The title says it all but does anyone know what has happened to the e-borders project outside this failed computer system. Has it just been dumped? If so is there any political fall-out that might be due to arrive?
That's an interesting article, thanks for linking. I haven't been following the eBorders mess much because it was just too depressing. The scheme was launched by Blair in 2003, and still had not delivered in 2010 when it was cancelled.
It's obvious that Labour just wanted to make it look as if they were doing something, said any old sh*t that would sound good in the media, and did not bother specifying the project.
This was hardly rocket science. Labour really are a bunch of incompetent idiots.
As for the program: it was officially cancelled earlier this year, and many of its requirements (hopefully (ha!) properly specified this time) have been merged into the Border Systems Program, which appears to be a superset of functionality.
The government want it delivered by next year. That is, to my mind at least, rather optimistic at this stage (i.e. nearly frigging impossible). And in the meantime the existing systems are being held together by ear wax and chewing gum: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/10/border_control_disaster_story/
There's no sense in dividing the bets on betfair in this way. Every bet matched on YES is also effectively a bet on NO (i.e. a lay of YES). And the way betfair counts the stakes means a £600 bet on NO @ 1.16 (1/6) counts as £1200 matched whereas a £100 bet on YES @ 7.0 (6/1) only counts as £200 matched, despite the fact that these are actually identical bets.
In terms of following the money, I'd agree with Shadsy that the early weight of money for YES (because it's odds-against) is probably keeping it artificially short. You'd expect more money-buyers on NO over the next month.
The title says it all but does anyone know what has happened to the e-borders project outside this failed computer system. Has it just been dumped? If so is there any political fall-out that might be due to arrive?
That's an interesting article, thanks for linking. I haven't been following the eBorders mess much because it was just too depressing. The scheme was launched by Blair in 2003, and still had not delivered in 2010 when it was cancelled.
It's obvious that Labour just wanted to make it look as if they were doing something, said any old sh*t that would sound good in the media, and did not bother specifying the project.
This was hardly rocket science. Labour really are a bunch of incompetent idiots.
As for the program: it was officially cancelled earlier this year, and many of its requirements (hopefully (ha!) properly specified this time) have been merged into the Border Systems Program, which appears to be a superset of functionality.
The government want it delivered by next year. That is, to my mind at least, rather optimistic at this stage (i.e. nearly frigging impossible). And in the meantime the existing systems are being held together by ear wax and chewing gum: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/10/border_control_disaster_story/
I did an interesting few weeks advising a Programme Director on the periphery of the e-borders programme in 2005ish. Incompetence doesn't begin to describe what I saw going on... The daily cost of consultants was astonishing...
The PD was persuaded to trial some solutions by using manual systems in overseas visa offices before even thinking about the requirements for an IT procurement... For this he was carpeted and told he should be doing an IT procurement before anything else... Best laugh was being called to a meeting where I was lectured to about Programme Management by a McKinsey consultant from the States who looked about 18 and, when pressed, hadn't been involved in a single project that was remotely comparable... I understand her day rate was £2,500...
The title says it all but does anyone know what has happened to the e-borders project outside this failed computer system. Has it just been dumped? If so is there any political fall-out that might be due to arrive?
That's an interesting article, thanks for linking. I haven't been following the eBorders mess much because it was just too depressing. The scheme was launched by Blair in 2003, and still had not delivered in 2010 when it was cancelled.
It's obvious that Labour just wanted to make it look as if they were doing something, said any old sh*t that would sound good in the media, and did not bother specifying the project.
This was hardly rocket science. Labour really are a bunch of incompetent idiots.
As for the program: it was officially cancelled earlier this year, and many of its requirements (hopefully (ha!) properly specified this time) have been merged into the Border Systems Program, which appears to be a superset of functionality.
The government want it delivered by next year. That is, to my mind at least, rather optimistic at this stage (i.e. nearly frigging impossible). And in the meantime the existing systems are being held together by ear wax and chewing gum: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/10/border_control_disaster_story/
Thanks for the Mr. J. Whatever way one looks at it the Border Agency has been a complete feck up from the start till and shows no sign of getting any better. Politicians setting things up in a rush without proper scrutiny or thought, the computer system failures is probably more of a symptom than a cause.
"So we might not get the result until Friday lunchtime or later if the weather is bad."
Crikey, Mr G is going on holiday that Friday. I wonder what time his flight takes off. He may be condemned to zoom off into the sunshine not knowing the result.
I did an interesting few weeks advising a Programme Director on the periphery of the e-borders programme in 2005ish. Incompetence doesn't begin to describe what I saw going on... The daily cost of consultants was astonishing...
The PD was persuaded to trial some solutions by using manual systems in overseas visa offices before even thinking about the requirements for an IT procurement... For this he was carpeted and told he should be doing an IT procurement before anything else... Best laugh was being called to a meeting where I was lectured to about Programme Management by a McKinsey consultant from the States who looked about 18 and, when pressed, hadn't been involved in a single project that was remotely comparable... I understand her day rate was £2,500...
Thanks for that - it mirrors what I've heard on the grapevine about various government projects.
Is the problem the fact that few (any?) ministers have any project management experience - yet alone in IT project management - and therefore believe that by spending money on highly-paid advisers they'll get the best advice on how to do it? Or is it the civil servants leading ministers by the nose?
Here's an idea: for the next big IT project, the government should publicly release overview specifications as given to the bidders. Let people who know what they are doing rip the specifications to shreds to ensure we get something that should work if the bidders do their jobs. Let us check the reality against what a minister says in parliament.
In other words, open-source the top-level specifications.
After all, it's our money the politicians waste, time and time again.
There's no sense in dividing the bets on betfair in this way. Every bet matched on YES is also effectively a bet on NO (i.e. a lay of YES). And the way betfair counts the stakes means a £600 bet on NO @ 1.16 (1/6) counts as £1200 matched whereas a £100 bet on YES @ 7.0 (6/1) only counts as £200 matched, despite the fact that these are actually identical bets.
In terms of following the money, I'd agree with Shadsy that the early weight of money for YES (because it's odds-against) is probably keeping it artificially short. You'd expect more money-buyers on NO over the next month.
Haha yes of course... it cant be anything other that 50/50 can it?
The title says it all but does anyone know what has happened to the e-borders project outside this failed computer system. Has it just been dumped? If so is there any political fall-out that might be due to arrive?
That's an interesting article, thanks for linking. I haven't been following the eBorders mess much because it was just too depressing. The scheme was launched by Blair in 2003, and still had not delivered in 2010 when it was cancelled.
