h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

PNC is a nationwide computer system that is available to Police Officers from anywhere in the UK (providing they have access to the relevant hardware).

After the long and painful slog of transferring the information from micro-fiche to PC (which required a *huge* budget injection and the security-clearing of several hundred Indian data processors) it now runs without flaw. (Seriously, I have never seen a successful challenge to the information helf since it was launched.)

I can't honestly see that the NHS database needs be a lot more complicated, although it would conatin more information. Certainly the impression I got last time I saw it mentioned was that the difficulty has been the clearing of what is, necessarily, a backlog of enormous size.

Incidentally, a propos of my previous post, I should say that by 'programme' I mean a complex suite of inter-related projects, not a piece of software.

Ben

I think one of the main problems with the new NHS system is moving users away from proven, and often expensively installed, legacy systems. Cross cutting or multi departmental projects, call it what you will, is recognised as being one of the major hurdles with Public Sector IT projects. Unlike the private sector the public sector IT project management have to deal with fiefdoms and management who may well out rank them. IMHO there is a dearth of both management and IT skills in the Civil Service and I have experience in both camps.

Computer Weekly is a good source to research both NHS and ID Cards

http://www.computerweekly.com/home/

>IMHO there is a dearth of both management and IT skills in the Civil Service<

I think as far as IT goes, there's no management in the Civil Service. Every IT project I've ever been involved with has been overseen by a fossil who thought PC stood for Police Constable.

Thanks folks,

All of that has cleared my mind. I think I might be able to discuss it ( off board ) now!

Novo

I also think, for what it's wotrth that a lot of IT problems in Government Projects come down to a lack of training.

When our last computer sytm arrived (the infamouse SCOPE), we got a week long residential training course and there wasn't a manjack in the building who didn't understand the system and how it worked. The only difficulty was that it was a sh*t system and always destined for the knackers yard - in fact London refused to implement it in any way and national roll-out was never achieved.

About 18 months ago we got COMPASS. This is supposed to solve all our problems, and from what I have seen of it's capacity, yes, it could do.BUT;

a) The system is still basically sh*t. It is cumbersome and difficult to use.

b) Training was two days long, six months before the system was even fitted and on a prototype version ogf the system that bore very little resemblance to the finished article. On top of that we weren't trained in various aspects of the system that are 'mandatory' and hence never even knew those functions existed when they said, 'Right, you have to start doing it this way'.

c) Manpower requirements and the urgent nature of the workload ensured that we don't have sufficient time to either 1) re-train or b) work out how to use the systeme from scratch.

This is NOT a Pearty Political problem. This is a problem with entrenched attitudes in the senior levels of the Civil Service.

I don't think the education system has quite gotten hold of IT yet. Its probably quite a hard subject to teach. I had rather a lot of difficulty trying to explain to my sister (who owns her own computer and has done for a couple of years) over the phone how when you save a file it goes into a directory and you can only open it from that directory and in the end I got so fed up with her I hung up .

Not going into education myself then.

...mmmm.... it is also a problem with the way that the system was specified. One of the things that I have heard too often for it to be funny is the phrase, "for goodness' sake, don't ask the Users' what their requirements are... they'll only tell us what they want, and that'll mean we'll have to change things".

Of course, logically, one should work out what the requirements are before you do any design work, but for some reason I have never fully fathomed there is a tendency to do the design and tell the users what they are getting, instead of starting at square one with the fundamental question "what do you want this system to do, exactly?"

So what you have there, Blues, is classic design by architects, if you are lucky. Otherwise you have design by developers and thereby lie all our worst nightmares.

What one should start with, of course, is not a systems design at all, but a business model.

But I would say that, wouldn't I?

Ben

So how should we, or could we solve these problems Blues Shark?

Exposures of info like yours helps by enlightening us, but as Forum Posters what could we do? The problem is that the subject matter becomes 'technical' so would asking our MP's help be any use?

I will chearfully engage the next candidate to arrive on my doorstep, or visit my new MP's surgery to apply some pressure.

Do you see a solution , or only a slow slide into success?

Blue,

I agree with you. Some of the problems in the CS stem from thinking that their business requirements, and hence computer applications, are specialist and therefore need a lot of bespoking. Bespoking is expensive to achieve, maintain and upgrade. I know that some requirements are specific but the mantra should be to tune the business process to vanilla flavoured, shrink wrapped applications not vice vice versa.

The answer from the EDSs and Oracles is always yes when asked if their applications have the functionality, but very rarely without some cosultancy.

If I thought I knew the answer, I'd be a PPC.

Seriously, the only solution is actually for wholesale reform of the Civil Service. Thats a medium to long term solution, I know, but it needs doing urgently.

I don't dispute for one moment that there are massive savings to be made in the Civil Service, but they *can't* be made at the coal face. We are close to breaking point in the CPS, manpower wise, and I know colleagues in the DSS are under the same strain.

What we don't need is to be treated as a political football. I was so angry when I saw the Tory broadcast that represented civil servants a faceless men in bowlers with brollies that I nearly put my foot through my tv. The only time I openly disliked the Chancellor was when he announced 80,000 job cuts in the civil service which had never been mooted either with management or with the unions. Both were examples of pandering to the publics perceptions of what the civil service is and what it does.

There are a hard core of us in this building who are civil servants because, strangely, we are proud to be part of the machinery that keeps society running smoothly. I like the idea of being a public servant. I don't like the idea of being a political football.

The vast majority of us would co-operate in reform of the Civil Seervice if it was sensibly handled and we were properly consulted.

I do not agree about shrink-wraped versus bespoke.

If you take something like Oracle - there is no such thing as a shrink-wrapped Oracle system. You *have* to customise it to have anything at all, otherwise is the equivalent of a Word document with nothing in it.

Bespoke is expensive to create, maintain and upgrade, but it is the *only* way to achieve functionality. Could you create H2G2 from scratch using only html? Of course not! In order to have a platform with the functionality we have here, you have to specify, design and build a custom system.

Shrink-wrapped apps are only economically viable because they sell to huge numbers of people. We all need virus checkers, so it is worth Norton's while creating a complex and sophisticated suite of security systems, and the cost of doing so is borne by huge numbers of people.

But how many other Crown Prosecution Services are there out there to share the costs?

Ben

>"for goodness' sake, don't ask the Users' what their requirements are... they'll only tell us what they want, and that'll mean we'll have to change things".<

To my certain knowledge, SCOPE was signed off by a Whitehall Mandarin who had never done casework in his life. He had NO idea of what we needed from a computer system because he had NO idea of what we did for a living.

And yes, WA, that's absloutely true. A database is a database is a database. And that is all we are talking about here is database, essentially. But who in god's name wants a database that has no 'Back' or 'Undo' functions? Which is what we have at the present.

>But how many other Crown Prosecution Services are there out there to share the costs?<

Aye, and there's the rub. If you want a good system that can be properly used with people that are properly trained it costs a *lot* of money. And each Civil Service department will need their own.

Our problem is that we don't have the glamour of the NHS (and lets be honest some bits of the NHS are a hallof a lot more glamourous than others, as well). People just about swallowed the rise in NI to fund a massive injection of cash into the NHS, but they won't do it for the Civil Service.

Um. No. A database is not a database is not a database.

The DNA platform we are sitting on is - ultimately - a database.

Can you use it to store your personal accounts, or to catalogue your stamp collection? No. Because the relationships between the entities have not been set up to support accounts or stamps, they have been set up to support hyperlinks, researcher IDs, entries, posts, illustrations and smileys.

A database, out of the box, bears much the same relationship to a finished house as the products list at Travis Perkins. If you want something usable - a house or an application - you have to select the right components and do an enormous amount of design and build work first.

Ben

Then we're back to very expensive custom built applications.

So, as a propsective member of the next government, my manisfesto has;

'In order to achieve true functionality of PC systems within the civil service we realise that enormous amounts must be expended on custom built applications and proper training. We there fore propose raising NI contributions by 1p in the £1 in order to fund this.

We also recognise that wholesale reform of the civil service is necessary and plan to do something about that as well'

You going to vote for me?

So Blues Shark, I go back to a thread that I started a few days back which got ansers that intrested me.

You seem to be saying that you suffer from TSHS - The Sir Humphrey Syndrome, and a lack of cash....We found enough cash from some where to fight a war in Iraq, and are still spending God knows how much daily, so enough pressure 'Might' get mony for IT Kit , and staff. I am sorry I don't know how to influnce TSHS , except perhaps via a Newsnight Special or Bremner, Bird, & Fortune one

Blue,
I agree 100% about the perception and profile of the Civil Service. If Civil Servants didn’t turn up to work day in day out, often doing pretty boring jobs the country would grind to a halt pretty damn quickly. There are also some very bright people who keep the political, diplomatic and defence machines rolling. Having lived both sides of the fence, at quite senior levels, the one big difference between private and public sectors is the take up of change. The private sector went through quality and business process re-engineering revolutions starting around the mid 70’s. It wasn’t comfortable and change for change sake became the norm but what did emerge was a much more productive business community that could and does compete globally.

Change is afoot in the Civil Service but I would estimate it is 10 years behind the private sector. The challenge for politicians and Civil Servants is to bring public sector performance up to best in class. Just repeating the privatise privatise mantra is not the answer. Given the opportunity over again would any government privatise British Rail. Shake it up, improve it, make it excellent yes but don’t leave us with the present inefficient, expensive dogs dinner. Managing change in the public sector is more difficult than in the private sector but as you say it can be rewarding working for the good of society, it would be even better if the sector was world class.

The principle difficulty with TSHS is that the quickest and most immediate way to save cash if you are the government is to de-centralise the Civil Serce. Base the MOD in Carlisle. What difference does it make?

The difference it makes is that Mrs Sir Hunmphrey doesn't like the shopping in Carlisle.

Well, if you stood on that platform, Blues, I would. But then I am rather more clear eyed and rather more of a realist than some.

And I was only *ever* talking about very expensive custom apps. It was Wandering Albatross who said that out-of-the-box is possible.

However WA is bang on the money about managing change. The problem is that humans, especially large numbers of humans, especially large numbers of risk-adverse humans, tend to be very resistant to change. It is arguable that the only reason that the private sector changed is because of the change-or-die nature of international de-regulated markets.

This is obviously not an option for the public sector, (though the application of international market forces to the NHS is interesting), so how one produces a culture which is in favour of change in the public sector leaves me completely stumped.

One other factor which the private sector has which the public sector does not is the right to make mistakes. I have worked on programmes employing hundreds of IT folks for well over 12 months which then imploded. Irrisistable commercial pressures meant that only something humungous would do the job, and the same irrisistable commercial pressures meant that it had to be delivered yesterday. The programme management couldn't take the strain, the systems were cr@p and the money ran out - hence the implosion.

Now ultimately it doesn't matter a button whether or not those programmes are paid for by higher phone tarrifs, (which they were). We can all choose our phone provider, (and from what I have seen, there is b*gg*r all to chose between them in that particular respect).

It does however matter if the same thing happens in the public sector, and is funded out of public money. This means that the public sector does not have the right to cock up.

Ben