The figures have been revealed in a Cabinet Office report released today into something called "Transformational Government Strategy". You won’t however find the figures in the press release (funny that!). The press release bangs on about
how the Government is making efficiency savings by cutting 551 websites. You
might even be confused into thinking that only around 26 would remain given the
way the release is worded.However, the truth, as ever, is in the detail, and a
quick look at the report here shows that in fact, 551 websites are being cut,
but that is only 51%, leaving 400 to be maintained and run at whatever the cost
is. Further into the report there is a section detailing just how much money is
spent in each area of Government on IT for 2005/06 and frankly, the figures are
staggering. The total IT spend amounts to £12,414,000,000.
Now you know.
13 comments:
My favourite bit of the 'Eye' every other week is looking to see how NHS programmes in 'Connecting for Health' are doing.
Shit is going to hit fan big-time very soon, and why they are persisting with the idea that they can make ID cards work really escapes me.
Notice how Reid sneaked out the fact that they can't build one unified database for it over the Christmas period while no one would notice ?
Well we've noticed Johnny Boy....
Iain, if the cost of IT was 'only' £206 per year I would sleep easy.
Fact is, it is much, much higher. With all the PFI projects, ID cards, Health, Inland Revenue & Customs and Defence related projects with a cost being spread over the next 20/30 years the real expenditure is far higher.
Edward Leigh has done a sterling job on the PAC trying to expose this, but he can't do the job alone - he needs the help of people like Iain, and the rest of the media.
What should make any sane person reach for their statins is the fiasco, operationally, of many of these systems, leaving aside the ridiculous, inflated cost of the kit itself. DEFRA's rural payments fiasco is just the tip of the iceberg.
Like anonymous at noon, I am not holding my breath (or taking additional statins) for the ID card scenario because the government has shown it is totally, completely and absolutely useless at any aspect of its governance and the figures on IT just underline this.
The Conservatives and the Liberals are letting them get away with too much. Where is the incisive analysis and attack needed to underline that the country is being run by a group of people you wouldn't trust to superintend a hamster cage?
It's more than £206 per person. Looking at the report it does not cover the IT activities of the devolved administrations in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
As I said on Guido. I wish New Labour were running World War II. At Dunkirk instead of a full scale retreat we would have a "transformational strategy" and the little boats would be transformational enablers. Hitler couldn't have a better friend that the New Labour Press Officers.
I agree that £206 per year is very, very low. They don't cover the cost of maintenance, Personal Computers, Software etc.
The real scandal that no one seems to pick up on is the number of "in-house" consultants from the large IT consultancies working inside each Ministry. They are there "at cost" and are supposed to be "helping" the Minister with IT strategy. In reality they are the companies top-salesmen on million pound bonuses bleeding the departments budgets. This really does make the cash-for-peerages scandals look like small-fry.
Simply write to a couple of Ministeries and ask how many people are working their and from which large IT consultancies. Any Labour supporter would want to get out of office just to stop this vast waste of taxpayers money.
The websites they're scrapping probably cost a fraction of this. The expensive things are the contracts with EDS and Crapita which keep fucking up.
Also, does this mean "government" IT projects, or "public sector" IT projects. They mean different things, of course.
"We are dealing decisively with the proliferation of government websites by getting rid of more than 500."
Are we in "1984" or what?
If they are being axed, why were they allowed to proliferate in the first place?
It would be interesting to see a list of the sites which are being closed - and even more so to see the stats for usage and (non) uptake.
It isn't helped by the fact that the indigenous IT industry in this country is being systematically destroyed with the outsourcing of development to overseas. The problem is that because of the rapid expansion of, to take one example, India's IT industry the people employed there are barely trained, with them being rushed through an IT educational process, and have not got the experience or knowledge of our own guys. One senior person within the very large organisation that I work for said "it takes 4 of them to do what 1 of our guys can do". It might improve but there will be some big time IT fiascos to come ....
The problem is that the easy answer to any department or companies problems seem to be that "a new IT system will solve everything."
I work in IT (but not on a government project at present) and I've never seen new technology be the answer to anything, unless there is a clear idea of how things should work already.
This lot don't know what they are doing with paper, so how would they know what to do with computers?
I'd rather have government websites than trident or iraq or afghanistan
Bloody hell Javelin - you're not wrong there!
But you just try to get planning permissions anywhere, (and I mean proper big schemes). The councils don't want consultants doing any of that I can assure you!
Most of the dross (like plastic windows or avocado bog extensions), is taking all the time for the planners in Local Authorities to make their minds up. Meanwhile, all the developments which just might make a difference to jobs, welfare, local benefits, leisure etc, are being pushed further to the back of the queues, because there is no cash to fund a method for getting things built.
This is a national scandal, the risks of building anything reasonable are bad enough, without having councils to deal with as well.
And I haven't even mentioned the Olympics...
Barring the financial institutions hardly any large organisations do the IT thing very well. This is as true for business as it is for government.
The problem is that most senior types just don't understand computers, especially systems.
But they suckers for a snazzy powerpoint presentation, a trip round a gleaming office building and big talk.
Throw in a good lunch, a golf day and some attractive female sales execs and another sale is guaranteed.
I mean what Leviathan of the Boardroom or Colossus of the Ministry is going to admit to the very attractive thirty something lady that he can't even turn his computer on without calling the helpdesk. Especially after he's thrashed the IT company CEO at golf and consumed the better part of the Ritz Grill.
I pray that one day we manage to get over this hurdle. But having been the victim of several project roll outs I don't expect that day soon.
BJ said...
"The expensive things are the contracts with EDS and Crapita which keep fucking up."
But that's the point. Then they get paid more to fix the things that shouldn't have got fucked up in the first place.
Unixman said...
"It isn't helped by the fact that the indigenous IT industry in this country is being systematically destroyed with the outsourcing of development to overseas. The problem is that because of the rapid expansion of, to take one example, India's IT industry the people employed there are barely trained...One senior person within the very large organisation that I work for said "it takes 4 of them to do what 1 of our guys can do". "
Well, they could always try employing some of the thousands of British IT staff who have been unemployed since nulab introduced the ir35 stealth tax wheeze. But then the point of ir35 was to give the work to non-British staff.
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