It's obvious that Labour just wanted to make it look as if they were doing something, said any old sh*t that would sound good in the media, and did not bother specifying the project.
This was hardly rocket science. Labour really are a bunch of incompetent idiots.
As for the program: it was officially cancelled earlier this year, and many of its requirements (hopefully (ha!) properly specified this time) have been merged into the Border Systems Program, which appears to be a superset of functionality.
The government want it delivered by next year. That is, to my mind at least, rather optimistic at this stage (i.e. nearly frigging impossible). And in the meantime the existing systems are being held together by ear wax and chewing gum: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/10/border_control_disaster_story/
Radical Independence Campaign reporting their canvassing of 18,012 people in working class communities as Yes 43.6%, No 25.3%, and don’t know 31.1%. With the undecideds taken out, the result is Yes 63.4% and No 36.5%.
Radical Independence Campaign reporting their canvassing of 18,012 people in working class communities as Yes 43.6%, No 25.3%, and don’t know 31.1%. With the undecideds taken out, the result is Yes 63.4% and No 36.5%.
Welcome to the site! Data are always welcome, but raw canvass data isn't usually a good guide, as groups generally prefer to canvass promising areas and the canvassers can sometimes be a bit optimistic - what works well is comparisons with previous canvasses of the same people, but of course that's not practical with nothing to compare to.
Radical Independence Campaign reporting their canvassing of 18,012 people in working class communities as Yes 43.6%, No 25.3%, and don’t know 31.1%. With the undecideds taken out, the result is Yes 63.4% and No 36.5%.
I can exclusively report that 100% of my household will be voting Green at the next GE. With undecideds taken out that is 100% Green - 0% everyone else.
More bragging about the state of Yorkshire cricket. An under 10 Yorkshire lad has just scored 80 runs from 19 balls in a limited overs match. He hit the first 7 balls he received for 6 (That's better than Gary Sobers!)
I can exclusively report that 100% of my household will be voting Green at the next GE. With undecideds taken out that is 100% Green - 0% everyone else.
I can exclusively report that 100% of my household will be voting Green at the next GE. With undecideds taken out that is 100% Green - 0% everyone else.
You didn't publish your margin of error.
Unreliable poll...
The margin of error is the probability of me making it to the date of the next GE.
More bragging about the state of Yorkshire cricket. An under 10 Yorkshire lad has just scored 80 runs from 19 balls in a limited overs match. He hit the first 7 balls he received for 6 (That's better than Gary Sobers!)
Is that 6 "proper" balls and a no ball? Anyway, much to my surprise archetypical Yorkie Darren Gough's son is playing for Essex!
Radical Independence Campaign reporting their canvassing of 18,012 people in working class communities as Yes 43.6%, No 25.3%, and don’t know 31.1%. With the undecideds taken out, the result is Yes 63.4% and No 36.5%.
Not bad but not as good as Kim Jong-Un who got 100% in a recent election.
I did an interesting few weeks advising a Programme Director on the periphery of the e-borders programme in 2005ish. Incompetence doesn't begin to describe what I saw going on... The daily cost of consultants was astonishing...
The PD was persuaded to trial some solutions by using manual systems in overseas visa offices before even thinking about the requirements for an IT procurement... For this he was carpeted and told he should be doing an IT procurement before anything else... Best laugh was being called to a meeting where I was lectured to about Programme Management by a McKinsey consultant from the States who looked about 18 and, when pressed, hadn't been involved in a single project that was remotely comparable... I understand her day rate was £2,500...
Thanks for that - it mirrors what I've heard on the grapevine about various government projects.
Is the problem the fact that few (any?) ministers have any project management experience - yet alone in IT project management - and therefore believe that by spending money on highly-paid advisers they'll get the best advice on how to do it? Or is it the civil servants leading ministers by the nose?
Here's an idea: for the next big IT project, the government should publicly release overview specifications as given to the bidders. Let people who know what they are doing rip the specifications to shreds to ensure we get something that should work if the bidders do their jobs. Let us check the reality against what a minister says in parliament.
In other words, open-source the top-level specifications.
After all, it's our money the politicians waste, time and time again.
Publishing the Spec documents would be a really good idea. There cannot be any complaint about commercial confidentiality or any of that nonsense that the Civil Service usually comes out with. What it would do though is expose the depth of thinking of ministers and civil servants; therefore it will never happen.
In relation to the use of consultants, when I was at the Home Office we used to bring them in only to write a report telling us we were doing the correct thing. They were, in other words, the civil servants' professional indemnity insurance - if the project went tits up we could wave a bit of paper with some leading logo on it saying we did it right and therefore it couldn't be our fault. We never used consultants to tell us anything we didn't know and never to talk to people outside the project team as per Mr. Rexel's example. If anything we tried to limit as far as was possible the consultants' access to people. After all, if they started talking to people they could find things out, they might start thinking about the project, they might come to an independent view and that would never do.
Radical Independence Campaign reporting their canvassing of 18,012 people in working class communities as Yes 43.6%, No 25.3%, and don’t know 31.1%. With the undecideds taken out, the result is Yes 63.4% and No 36.5%.
Not bad but not as good as Kim Jong-Un who got 100% in a recent election.
The Northern Ireland sovereignty referendum in 1973 (at the height of the IRA campaign and a resultant Catholic boycott of this particular poll) produced a 98.9% result in favour of the Union.
Radical Independence Campaign reporting their canvassing of 18,012 people in working class communities as Yes 43.6%, No 25.3%, and don’t know 31.1%. With the undecideds taken out, the result is Yes 63.4% and No 36.5%.
Not bad but not as good as Kim Jong-Un who got 100% in a recent election.
The Northern Ireland sovereignty referendum in 1973 (at the height of the IRA campaign and a resultant Catholic boycott of this particular poll) produced a 98.9% result in favour of the Union.
More bragging about the state of Yorkshire cricket. An under 10 Yorkshire lad has just scored 80 runs from 19 balls in a limited overs match. He hit the first 7 balls he received for 6 (That's better than Gary Sobers!)
Is that 6 "proper" balls and a no ball? Anyway, much to my surprise archetypical Yorkie Darren Gough's son is playing for Essex!
Not that strange, Darren played for Essex for 3 years 2004-7 so Liam would have lived there aged 10-13.
More bragging about the state of Yorkshire cricket. An under 10 Yorkshire lad has just scored 80 runs from 19 balls in a limited overs match. He hit the first 7 balls he received for 6 (That's better than Gary Sobers!)
