back to article Universal Credit: The IT project that will outlive us all

Universal Credit feels like it has been around since time immemorial. If the programme ever arrives, its implementation will have spanned three Parliaments - outlasting the careers of many MPs. The Department for Work and Pensions has consistently maintained that the programme is on track, which may be true if one ignores the …

  1. billat29
    FAIL

    Project Management

    I was running products and he was running professional services.

    I called him a "whore".

    "My world is about response times, release dates and feature content" I said. "If I don't meet them, I fail".

    "Your world is different. You don't care what you deliver or when you deliver. As long as the stakeholders sign off, the paperwork's done and the client keeps paying the money, you will do whatever they ask."

    "At last!" he cried. "You finally understand!" .

    1. Holleritho

      Re: Project Management

      Not sure why he is a whore. He simply has different priorities. There's lots to be said for his, given that 'client keeps paying the money' is in there.

    2. veti Silver badge

      Re: Project Management

      Whoring is an honest trade. I think you'll find that "what and when you deliver" is very important in it.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I know people contracting on this project, some are truly awful, others talented. The big thing is the contractors are coining it in, rates of between £600 and £700 no wonder its late, there is no incentive.

    IDS has wasted a lot of our money on this farce.

    1. Ye Gads

      The Taxpayer in me agrees with you

      The IT Contractor in me wants to know how I get a contract on this gig.

      1. JDX Gold badge

        Re: The Taxpayer in me agrees with you

        Public sector contracting is by all accounts a bit of a PITA, in fact I thought they had brought in a cap of £250/day (or so) for public sector contractors, or were trying to...

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: The Taxpayer in me agrees with you

          I can assure you they have not for a number of us firefighters (anon for a good reason - including the 10K travel costs I have to cover out of that every year)

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The Taxpayer in me agrees with you

        Trust me, you don't want one.

        Not this DWP project but a previous one took 2 years of my life that won't be returned.

    2. Nunyabiznes

      Sounds familiar

      This is just as bad as our new Affordable Care Act. The website alone is $1B in and isn't complete. The user interface leaves something to be desired also. (To be fair, have one hundred people try a website and a significant percentage won't like the interface no matter how "good" it is.) Prices/costs have gone up across the board.

      Real world example: Our local rest home (long term care for aged, mentally infirm, and fully handicapped persons) used to require 7 pages of entry paperwork to admit someone. After ACA was implemented it now requires 43 pages just to account for the extra mandates. They had to put on 2 more full time entry clerks and a part time position. The real kicker is that none of the mandated paperwork is digitally compatible with pre-existing Federal medical reporting. Everything has to be entered multiple times, which of course leads to multiple errors during input.

      I sincerely hope your system ends up being better or just killed outright.

      1. DeathSquid
        Facepalm

        Re: Sounds familiar

        "They had to put on 2 more full time entry clerks and a part time position. The real kicker is that none of the mandated paperwork is digitally compatible with pre-existing Federal medical reporting. Everything has to be entered multiple times, which of course leads to multiple errors during input."

        You're doing it wrong. The forms should be on the web. The need for data entry then goes to zero. Well designed forms with good error checking can reduce the need for validation to a minimum. An automated process can then move required data to other forms.

        So rather than get a good programmer in for a few months to do a quality job, they decide to hire an additional two and some people. That's at least three, probably far more, people on the payroll in perpetuity doing a job that can be automated. I detect the presence of an accountant, making sure that only next quarter's numbers matter.

        1. Nunyabiznes

          Re: Sounds familiar

          @DeathSquid,

          Sorry I didn't get back to this earlier.

          The reason the forms "aren't on the web" is that we already have digital forms internally, for the state, for the IRS, for Medicare, for Medicaid, for the various insurers, and now for a multitude of ACA mandated programs. Few of which are compatible, by design apparently. Medicaid reporting for our state still requires a modem to dial into their system. Really. Even though technically we are a component of the state (county facility).

          We use a vertical market product that is pretty common for facilities our size. Their dbase structure was based on good programming techniques as far as I can tell. We had them do data conversion from our previous product and import it to theirs so we wouldn't have to pay humans to manually input. We then inquired about doing what you suggest and they laughed. They said we literally could not pay them enough to do so. I'm not a programmer or database pro so maybe I'm wrong but I would think that a for-profit company would be willing to set up something like that for cold hard cash if they could. Shrug.

          The ACA was supposed to be the beginning of rounding up all these separate systems for efficiency and cost reduction. Instead it made it much worse - which is a direct result of all of the backroom deals that had to be done to pass it. It is a pig's breakfast and the only people who benefitted are those taking advantage of the subsidies and some companies that donated to the correct pockets during the 2008 and 2012 election cycles. Everyone else is paying more for less.

          I seriously doubt the mental competence of anyone that claims the ACA was in any way a win for the average American insurance consumer or for entities that are having to take payments. Costs and complexities are up across the board and coverages are down. There are hundreds of additional taxes buried in the ACA, many of which have trigger dates that are just now coming into effect.

          My personal conspiracy theory is that Pres. Obama wanted to finish breaking the system so that the American public would swallow an NHS-style system. If I wanted that I would have moved to Canada or the UK. I've always paid my insurance and when I needed it used it. I've never had a big issue until my coverage was gutted (and my premiums went up 30% in two years with another 18-20% slated for this year) and I needed some Chiro care. More anecdotal evidence: A married couple I know own a small business. They used to pay a portion of the employees insurance premium (for those that wanted insurance). Now they either have to pay it all or nothing or face penalties. Their personal insurance went from $800/month for their family with decent (not great) coverage to $1000 for crap coverage for just them. They are both over 50 so their rates are higher. They gave all their employees a raise and told them they were on their own.

  3. Jess

    They have done what all our recent govenments do.

    They have identified a real problem (in this case the benefits system is too complex.)

    They have come up with a solution so poor it makes the situation worse.

    Universal Credit sounds like a nice simple solution, a halfway house between the current system and a basic income scheme. How can they mess it up so badly?

    1. Laura Kerr

      Re: They have done what all our recent govenments do.

      "How can they mess it up so badly?"

      Oh, that's dead easy. You just engage all stakeholders and ask them for 360 degree feedback and added value.

      You know the rest...

    2. Naselus

      Re: They have done what all our recent govenments do.

      "Universal Credit sounds like a nice simple solution, a halfway house between the current system and a basic income scheme. How can they mess it up so badly?"

      They gave it to Ian Duncan Smith, a man who would struggle to organize falling if you dropped him out of a plane.

      By all accounts, he's a bit of a joke even within the Tory party, and was clearly dumped in the DWP just to take the heat for George Osborne's assault on the welfare state; he's the very definition of a useful idiot in more or less every respect. There's been plenty of leaks suggesting that the leadership think he's 'not very bright or capable', his period of leading the party was frankly disastrous, and his primary purpose is to waste a lot of money so that the real politicians can point to it and say 'look how wasteful the welfare system is'. It's a fairly standard Tory tactic since at least 1980 - defund something aggressively, waste as much of the remaining budget as possible, then point to this 'waste' as excuse to defund even more aggressively.

  4. Blipvert

    Bless The Lord For UV Rays

    Can only hope all those brown spots on his face are aggressive Melanomas

  5. Graham Marsden
    Devil

    Meanwhile...

    ... the Government are claiming that unemployment rates are falling, but FOI requests reveal that much of that is due to people's benefits being sanctioned which means that they're not classed as "unemployed and claiming benfits", even though they're not getting jobs:

    http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2015-01-21-sanctions-linked-drop-unemployment-benefit-few-return-work

  6. NP-HARD
    WTF?

    ...the department does "not have a detailed point-in-time breakdown."

    Not even a Gannt chart - is this some kind of mutant agile project then?

    1. BebopWeBop

      Re: ...the department does "not have a detailed point-in-time breakdown."

      Gannt - so last century.

    2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: ...the department does "not have a detailed point-in-time breakdown."

      I'm surprised the OBR didn't send them away and tell them to come back with one by next week. That would have puzzled them as obviously they don't have a concept of such a brief period of time. The OBR needs teeth. It needs to be able to put a department on 3 months warning that such projects will have their budget withheld and released a month at a time subject to satisfactory progress reports until such time as they're satisfied that proper project management is in place.

    3. Naselus

      Re: ...the department does "not have a detailed point-in-time breakdown."

      It uses the government's internal fork of the Agile manifesto, referred to as Turgid.

      Like Agile, Turgid is based on ten principles:

      1) Customer pacification by late and continuous delivery of excuses.

      2) Welcome changing deadlines, even after the previous ones have passed.

      3) Working systems are scrapped frequently (weeks rather than months)

      4) Close, daily antagonism between management and staff

      5) Projects are built around motivated individuals, who should be fired as quickly as possible

      6) Face-to-face conversation is the best form of scapegoating

      7) Working systems are irrelevant to progress. Or deadline setting. Or what Ian is going to say if questioned in the House.

      8) Sustainable procrastination, able to maintain a constant inactivity.

      9) Continuous attention to the Daily Mail.

      10) Simplicity - the art of maximizing the amount of work not done - is discouraged, and probably a firing offence.

  7. Lysenko

    Doomed

    I worked on a project like this 15 years ago ...up until Training & Enterprise Councils were abolished. The systems could never be completed because of perpetual feature creep which was in turn a direct function of "Budget Announcements".

    Every year there was some pointless tweakery implemented with impossible timescales and no forewarning ...because budgets are a secret!! The result was naturally the an Agile methodology with continual delivery of half finished rubbish. Unsurprisingly, nothing much seems to have changed.

    1. Rol

      Re: Doomed

      Wouldn't it be great if two extra people were sat at these government brain storming sessions.

      One being the IT developer and the other representing the taxpayer.

      "I suggest we add another day to the working week and call it Freeday" says treasury buffoon, Tarquin Smifff.

      "That'll cost £528 Billion in extra development" pipes up the IT Dev.

      "And, that's not going to happen" storms the taxpayers alliance, as he deftly removes the lime jelly head from Tarquin's torso using only the power of wishful thinking.

      1. veti Silver badge

        Re: Doomed

        @Rol: very funny.

        What would actually happen is, the IT dev would say "Sure, we can support that, I'll get a quote to you". Then he'd go away and bill 300 hours for scoping it, which is of course only a preliminary to actual planning, let alone detailed costing.

        Meanwhile, the taxpayer representative (i.e. politician) would be paralysed by indecision until she sees the focus group polling on the topic, at which point she'll be passionately for or against it regardless of any other arguments. And then she'll realise, as every politician does sooner or later, that her opinion is not the last word, and she'll have to do a deal with the other people on the committee to get her way. And maybe it's worth not getting her way on this, if she can get it on something else she cares more about instead.

        In other words, politics.

        And so we're back to square one. Which isn't surprising really, because you know what? those people are in those meetings already.

  8. BebopWeBop

    He is not alone in his criticism.

    Congratulations for the understatement of the year - even if we are only approaching the end of January, I suspect the award is going to be a long standing one.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I am on it.

    It's a joke. They don't even have a book for you to fill in. I have to account for 35 hours of job search a week.

    Not hard, I'm not on the fiddle.

    But the guidelines are vague and unhelpful, and I had to do my own timesheet in Excel as they had nothing prepared.

    1. Novex

      Re: I am on it.

      35 hours. The problem is that if anyone is spending that much time actively searching for jobs and not actually finding a job, then there's another problem with them that isn't being paid attention to that has nothing to do with the job search itself.

      * I am also unemployed, but not on UC. I also have to account for my job search activities, which I do. But my specific issue is skill deficiency and no resources to properly retrain in any way that an employer would care about, not lack of job searching.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I am on it.

        I stretch out my time because if I don't meet it every week and they don't agree, I get money taken off.

        More for each 'infringement'

        So while you might be snarkily suggesting I'm thick spending that much time looking for work (and I include attending interviews and travel, it's only been two weeks) there is a larger issue.

        The DWP are asking for criteria we know is largely ludicrous and if you don't satisfy their demands you lose money immediately.

        It is SIX WEEKS until you first get paid on UC.

        The terms of the agreement are you MUST have a PC and printer at home.

        1. Novex

          Re: I am on it.

          Not snarky, far from it, I was actually agreeing with you.

          My comment re 35 hours being too long for job searching was a criticism of the DWP - they force us to take this time to do the searching, but ignore the fact that they are wasting our time and their money in the belief that this kind of ridiculous pressure will see us so desperate to get away we'll try anything to do so. What they actually need to do is understand the individual more and provide directed help, especially for long term unemployed. Anything else is being wilfully blind and wasting money.

  10. Halfmad

    He has asked the DWP what proportion of the new technology required to implement universal credit has been complete for each year since 2011, but was told the department does "not have a detailed point-in-time breakdown." So it is impossible to judge how much has been achieved in terms of IT build in the last four years.

    Please tell me they asked for a "point-in-time breakdown" for NOW so in 20-whatever they can ask what work was done between now and then.. ?

  11. BurnT'offering

    Stuff that matters, done the right way

    "Tom Loosemore, 24 September 2015 — Transformation

    There are so many committed teams delivering digital services all over government, it feels unnatural to highlight just one - but when it comes to doing stuff that matters, at scale, and under pressure, the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) team developing the Universal Credit (UC) Digital Service is impossible to ignore."

    For the full dollop of bullshit, see https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2015/09/24/stuff-that-matters-done-the-right-way/

    1. Laura Kerr
      Thumb Up

      Re: Stuff that matters, done the right way

      Thanks a lot. I read that article and very nearly lost my lunch. But to be fair, you did warn us.

      Kerr's Law:

      As the hyperbole surrounding a project increases, the probability of that project ending in catastrophic failure approaches one.

  12. MT Field
    Happy

    Still, it's good to know its not just us who are engaged on gargantuan fuck ups.

    1. veti Silver badge

      Reading foreign news is always a bit reassuring like that, isn't it?

      But then remember, you have to share a planet - and a world economy - with these losers. There is an extent to which their screwups bring you down as well.

  13. BongoJoe
    Mushroom

    Wait until...

    ...it goes onto The Cloud

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Wait until...

      They already think it is in the cloud. HP sold them a "cloud" solution which was actually just virtual machines hosted by HP, mostly manually built with a bit of automation (but nowhere near enough). Zero capability for auto scaling, it's really just a standard ESX type layout with a buzzword stuck on it. They are bringing it back in house, to something they have probably also called a cloud as they don't know better.

  14. Zap

    How it really is

    So just before the ConDem Govt got in there was a project due to go live that finally got Job Centres off the mainframes, the project was scrapped without reason, same reason as the school improvement projects and all the others. Govt wanted to say "we did this"

    So in a job centre when someone signs on they still key the data into the mainframe and another system, any cock up on data entry on either and you do not get paid.

    I was speaking to some people in the DWP who were telling me of the nightmare this new system is. First things first, you want to MIGRATE a number of systems into one, first thing you need is a data dictionary from all the disparate system #fail , so historical data from claimants would be lost if they transferred to Universal Credit.

    Mostly it just does not work, staff report entering staff data on the initial 0800 claim line and not being able to save data due to an "application error", when this happens they are supposed to email IT but they can't carry on, one said was near the end of the day and had to log out, data lost.

    This was just the initial data collection required to get a form, it took 2 months to get a form sent manually.

    I did an calculation for a few friends who are on ESA and PIP, one was in a supported living accomodation, calculator made no allowance for the fact that they were disabled and supported living is one step from a care home. So it wanted to cut their money because it went over the benefits cap.

    For the other it said they would be £20 better off a month on Universal Credit??

    Why??

    I thought this was an IT system that brought together different systems from DWP and Local Authorities, so how come you get more money if you go on this, is it a bribe to get people on and then to screw them later?

    I know people who are on ESA and PIP and BOTH, as it is we are paying two different 3rd parties (ATOS and MAXIMUS) to medically assess them, WHY? Especially when GP is ignored.

    I just do not see any "benefit" to the state in this system.

    Just another doomed Government IT project where the most basic things have not been done

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