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back to article UK.gov goes back to school to avoid future IT blunders

Whitehall's waste of £470m on a botched attempt to modernise fire service control rooms in England begs questions about what UK plc is doing to prevent a similar haemorrhage of money in the future. A scathing report on FiReControl by parliament's public accounts committee said the project was flawed from the outset and blamed …

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  1. Chris Miller

    "Nobody has been held responsible for FiReControl's failures"

    Indeed, those responsible (on both the govt and contractor sides) have probably done very well out of it. Until that changes, these disasters will carry on happening.

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  2. Ben Norris

    pretty funny since GCHQ was only just talked about for not being able to retain their skilled IT bods

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "1000 staff are members of BCS"

    That could be the problem right there - the figure is far too high.

    BCS are no longer a relevant organisation in IT - nobody asks for (or wants) BCS qualifications as they are an outdated dinosaur (tautology!). They are too much like academia.

    Also, learning IT at school is a great idea but they must try to not concentrate on specific products too much. School curricula take too long to change and cannot keep up with changes in IT - a fundamental grounding in IT technology areas would suffice; after which students can do more specific training on technologies/products outside of school (in institutions or organisations that can change quickly). BCS do not fit into that category.

    Good idea - but the mention of BCS just makes me laugh.

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  4. Ru
    Meh

    "an exchange of skills and knowledge with the private sector"

    This has been ongoing for some time, and the Government has proven to be quite well practised at it. It largely involves making your internal techies redundant, slashing their pay or outsourcing their responsibilities. This has ensured a steady flow of skilled workers from the public sector into new jobs. Don't see much flowing back the other way, though.

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Retain? Not so sure...

    With the salary levels at the GCHQ the retention and what exactly are they retaining is hmm... interesting...

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  6. dephormation.org.uk
    FAIL

    GCHQ level of expertise needed across government

    Oh, please God, no.

    The same GCHQ that failed to protect us from BT/Phorm, TalkTalk/Huawei, Vodafone/Bluecoat, Experian Hitwise, Murdoch/Phone Hacking.. etc .. etc?

    GCHQ are a bunch of incompetent muppets.

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  7. Colin Millar
    Big Brother

    Not an IT problem

    The problem is in management. Govt departments are the original self-reinforcing cliques that don't like listening to inconvenient facts.

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  8. Dodgy Geezer Silver badge
    WTF?

    Good God!

    The government had exactly what they are now looking for - google CCTA.

    Twenty years ago CCTA operated as a central government consultancy, staffed by expert civil service IT staff, supporting all other departments' projects. In those days the projects were run properly and came in on time and to budget.

    Then, 10 years ago, the IT industry lobbied the government to close CCTA down, arguing that it was unfair competition for the big 5 consultancies to have departments getting 'free' consultancy internally. And that was done.

    At the time CCTA staff warned what would happen. And it did. Now someone has had the bright idea of bringing CCTA back...

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    1. Snapper
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      Colour me surprised!

      And the Labour party keeps up the old refrain that the Tories always look after their 'friends' in business.

      Hypocritical bastards!

      Wonder how many Labourite ex-Mp's or newly minted Lordships have jobs or directorships due to this?

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