour's track record leaves rather a lot to be desired...

        1. Tapeador
          FAIL

          Re: "According to Public Accounts Committee chair Margaret Hodge"

          Unlike you, seemingly, I've lived long enough to remember fuckups and successes by governments of both stripe. Come back when you've learnt to shave and make an argument.

      2. SolidSquid

        Re: "According to Public Accounts Committee chair Margaret Hodge"

        There's also a video of her interviewing ATOS over the disability benefits scheme they were supposed to run. I almost (almost!) felt bad for the ATOS representative, she just wouldn't drop things until she got a straight answer and it was obvious ATOs just isn't used to dealing with that

      3. This post has been deleted by its author

  2. El_Fev

    Labour is having a laugh....

    500 Million is what would be lost if they kept on going and not changed course and sort out problems, and after Labour blew 11Billion on the failed HS IT system to too mention all the other failed projects during their time, losing ONLY £140 Million is a bloody godsend!!

    1. sabroni Silver badge
      Headmaster

      Re: Labour is having a laugh....

      Well they certainly seemed to have fucked up the English Language curriculum...

    2. Tapeador

      Re: Labour is having a laugh....

      And tell me how much was lost unnecessarily in transitional and ongoing costs from the Lansley health re-org? I've heard £4bn pa.

      Some would of course argue that selling Britain's council house stock without requiring ringfencing of revenues for new stock, is responsible for Britain's £19bn PA Housing Benefit expenditure and that that's waste (both parties responsible). Others would claim entire new categories of waste. And you can be sure there would be a lot more waste if the Tory party had had their way and far lighter regulations imposed on banks in the runup to the 2008 crisis.

      There are hazards which come with being in government. All "waste" is not waste necessarily. People spend it. It is taxed. It does things in the real economy. So stop with these immature arguments please.

      http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2889945/Letwin-promises-Tories-will-abolish-FSA.html

      1. Alan Brown Silver badge

        Re: Labour is having a laugh....

        "Some would of course argue that selling Britain's council house stock without requiring ringfencing of revenues for new stock, is responsible for Britain's £19bn PA Housing Benefit expenditure and that that's waste"

        When the housing sell off occurred, authorities were specifically _prohibited_ from using the money to build new stock. They could put money into improving existing housing, but the selloff was ideologically driven and deliberately intended to prevent re-acquisition.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Labour is having a laugh....

          Add to that that many don't realise that it was a conservative administration that abolished most of rent regulation in the early '90's - A fact that the hypocrites overlook when they start whinging about spending OUR money on the extortionate rents that have resulted from a decision made by a Tory Government 20 years ago.

          Its all very well cutting everything, but "A", where is the money really going... why are we not seeing a proper accounting? and "B" what about the "National Insurance covenant " that promised in times of hardship - having paid our NIC's - we would be looked after - not branded as scroungers and bullied to take (often) unsuitable work?

        2. Adrian Tawse

          Re: Labour is having a laugh....

          Yes, this was the Thatcher era religious belief that the gov should not do anything Private Enterprise could do. This required that the gov withdraw from all housing provision by way of the right to buy but with no replacement. Private Enterprise would gleefully jump into any opportunity, all that was needed was for the gov to withdraw (loud guffaw). What actually happened was the rise of the slum landlord. The only solution is to re-instate public housing. This would also serve as an excellent way of stimulating the economy in a way that ensures that the money stays local. The main problem is that we have far too few local builders, they would have to be imported from Poland and that is going to happen if they also have Degrees in Engineering (look of utter despair). This problem could have been fixed under the last Labour gov except that Blair believed the the sun shone out of Thatcher's arse.

      2. Adrian Tawse

        Re: Labour is having a laugh....

        "All "waste" is not waste" means no waste is waste.. I think you mean not all waste is waste, or some waste is not waste.

  3. Disgruntled of TW
    FAIL

    Show us the consequences ...

    ... in the commercial world, there would be real, tangible consequences for such failure. Businesses would go bankrupt, and people would lose their jobs if they were responsible for it. Otherwise, it will happen, again, and again ... etc.

    Why doesn't this happen with tax payer funded IT? Is our only recourse to vote the "other" lot in next election? NRAC - not really a choice.

    @Credas - sometimes a biased politician makes a statement that is no less true than if a saint had spoken the very same words. Perhaps you should wind your neck in occasionally, and remember this? It is hard, granted.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Show us the consequences ...

      The consequence is the number of CTOs that UC has gone through. Arrive->Struggle->Fail->Sacked has been worked through three times now. It is hard trying to meet unrealistic targets in impossible timescales so it's not surprising they failed, but they did get sacked.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: but they did get sacked.

        The sort of sacking where you walk away with a six figure sum? I'll have some of those 'consequences' please!!

    2. sabroni Silver badge

      Re:in the commercial world, there would be real, tangible consequences

      Like when the banks nearly went bust?

      1. codejunky Silver badge

        Re: Re:in the commercial world, there would be real, tangible consequences

        @ sabroni

        "Like when the banks nearly went bust?"

        And 3 regulatory bodies pointed at each other and said I know nothing? Even now we are on the 3rd EU stress test which had lost credibility with the first 2. On the telegraph days ago was a piece about how banking is not really being reformed, the regulators are trying to remove their responsibility for regulating and bankers dont think they will be regulated enough. There have been some huge problems in banking and that is why regulators exist, because it needs regulating.