Is that 6 "proper" balls and a no ball? Anyway, much to my surprise archetypical Yorkie Darren Gough's son is playing for Essex!
Not that strange, Darren played for Essex for 3 years 2004-7 so Liam would have lived there aged 10-13.
Indeed, but AFAIK he's back in Barnsley now. And, I'm fairly sure he commuted, but I could be wrong.
Radical Independence Campaign reporting their canvassing of 18,012 people in working class communities as Yes 43.6%, No 25.3%, and don’t know 31.1%. With the undecideds taken out, the result is Yes 63.4% and No 36.5%.
Not bad but not as good as Kim Jong-Un who got 100% in a recent election.
The Northern Ireland sovereignty referendum in 1973 (at the height of the IRA campaign and a resultant Catholic boycott of this particular poll) produced a 98.9% result in favour of the Union.
Radical Independence Campaign reporting their canvassing of 18,012 people in working class communities as Yes 43.6%, No 25.3%, and don’t know 31.1%. With the undecideds taken out, the result is Yes 63.4% and No 36.5%.
Not bad but not as good as Kim Jong-Un who got 100% in a recent election.
The Northern Ireland sovereignty referendum in 1973 (at the height of the IRA campaign and a resultant Catholic boycott of this particular poll) produced a 98.9% result in favour of the Union.
In what way? They say they are from Eritrea and Pakistan or India, and feel the need to enter the country secretly in a sealed truck.
Presumably he thinks they are asylum seekers. If they are, potentially, they will get leave to stay. Until they report their circumstances we won't know.
Radical Independence Campaign reporting their canvassing of 18,012 people in working class communities as Yes 43.6%, No 25.3%, and don’t know 31.1%. With the undecideds taken out, the result is Yes 63.4% and No 36.5%.
Not bad but not as good as Kim Jong-Un who got 100% in a recent election.
The Northern Ireland sovereignty referendum in 1973 (at the height of the IRA campaign and a resultant Catholic boycott of this particular poll) produced a 98.9% result in favour of the Union.
Those wearying at laughing at Salmond's currency make it up as you go along plan might find a little light relief in this:
The Palace of Westminster belongs to Scotland too,' Mr Salmond told a crowd of cheering schoolchildren at a primary school in Strachur, 'and there's absolutely nothing anyone can do to stop us using it.'......
From the outset it has been clear that the SNP strategy was to keep as much continuity from the UK as possible, to try to attract voters naturally conservative in nature. From the pound to the Queen and the BBC, the First Minister's approach has almost been one of Independence Lite, to the dismay of more radical nationalists.
Now, in the face of a Better Together campaign that has insisted iScotland won't get the pound, they can only have the Royals that no one else wants, like Camilla and Eugenie, and that they can have BBC3 and that's it, Mr Salmond is intent on raising the stakes.
Radical Independence Campaign reporting their canvassing of 18,012 people in working class communities as Yes 43.6%, No 25.3%, and don’t know 31.1%. With the undecideds taken out, the result is Yes 63.4% and No 36.5%.
Not bad but not as good as Kim Jong-Un who got 100% in a recent election.
The Northern Ireland sovereignty referendum in 1973 (at the height of the IRA campaign and a resultant Catholic boycott of this particular poll) produced a 98.9% result in favour of the Union.
Radical Independence Campaign reporting their canvassing of 18,012 people in working class communities as Yes 43.6%, No 25.3%, and don’t know 31.1%. With the undecideds taken out, the result is Yes 63.4% and No 36.5%.
Not bad but not as good as Kim Jong-Un who got 100% in a recent election.
The Northern Ireland sovereignty referendum in 1973 (at the height of the IRA campaign and a resultant Catholic boycott of this particular poll) produced a 98.9% result in favour of the Union.
Thanks for that - it mirrors what I've heard on the grapevine about various government projects.
Is the problem the fact that few (any?) ministers have any project management experience - yet alone in IT project management - and therefore believe that by spending money on highly-paid advisers they'll get the best advice on how to do it? Or is it the civil servants leading ministers by the nose?
Here's an idea: for the next big IT project, the government should publicly release overview specifications as given to the bidders. Let people who know what they are doing rip the specifications to shreds to ensure we get something that should work if the bidders do their jobs. Let us check the reality against what a minister says in parliament.
In other words, open-source the top-level specifications.
After all, it's our money the politicians waste, time and time again.
As a former IT manager who followed a few of these projects fairly closely, some anecdotal impressions:
- Not all big projects do fail. The new passport system ca. 2008 was a good example of a successful project which dramatically improved turnaround. The project had well-defined objectives which didn't change significantly. - Projects that failed or went over budget generally reflected either changes in specs (often due to public pressure) or (I suspect) a tacit agreement between Ministry and bidders to keep the estimates low and let the cost float up later: my impression is that this was common in the defence sector - Some projects succeeded in parts - e.g. the famous/notorious NHS IT project was successful in delivering local IT record-keeping (greatly reducing the scandal of patient files going astray) but failed for the national spine (partly because the users (GPs who already had their own incompatible systems) hadn't really been persuaded). - Ministers aren't project managers and shouldn't be expected to be - it's a discreet skill and for a large project requires full-time attention which they certainly can't supply.What they need is clarity on what they hope to achieve, in as much detail as they consider necessary.
Specs in a large project (and although projects should be broken down if possible, it's not always possible) may well need to change as development reveals aspects that are unacceptable for either technical or policy reasons - insisting that an initial design is perfect is unwise. The answer to that is probably pilot projects, and the political system with its 5-year cycle makes that difficult. To be fair to IDS, the decision to put Universal Credit into pilots probably prevented a much bigger disaster.
I can exclusively report that 100% of my household will be voting Green at the next GE. With undecideds taken out that is 100% Green - 0% everyone else.
You didn't publish your margin of error.
Unreliable poll...
The margin of error is the probability of me making it to the date of the next GE.
Presumably added to the probability of the greens not standing a candidate in your constituency? (Admittedly, I suspect that this one is low...)
Radical Independence Campaign reporting their canvassing of 18,012 people in working class communities as Yes 43.6%, No 25.3%, and don’t know 31.1%. With the undecideds taken out, the result is Yes 63.4% and No 36.5%.
Not bad but not as good as Kim Jong-Un who got 100% in a recent election.
The Northern Ireland sovereignty referendum in 1973 (at the height of the IRA campaign and a resultant Catholic boycott of this particular poll) produced a 98.9% result in favour of the Union.
