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back to article Pension quango's £18.5m project FINALLY goes live... 2 months late

An £18.5m project carried out on behalf of the UK's Pension Protection Fund (PPF) has finally gone live - two months late. A comprehensive IT infrastructure overhaul and modernisation of hardware and software was due to be installed and running by 28 February. However, The Register has learned that CGI missed both the February …

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  1. keithpeter Silver badge
    Coat

    what could possibly go wrong?

    "...based on Excel and which uses Microsoft Office macros... ...this mission-critical system..."

    Coat icon: off out now.

    3 0 Reply
  2. RyokuMas
    Coat

    "The PPF told us LTRS operated on a "separate in-house infrastructure, so it was not necessary for it to be included within the MSP contract".

    Now the CGI contract is in place and systems are up and running, users are complaining it's actually worse than the set up run by BT"

    Looks like a severe case of LISA*s to me...

    * Let's Invent Stupid Acronyms

    0 0 Reply
  3. theblackhand

    If only...

    If only there was a BOFH story poking fun at mission-critical systems based on Excel and Office macro's...

    1 0 Reply
    1. Heisenberg
      Reply Icon

      Re: If only...

      "If only there was a BOFH story poking fun at mission-critical systems based on Excel and Office macro's..."

      I'd wager that globally, MOST mission critical data is contained in Excel spreadsheets...

      1 0 Reply
  4. BigAndos

    Two months late? That's about six months early for a public sector project!

    (source: currently working on a heavily delayed public sector project).

    3 0 Reply
  5. Shady

    £18.5m is a "mega deal"?

    Not for a gov project - that would barely cover what the consultants spend in Starbucks.

    1 0 Reply
  6. Will 28

    £18.5m, 2 months late - this is fantastic

    Seriously, for a massive overhaul of their IT systems, with costs in the millions, a miss by two months is really not even noticeable. It sounds like they have actually done a really good job (delivery wise, though you did mention performance issues).

    2 0 Reply
  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Mountain out of a molehill

    Yes, there was a slight delay as we wanted to ensure there was no detrimental impact on our service to our stakeholders, the most important being our members. There have been some slight teething problems but that is to be expected with any changeover from one system to another. I disagree with the 'close source', the new system is significantly faster; for example under the old system on a good day it would take me 20 minutes just to log in, now its in under a minute so less loss of productivity there. And I am an employee, not a senior manager.

    0 0 Reply
  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How?

    How can they spent £18.5 million on something that manages when pension funds go bust? Just how many funds per year can that be? I got to agree that it sounds like an Excel spreadsheet and a few macros to manage the workflow sounds like a reasonable solution for such a low volume app, but fail to understand how that could possibly cost in the millions of pounds. Even buying 100 staff a brand spanking new computer, and paying for a man-year of development time to make the spreadsheet, you'd still get change from £200k...

    Seriously, what the fuck did they spend it all on???

    0 0 Reply

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