        And the real consequences have crashed banks and harmed them in a number of ways. But still the argument is to make them lend more because people who cant afford it want more 'free' money.

    3. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge

      Re: Show us the consequences ...

      You're forgeting the primary reason for the projects to go tits is terminal incompetence in the senior civil service and among junior ministers charged with overseeing said project.

      But the politicians dont really care if the project delivers or not because they managed to give a shed load of money to private companies... many of which will say thank you very much, heres your non-executive directorship as a reward.

      While the dole/benefit claiments still have to wait 6 months to get any money while the 47 forms you have to fill out are manually checked and cross checked by staff thinking "If it did'nt take 6 months to process a claim, the dole would be better than this shit"

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Show us the consequences ...

      @Credas - sometimes a biased politician makes a statement that is no less true than if a saint had spoken the very same words. Perhaps you should wind your neck in occasionally, and remember this? It is hard, granted.

      Ooh, sensitive! :-)

      Possibly she is right. But if so her pronouncement isn't the result of her incisive investigation or pursuit of the truth, rather more the opportunity for grandstanding and media coverage exhibited relentlessly virtually every single day on any subject in sight. My point being that "Margaret Hodge says..." contributes nothing to the article.

  4. codejunky Silver badge

    Poor management?

    This could be poor development/implementation or maybe our poor excuse for an overcomplicated tax/benefit system. Likely its somewhere in the middle but I feel sorry for anyone attempting to deliver such a system.

  5. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge
    Devil

    This year's Halloween costume: Ian Duncan Smith.

  6. zaax

    The civil service does not pay enough to have the right experienced staff to run these type of projects.

    1. Rich 11

      The Civil Service has been sacking experienced staff for decades, in successive rounds of departmental cuts, outsourcings and desperate attempts to meet whatever 'waste' cuts ministers of all hues have demanded out of ideological ignorance. Few government departments have enough expert specialists left to determine how to avoid a project going off the rails or to tell when it is likely to do so, so they bring in consultants whose focus isn't necessarily that of the best interests of their client.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It becomes a surreal cycle ...

    To lose one CTO might be regarded as unfortunate. To lose three looks like fucking incompetence ...

    The problem is now, no sane candidate will take this job, unless it pays enough for it to be their last.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Where I worked with a major outsourcer on a large (succesfull) programme a while ago, the 'client' (TfL) had precious few people who had a clue about anything, so they brought in a swathe of Consultants instead.

    We called the area of the shared office the 'Consultants' populated the "Creche", due to the amazingly low amount of them who actually had any experience doing anything. The senior consultants working on TfLs' behalf were a capable and on-the-whole, reasonable bunch.

    Apparently the consultants were still in situ five years after the programme started, does make you wonder.

    Ac for obvious reasons...

  9. johnB

    Mission creep - big government

    The middle / senior realms of the civil service are not where I'd look to find people with the skills to oversee such a project (I speak as one who was given a performance bonus for being the only member of the team able to apply a filter to an Excel spreadsheet).

    In my experience of a (different) large civil service project, the aims & objectives were under constant review / adjustment, and consultants were able to utilise this lack of precision to pad the project out, giving every input from senior management an answer in the form of "yes, we can do that". Without, of course spelling out the costs & delays inherent. Needless to say, the deadline dates were wildly overshot.

    Systems guru John Seddon of the Vanguard Method predicted this likely outcome when the project got underway in 2010, and, sadly but apparently inevitably, he seems to have been proven correct. (In brief, Seddon suggested the system be decentralised to local government and added to the Housing Benefit scheme they run, as they already held all the relevant data. It would have been up & running within a year, but not under the direct control of Whitehall).

  10. Mike007 Bronze badge

    Here's an idea

    Some out of the box thinking here, but they hire incompetent people who are motivated to do a crap job (the longer it takes, the more updates, etc the more they get paid)... you can also get loads of inexperienced people who are motivated to do a good job for free - students!

    approach a university, they have software development courses where they make their students create software projects purely for the experience of making it - give them your system requirements and let them set that as an assignment.

    the students will have to make a system as part of their course so it's no extra work for them, but at the end of it you get 200 students with 200 versions of the software you require - so then you just have a look at them all, out of 200 attempts you are bound to get at least a few decent examples... offer to buy the system off them for £100,000, loads of money to a fresh graduate, peanuts to the government!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      pushback from industry [was: Here's an idea]

      Mike007: that is, of course a great idea. Worst case scenario is the students produce nothing that will work and at least there is a body of "tried/ failed/ avoid" schemas to add to the knowledge base.

      Allow me to share an anecdote: many snows ago I was in college working for the student-run advertising "agency". I was told that once upon a time, Uni Advertising did work for "real" companies beyond the University walls because students did good work for a great price (not free, but pretty darn close). Of course, once the "real" advertising agencies in town realized they were losing customers to the student operation, they put pressure on the Uni administration and Uni Adv'g was corralled to only servicing other student/ Uni- based groups. I am guessing a similar fit of howling will ensue if this project is given to students to figure out ... not to be a Danny Downer, but that would be a hurdle to overcome. :-)

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Crapita

    and the likes of Crapita idolise this sort of project management

    1. fruitoftheloon

      Re: Crapita

      Ac,

      'Crapita' also gets quite a lot right...

      J

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon