Bah!!
Ok so initial tender quote is £5bn with a target delivery time of 3 years, so in real terms thats gonna be a bout £7bn delivered in about 5 years.
If the history of these sort of things shows us anything, then it is that they invariably overrun on cost and time and underperform, or perform worse than the system they replace, because management think they know how things work and dont bother consulting the front-line troops who do the job day-in-day-out.
No doubt there will be externally driven protocol changes, either during build or shortly after, that will require reworking of the system at additional cost.
Experienced staff will become disillusioned, leave and be replaced by cheap incompetents who can barely spell their names or the words common and sense.
Its all a big waste of my (as an Essex taxpayer) money and will only result in additional cost at a time when we are all being squeezed.
It seems that the corporate solution to everything nowadays is to throw money at a problem until it either goes away or you can no longer see it behind the big pile of discarded notes. The more sensible solution would be to invest in the workers: give additional training so they can perform more efficiently, treat them like people so that they at least tolerate their job, and when a worker is unable to perform despite all assistance, declare them unfit for the job and replace them.
Unemployment decreases, efficiency increases, the 'user experience' improves because staff are more inclined to be helpful, taxes are paid, workers spend money, the economy improves and all is wonderful...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