I can exclusively report that 100% of my household will be voting Green at the next GE. With undecideds taken out that is 100% Green - 0% everyone else.
You didn't publish your margin of error.
Unreliable poll...
The margin of error is the probability of me making it to the date of the next GE.
Presumably added to the probability of the greens not standing a candidate in your constituency? (Admittedly, I suspect that this one is low...)
If I survive until the GE there is zero chance of there not being a candidate!
The title says it all but does anyone know what has happened to the e-borders project outside this failed computer system. Has it just been dumped? If so is there any political fall-out that might be due to arrive?
That's an interesting article, thanks for linking. I haven't been following the eBorders mess much because it was just too depressing. The scheme was launched by Blair in 2003, and still had not delivered in 2010 when it was cancelled.
It's obvious that Labour just wanted to make it look as if they were doing something, said any old sh*t that would sound good in the media, and did not bother specifying the project.
This was hardly rocket science. Labour really are a bunch of incompetent idiots.
As for the program: it was officially cancelled earlier this year, and many of its requirements (hopefully (ha!) properly specified this time) have been merged into the Border Systems Program, which appears to be a superset of functionality.
The government want it delivered by next year. That is, to my mind at least, rather optimistic at this stage (i.e. nearly frigging impossible). And in the meantime the existing systems are being held together by ear wax and chewing gum: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/10/border_control_disaster_story/
Thanks for that - it mirrors what I've heard on the grapevine about various government projects.
Is the problem the fact that few (any?) ministers have any project management experience - yet alone in IT project management - and therefore believe that by spending money on highly-paid advisers they'll get the best advice on how to do it? Or is it the civil servants leading ministers
In other words, open-source the top-level specifications.
After all, it's our money the politicians waste, time and time again.
As a former IT manager who followed a few of these projects fairly closely, some anecdotal impressions:
- Not all big projects do fail. The new passport system ca. 2008 was a good example of a successful project which dramatically improved turnaround. The project had well-defined objectives which didn't change significantly. - Projects that failed or went over budget generally reflected either changes in specs (often due to public pressure) or (I suspect) a tacit agreement between Ministry and bidders to keep the estimates low and let the cost float up later: my impression is that this was common in the defence sector - Some projects succeeded in parts - e.g. the famous/notorious NHS IT project was successful in delivering local IT record-keeping (greatly reducing the scandal of patient files going astray) but failed for the national spine (partly because the users (GPs who already had their own incompatible systems) hadn't really been persuaded). - Ministers aren't project managers and shouldn't be expected to be - it's a discreet skill and for a large project requires full-time attention which they certainly can't supply.What they need is clarity on what they hope to achieve, in as much detail as they consider necessary.
Specs in a large project (and although projects should be broken down if possible, it's not always possible) may well need to change as development reveals aspects that are unacceptable for either technical or policy reasons - insisting that an initial design is perfect is unwise. The answer to that is probably pilot projects, and the political system with its 5-year cycle makes that difficult. To be fair to IDS, the decision to put Universal Credit into pilots probably prevented a much bigger disaster.
Can't argue against any of the points you make... Though blaming public pressure for what was inadequate contingency seems a bit of a cop out...
Would be interested to hear your view on the demands made for major programmes to make public their risk registers..
The title says it all but does anyone know what has happened to the e-borders project outside this failed computer system. Has it just been dumped? If so is there any political fall-out that might be due to arrive?
That's an interesting article, thanks for linking. I haven't been following the eBorders mess much because it was just too depressing. The scheme was launched by Blair in 2003, and still had not delivered in 2010 when it was cancelled.
It's obvious that Labour just wanted to make it look as if they were doing something, said any old sh*t that would sound good in the media, and did not bother specifying the project.
This was hardly rocket science. Labour really are a bunch of incompetent idiots.
As for the program: it was officially cancelled earlier this year, and many of its requirements (hopefully (ha!) properly specified this time) have been merged into the Border Systems Program, which appears to be a superset of functionality.
The government want it delivered by next year. That is, to my mind at least, rather optimistic at this stage (i.e. nearly frigging impossible). And in the meantime the existing systems are being held together by ear wax and chewing gum: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/10/border_control_disaster_story/
Of course. And all stories are either good for the Tories and therefore accurate, or ignored / typical of lefty BBC bias.
Don't worry about JosiasJessop, he humiliated himself by saying ISIS was "all Ed Miliband's fault", he's a pretty desperate Tory spinner.
The discussion on projects in the public sector wasn't party political... and to be fair, the private sector is often no more competent it's just easier to hide the mistakes. The current government's Rural Broadband programme is equally as Ill conceived and lacking in value for money as anything yhe Home Office did 1997-2010
Of course. And all stories are either good for the Tories and therefore accurate, or ignored / typical of lefty BBC bias.
Don't worry about JosiasJessop, he humiliated himself by saying ISIS was "all Ed Miliband's fault", he's a pretty desperate Tory spinner.
I'm pretty sure I did not use those words (especially in quotes). What I did say was that Ed Miliband has blood on his hands for the awful way he handled the Syria vote.
And I gave my reasons. You may not agree, but I reckon those people in Iraq, and many in Syria, would not be dead if he had actually had a spine.
The Register article is somewhat out of date. I know something of the upgrade project, and the biggest problem with it is the adversarial nature of the contract.
The Agency insisted that equipment had to be installed by a certain date to meet a payment deadline, so it was installed. It wasn't configured or working, the design work had not been done, but to delay the installation and do it right couldn't be agreed between the parties.
As a former IT manager who followed a few of these projects fairly closely, some anecdotal impressions:
- Not all big projects do fail. The new passport system ca. 2008 was a good example of a successful project which dramatically improved turnaround. The project had well-defined objectives which didn't change significantly. - Projects that failed or went over budget generally reflected either changes in specs (often due to public pressure) or (I suspect) a tacit agreement between Ministry and bidders to keep the estimates low and let the cost float up later: my impression is that this was common in the defence sector - Some projects succeeded in parts - e.g. the famous/notorious NHS IT project was successful in delivering local IT record-keeping (greatly reducing the scandal of patient files going astray) but failed for the national spine (partly because the users (GPs who already had their own incompatible systems) hadn't really been persuaded). - Ministers aren't project managers and shouldn't be expected to be - it's a discreet skill and for a large project requires full-time attention which they certainly can't supply.What they need is clarity on what they hope to achieve, in as much detail as they consider necessary.
Specs in a large project (and although projects should be broken down if possible, it's not always possible) may well need to change as development reveals aspects that are unacceptable for either technical or policy reasons - insisting that an initial design is perfect is unwise. The answer to that is probably pilot projects, and the political system with its 5-year cycle makes that difficult. To be fair to IDS, the decision to put Universal Credit into pilots probably prevented a much bigger disaster.
Thanks for your reply. I'd like to take the points one-by-one:
1) Not all big projects do fail. I never claimed they did, but when they do, they do in a massive way. It would be interesting to know if there is any way of feeding back lessons learned from successful and failed projects to new ones.
2) Any changes in specs should undergo a thorough process and be visible to the public. Any tacit agreements between a ministry and suppliers over and above specifications should be banned. In fact, they sound vaguely fraudulent.
3) Did the NHS IT project deliver record keeping? I know it delivered an email system, but that in itself is soon to be replaced (1). It seems precious little for ten billion pounds.
4) Minister should not be project managers, but they should have a reasonable grasp of process if they are going to be responsible for such massive spending on projects.
"Although projects should be broken down if possible, it's not always possible" That's an interesting statement. Why can projects not always be broken down? I'd love to see examples.
In what way? They say they are from Eritrea and Pakistan or India, and feel the need to enter the country secretly in a sealed truck.
Presumably he thinks they are asylum seekers. If they are, potentially, they will get leave to stay. Until they report their circumstances we won't know.
Send them straight back and then they won't try again. Australia hasn't had a single illegal immigrant arriving on it's shores for the past seven months despite 50000 arriving in the four years previously.
Of course. And all stories are either good for the Tories and therefore accurate, or ignored / typical of lefty BBC bias.
Don't worry about JosiasJessop, he humiliated himself by saying ISIS was "all Ed Miliband's fault", he's a pretty desperate Tory spinner.
I'm pretty sure I did not use those words (especially in quotes). What I did say was that Ed Miliband has blood on his hands for the awful way he handled the Syria vote.
And I gave my reasons. You may not agree, but I reckon those people in Iraq, and many in Syria, would not be dead if he had actually had a spine.
The title says it all but does anyone know what has happened to the e-borders project outside this failed computer system. Has it just been dumped? If so is there any political fall-out that might be due to arrive?
That's an interesting article, thanks for linking. I haven't been following the eBorders mess much because it was just too depressing. The scheme was launched by Blair in 2003, and still had not delivered in 2010 when it was cancelled.
It's obvious that Labour just wanted to make it look as if they were doing something, said any old sh*t that would sound good in the media, and did not bother specifying the project.
This was hardly rocket science. Labour really are a bunch of incompetent idiots.
As for the program: it was officially cancelled earlier this year, and many of its requirements (hopefully (ha!) properly specified this time) have been merged into the Border Systems Program, which appears to be a superset of functionality.
The government want it delivered by next year. That is, to my mind at least, rather optimistic at this stage (i.e. nearly frigging impossible). And in the meantime the existing systems are being held together by ear wax and chewing gum: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/10/border_control_disaster_story/
Of course. And all stories are either good for the Tories and therefore accurate, or ignored / typical of lefty BBC bias.
Don't worry about JosiasJessop, he humiliated himself by saying ISIS was "all Ed Miliband's fault", he's a pretty desperate Tory spinner.
Be fair, the BBC article didn't say much more or much different than the article I kicked off with and the whole thing has nothing to do with party politics.
As for Mr. Jessop being a Tory spinner, the idea is laughable, at least it is to anyone who has read his posts over the months,
Elsewhere, Tories are excited by Cameron and Osborne's latest tractor stats on inflation. Cost of living crisis, what crisis!
Whilst most people are looking at the failing train companies ramping fares up yet again, something Miliband has said he'd stop once he's PM, thankfully.
As a former IT manager who followed a few of these projects fairly closely, some anecdotal impressions:
- Not all big projects do fail. The new passport system ca. 2008 was a good example of a successful project which dramatically improved turnaround. The project had well-defined objectives which didn't change significantly. - Projects that failed or went over budget generally reflected either changes in specs (often due to public pressure) or (I suspect) a tacit agreement between Ministry and bidders to keep the estimates low and let the cost float up later: my impression is that this was common in the defence sector - Some projects succeeded in parts - e.g. the famous/notorious NHS IT project was successful in delivering local IT record-keeping (greatly reducing the scandal of patient files going astray) but failed for the national spine (partly because the users (GPs who already had their own incompatible systems) hadn't really been persuaded). - Ministers aren't project managers and shouldn't be expected to be - it's a discreet skill and for a large project requires full-time attention which they certainly can't supply.What they need is clarity on what they hope to achieve, in as much detail as they consider necessary.
Specs in a large project (and although projects should be broken down if possible, it's not always possible) may well need to change as development reveals aspects that are unacceptable for either technical or policy reasons - insisting that an initial design is perfect is unwise. The answer to that is probably pilot projects, and the political system with its 5-year cycle makes that difficult. To be fair to IDS, the decision to put Universal Credit into pilots probably prevented a much bigger disaster.
Thanks for your reply. I'd like to take the points one-by-one:
"Although projects should be broken down if possible, it's not always possible" That's an interesting statement. Why can projects not always be broken down? I'd love to see examples.
"Broken down" is meaningless without further definition. No significant public sector programme or project can be done without being broken down into stages with decisions whether to proceed or not the next stage. Unfortunately, such decisions are often subjective due to the political price of being seen to do a U turn. Also, the decision to proceed is often misunderstood as merely a check that all the boxes have been ticked on the preceding stage.
Elsewhere, Tories are excited by Cameron and Osborne's latest tractor stats on inflation. Cost of living crisis, what crisis!
Whilst most people are looking at the failing train companies ramping fares up yet again, something Miliband has said he'd stop once he's PM, thankfully.
He won't, he will be cutting public spending whilst raising taxes due to our 100bn a year deficit and already high national debt. Bound to be popular government!
As rates rise we should also be due a recession in due course.
Elsewhere, Tories are excited by Cameron and Osborne's latest tractor stats on inflation. Cost of living crisis, what crisis!
Whilst most people are looking at the failing train companies ramping fares up yet again, something Miliband has said he'd stop once he's PM, thankfully.
He won't, he will be cutting public spending whilst raising taxes due to our 100bn a year deficit and already high national debt. Bound to be popular government!
As rates rise we should also be due a recession in due course.
Yeah he's certainly going to inherit a dreadful borrowing and economic situation from the Cameron and Osborne's Tories, I'm just glad he's got some good ideas to deal with it.
Elsewhere, Tories are excited by Cameron and Osborne's latest tractor stats on inflation. Cost of living crisis, what crisis!
Whilst most people are looking at the failing train companies ramping fares up yet again, something Miliband has said he'd stop once he's PM, thankfully.
Ah yes, government is terribly easy.
Energy prices going up? Pass a law saying they can't go up.
Train fares going up? Tell them to stop putting them up.
The only puzzle is why no-one else has ever thought of these simple but effective solutions before the genius Ed Miliband came to propose them. Not even Blair and Brown ever thought of these brilliant wheezes.
Elsewhere, Tories are excited by Cameron and Osborne's latest tractor stats on inflation. Cost of living crisis, what crisis!
Whilst most people are looking at the failing train companies ramping fares up yet again, something Miliband has said he'd stop once he's PM, thankfully.
Ah yes, government is terribly easy.
Energy prices going up? Pass a law saying they can't go up.
Train fares going up? Tell them to stop putting them up.
The only puzzle is why no-one else has ever thought of these simple but effective solutions before the genius Ed Miliband came to propose them. Not even Blair and Brown ever thought of these brilliant wheezes.
Brown, Blair, Cameron, Osborne are too dazzled by super wealth and big business to do anything about it.
"Broken down" is meaningless without further definition. No significant public sector programme or project can be done without being broken down into stages with decisions whether to proceed or not the next stage. Unfortunately, such decisions are often subjective due to the political price of being seen to do a U turn. Also, the decision to proceed is often misunderstood as merely a check that all the boxes have been ticked on the preceding stage.
I thought (and am probably wrong) that Nick meant breaking down the project into smaller functional chunks and specifying those, not the deliverable milestones.
Then again, I've never managed a team bigger than eight people, on projects that lasted less than a year (and in a couple of cases sometimes just a fortnight from specification to delivery). That's consumer electronics for you. The big-project world is probably very different in every way.
Elsewhere, Tories are excited by Cameron and Osborne's latest tractor stats on inflation. Cost of living crisis, what crisis!
Whilst most people are looking at the failing train companies ramping fares up yet again, something Miliband has said he'd stop once he's PM, thankfully.
He won't, he will be cutting public spending whilst raising taxes due to our 100bn a year deficit and already high national debt. Bound to be popular government!
As rates rise we should also be due a recession in due course.
Yeah he's certainly going to inherit a dreadful borrowing and economic situation from the Cameron and Osborne's Tories, I'm just glad he's got some good ideas to deal with it.
Whilst most people are looking at the failing train companies ramping fares up yet again, something Miliband has said he'd stop once he's PM, thankfully.
Brown, Blair, Cameron, Osborne are too dazzled by super wealth and big business to do anything about it.
Fortunately Ed Miliband has more backbone.
Very funny!
It's not 'backbone', it's extraordinary naivety which would shame a sixth-form debating society.
[I'm assuming, of course, that he believes all this simplistic tosh. I suppose you might try to argue that he should be given the benefit of the doubt and we should hope that it is just cynical dishonesty, but I fear the evidence suggests otherwise. Either way it won't turn out well.]
PB Tories can someone explain why not intervening in Syria was a bad thing and why if it was such a good thing the Government who I believe have a majority did not vote it through.
Elsewhere, Tories are excited by Cameron and Osborne's latest tractor stats on inflation. Cost of living crisis, what crisis!
Whilst most people are looking at the failing train companies ramping fares up yet again, something Miliband has said he'd stop once he's PM, thankfully.
He won't, he will be cutting public spending whilst raising taxes due to our 100bn a year deficit and already high national debt. Bound to be popular government!
As rates rise we should also be due a recession in due course.
Yeah he's certainly going to inherit a dreadful borrowing and economic situation from the Cameron and Osborne's Tories, I'm just glad he's got some good ideas to deal with it.
Crikey, has he? When do you think he will share them with the electorate?
Brown, Blair, Cameron, Osborne are too dazzled by super wealth and big business to do anything about it.
Fortunately Ed Miliband has more backbone.
Very funny!
It's not 'backbone', it's extraordinary naivety which would shame a sixth-form debating society.
[I'm assuming, of course, that he believes all this simplistic tosh. I suppose you might try to argue that he should be given the benefit of the doubt and we should hope that it is just cynical dishonesty, but I fear the evidence suggests otherwise. Either way it won't turn out well.]
Can't do any worse than Cameron, Osborne and their dreadful mob.
"Broken down" is meaningless without further definition. No significant public sector programme or project can be done without being broken down into stages with decisions whether to proceed or not the next stage. Unfortunately, such decisions are often subjective due to the political price of being seen to do a U turn. Also, the decision to proceed is often misunderstood as merely a check that all the boxes have been ticked on the preceding stage.
I thought (and am probably wrong) that Nick meant breaking down the project into smaller functional chunks and specifying those, not the deliverable milestones.
Then again, I've never managed a team bigger than eight people, on projects that lasted less than a year (and in a couple of cases sometimes just a fortnight from specification to delivery). That's consumer electronics for you. The big-project world is probably very different in every way.
Not really, its just doing the same things but on a bigger scale over a longer time. It does need real close attention to detail though and lots more management effort.
I reckon the best project managers in the country are currently working for the Aircraft Carrier Alliance. The design phase was a massive cock-up, not least because of politicians sticking their oar in every five minutes, but the build has been masterful.
Brown, Blair, Cameron, Osborne are too dazzled by super wealth and big business to do anything about it.
Fortunately Ed Miliband has more backbone.
Very funny!
It's not 'backbone', it's extraordinary naivety which would shame a sixth-form debating society.
[I'm assuming, of course, that he believes all this simplistic tosh. I suppose you might try to argue that he should be given the benefit of the doubt and we should hope that it is just cynical dishonesty, but I fear the evidence suggests otherwise. Either way it won't turn out well.]
Can't do any worse than Cameron, Osborne and their dreadful mob.
Time for a change.
President Hollande is currently demonstrating that it is indeed possible to do a great deal worse than Cameron, Osborne and their dreadful mob.
Can't do any worse than Cameron, Osborne and their dreadful mob.
Time for a change.
You can do a lot worse. In fact, every single major economy in the Western world, without exception, is doing worse, on all the key measures.
Hardly time for a change. Quite the opposite - time to keep up the superb work.
We just have to hope that the electorate don't risk the experiment of seeing just how much worse Balls and Miliband can make things. If they do, the only consolation will be being able to laugh at the angst of Labour supporters.
I just achieved a new personal world record, going from locking my camden door to sipping G&T, airside, in 55 minutes.
55 minutes!
And this in peak holiday season?
Heathrow is now a seriously impressive airport.
BUILD THE THIRD RUNWAY
IN FACT, BUILD THE FOURTH.
Last time I picked up someone from Heathrow it was 35 minutes from touch-down to starting the car in the car park and that was Terminal 3 and they had hold luggage to collect. Yes Heathrow can be stunningly good. It can also be fecking awful.
Can't do any worse than Cameron, Osborne and their dreadful mob.
Time for a change.
You can do a lot worse. In fact, every single major economy in the Western world, without exception, is doing worse, on all the key measures.
Hardly time for a change. Quite the opposite - time to keep up the superb work.
We just have to hope that the electorate don't risk the experiment of seeing just how much worse Balls and Miliband can make things. If they do, the only consolation will be being able to laugh at the angst of Labour supporters.
lol you sound like a Gordon Brown supporter c2009.
Of course. And all stories are either good for the Tories and therefore accurate, or ignored / typical of lefty BBC bias.
Don't worry about JosiasJessop, he humiliated himself by saying ISIS was "all Ed Miliband's fault", he's a pretty desperate Tory spinner.
I'm pretty sure I did not use those words (especially in quotes). What I did say was that Ed Miliband has blood on his hands for the awful way he handled the Syria vote.
And I gave my reasons. You may not agree, but I reckon those people in Iraq, and many in Syria, would not be dead if he had actually had a spine.
I just achieved a new personal world record, going from locking my camden door to sipping G&T, airside, in 55 minutes.
55 minutes!
And this in peak holiday season?
Heathrow is now a seriously impressive airport.
BUILD THE THIRD RUNWAY
IN FACT, BUILD THE FOURTH.
Last time I picked up someone from Heathrow it was 35 minutes from touch-down to starting the car in the car park and that was Terminal 3 and they had hold luggage to collect. Yes Heathrow can be stunningly good. It can also be fecking awful.
There is nothing quite like arriving home at Heathrow. I love it!
I just achieved a new personal world record, going from locking my camden door to sipping G&T, airside, in 55 minutes.
55 minutes!
And this in peak holiday season?
Heathrow is now a seriously impressive airport.
BUILD THE THIRD RUNWAY
IN FACT, BUILD THE FOURTH.
Atlanta already has five - start building!
Impressive.
Only problem, when you're groundside, you're in Atlanta, not London.
To me that's a plus because I live here:-)
Meh. Dallas Fort Worth has seven runways, as does O'Hare. Even Paris CDG has four. Check out the 5 runways at Chicago Midway on Google Earth. All squeezed into a square a mile on each side.
Trouble is, DFW has a similar max capacity to a 3-runway LHR, as the various runways interfere with each other by being too close together, or are set at different angles.
In what way? They say they are from Eritrea and Pakistan or India, and feel the need to enter the country secretly in a sealed truck.
Presumably he thinks they are asylum seekers. If they are, potentially, they will get leave to stay. Until they report their circumstances we won't know.
As they haven't troubled to identify themselves at a border, I would say they are illegal immigrants up to the point they claim asylum. The fact they think they need to sneak into the country shows that their case can't be that good.
I just achieved a new personal world record, going from locking my camden door to sipping G&T, airside, in 55 minutes.
55 minutes!
And this in peak holiday season?
Heathrow is now a seriously impressive airport.
BUILD THE THIRD RUNWAY
IN FACT, BUILD THE FOURTH.
Atlanta already has five - start building!
Impressive.
Only problem, when you're groundside, you're in Atlanta, not London.
To me that's a plus because I live here:-)
Meh. Dallas Fort Worth has seven runways. Even Paris CDG has four.
Trouble is, DFW has a similar max capacity to a 3-runway LHR, as the various runways interfere with each other by being too close together, or are set at different angles.
The big appeal of LHR (and CDG and AMS) is that planes from there have the fuel capacity to reach (I think) 90% of the major destinations in the world on a single flight.
"Broken down" is meaningless without further definition. No significant public sector programme or project can be done without being broken down into stages with decisions whether to proceed or not the next stage. Unfortunately, such decisions are often subjective due to the political price of being seen to do a U turn. Also, the decision to proceed is often misunderstood as merely a check that all the boxes have been ticked on the preceding stage.
I thought (and am probably wrong) that Nick meant breaking down the project into smaller functional chunks and specifying those, not the deliverable milestones.
Then again, I've never managed a team bigger than eight people, on projects that lasted less than a year (and in a couple of cases sometimes just a fortnight from specification to delivery). That's consumer electronics for you. The big-project world is probably very different in every way.
Not really, its just doing the same things but on a bigger scale over a longer time. It does need real close attention to detail though and lots more management effort.
I reckon the best project managers in the country are currently working for the Aircraft Carrier Alliance. The design phase was a massive cock-up, not least because of politicians sticking their oar in every five minutes, but the build has been masterful.
I'd add the Crossrail project managers to that list...
Of course. And all stories are either good for the Tories and therefore accurate, or ignored / typical of lefty BBC bias.
Don't worry about JosiasJessop, he humiliated himself by saying ISIS was "all Ed Miliband's fault", he's a pretty desperate Tory spinner.
I'm pretty sure I did not use those words (especially in quotes). What I did say was that Ed Miliband has blood on his hands for the awful way he handled the Syria vote.
And I gave my reasons. You may not agree, but I reckon those people in Iraq, and many in Syria, would not be dead if he had actually had a spine.
@bigjohnowls - You seem a bit confused. Those Tory MPs voted against intervention because, having weighed up the pros and cons, they were not in favour of intervention. Ed Miliband voted against intervention, despite the fact that he was in favour of it and had given an undertaking to support it, in order to make a cheap political point.
And yet you want this guy to be PM.
If, God forbid, Ed Miliband becomes PM, he will within three years be universally regarded as even worse than Brown. You may quote this back to me in 2018 if there's a Labour government.
"Broken down" is meaningless without further definition. No significant public sector programme or project can be done without being broken down into stages with decisions whether to proceed or not the next stage. Unfortunately, such decisions are often subjective due to the political price of being seen to do a U turn. Also, the decision to proceed is often misunderstood as merely a check that all the boxes have been ticked on the preceding stage.
I thought (and am probably wrong) that Nick meant breaking down the project into smaller functional chunks and specifying those, not the deliverable milestones.
Then again, I've never managed a team bigger than eight people, on projects that lasted less than a year (and in a couple of cases sometimes just a fortnight from specification to delivery). That's consumer electronics for you. The big-project world is probably very different in every way.
Not really, its just doing the same things but on a bigger scale over a longer time. It does need real close attention to detail though and lots more management effort.
I reckon the best project managers in the country are currently working for the Aircraft Carrier Alliance. The design phase was a massive cock-up, not least because of politicians sticking their oar in every five minutes, but the build has been masterful.
I'd add the Crossrail project managers to that list...
Unfortunately, a myth has developed that project management of IT projects is like project management of construction projects. It isn't. A lot of the failures of IT projects arise because of this mistake.
"Broken down" is meaningless without further definition. No significant public sector programme or project can be done without being broken down into stages with decisions whether to proceed or not the next stage. Unfortunately, such decisions are often subjective due to the political price of being seen to do a U turn. Also, the decision to proceed is often misunderstood as merely a check that all the boxes have been ticked on the preceding stage.
I thought (and am probably wrong) that Nick meant breaking down the project into smaller functional chunks and specifying those, not the deliverable milestones.
Then again, I've never managed a team bigger than eight people, on projects that lasted less than a year (and in a couple of cases sometimes just a fortnight from specification to delivery). That's consumer electronics for you. The big-project world is probably very different in every way.
Not really, its just doing the same things but on a bigger scale over a longer time. It does need real close attention to detail though and lots more management effort.
I reckon the best project managers in the country are currently working for the Aircraft Carrier Alliance. The design phase was a massive cock-up, not least because of politicians sticking their oar in every five minutes, but the build has been masterful.
I'd add the Crossrail project managers to that list...
Unfortunately, a myth has developed that project management of IT projects is like project management of construction projects. It isn't. A lot of the failures of IT projects arise because of this mistake.
"Broken down" is meaningless without further definition. No significant public sector programme or project can be done without being broken down into stages with decisions whether to proceed or not the next stage. Unfortunately, such decisions are often subjective due to the political price of being seen to do a U turn. Also, the decision to proceed is often misunderstood as merely a check that all the boxes have been ticked on the preceding stage.
I thought (and am probably wrong) that Nick meant breaking down the project into smaller functional chunks and specifying those, not the deliverable milestones.
Then again, I've never managed a team bigger than eight people, on projects that lasted less than a year (and in a couple of cases sometimes just a fortnight from specification to delivery). That's consumer electronics for you. The big-project world is probably very different in every way.
Not really, its just doing the same things but on a bigger scale over a longer time. It does need real close attention to detail though and lots more management effort.
I reckon the best project managers in the country are currently working for the Aircraft Carrier Alliance. The design phase was a massive cock-up, not least because of politicians sticking their oar in every five minutes, but the build has been masterful.
I'd add the Crossrail project managers to that list...
Unfortunately, a myth has developed that project management of IT projects is like project management of construction projects. It isn't. A lot of the failures of IT projects arise because of this mistake.
A final comment on public sector projects before logging off... I was told that a certain building is three times bigger than it needs to be and a project had to be run to encourage other services to rent the extra space... How did that happen I asked?... Well, it was based on the number of employees .. So what's the problem I ask... Er, they work three shifts... I was sceptical but the guy running the project insisted it was true...
@bigjohnowls - You seem a bit confused. Those Tory MPs voted against intervention because, having weighed up the pros and cons, they were not in favour of intervention.
Comments
Hahaha great stuff
(#7 in funniest Edinburgh Fringe joke award).
It's obvious that Labour just wanted to make it look as if they were doing something, said any old sh*t that would sound good in the media, and did not bother specifying the project.
This was hardly rocket science. Labour really are a bunch of incompetent idiots.
As for the program: it was officially cancelled earlier this year, and many of its requirements (hopefully (ha!) properly specified this time) have been merged into the Border Systems Program, which appears to be a superset of functionality.
http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240175745/UK-Border-Agency-tenders-for-security-systems
The government want it delivered by next year. That is, to my mind at least, rather optimistic at this stage (i.e. nearly frigging impossible). And in the meantime the existing systems are being held together by ear wax and chewing gum:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/10/border_control_disaster_story/
fifa has been taken over by the onion apparently
In terms of following the money, I'd agree with Shadsy that the early weight of money for YES (because it's odds-against) is probably keeping it artificially short. You'd expect more money-buyers on NO over the next month.
The PD was persuaded to trial some solutions by using manual systems in overseas visa offices before even thinking about the requirements for an IT procurement... For this he was carpeted and told he should be doing an IT procurement before anything else... Best laugh was being called to a meeting where I was lectured to about Programme Management by a McKinsey consultant from the States who looked about 18 and, when pressed, hadn't been involved in a single project that was remotely comparable... I understand her day rate was £2,500...
Not everything south of the Wall is London!
Is the problem the fact that few (any?) ministers have any project management experience - yet alone in IT project management - and therefore believe that by spending money on highly-paid advisers they'll get the best advice on how to do it? Or is it the civil servants leading ministers by the nose?
Here's an idea: for the next big IT project, the government should publicly release overview specifications as given to the bidders. Let people who know what they are doing rip the specifications to shreds to ensure we get something that should work if the bidders do their jobs. Let us check the reality against what a minister says in parliament.
In other words, open-source the top-level specifications.
After all, it's our money the politicians waste, time and time again.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28840966
Unreliable poll...
In relation to the use of consultants, when I was at the Home Office we used to bring them in only to write a report telling us we were doing the correct thing. They were, in other words, the civil servants' professional indemnity insurance - if the project went tits up we could wave a bit of paper with some leading logo on it saying we did it right and therefore it couldn't be our fault. We never used consultants to tell us anything we didn't know and never to talk to people outside the project team as per Mr. Rexel's example. If anything we tried to limit as far as was possible the consultants' access to people. After all, if they started talking to people they could find things out, they might start thinking about the project, they might come to an independent view and that would never do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Ireland_sovereignty_referendum,_1973
Slugger OToole blog looking a No blogger for the Indyref
http://sluggerotoole.com/2014/08/19/looking-for-a-no-indyref-blogger-for-slugger-live-in-scotland/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkland_Islands_sovereignty_referendum,_2013
The Palace of Westminster belongs to Scotland too,' Mr Salmond told a crowd of cheering schoolchildren at a primary school in Strachur, 'and there's absolutely nothing anyone can do to stop us using it.'......
From the outset it has been clear that the SNP strategy was to keep as much continuity from the UK as possible, to try to attract voters naturally conservative in nature. From the pound to the Queen and the BBC, the First Minister's approach has almost been one of Independence Lite, to the dismay of more radical nationalists.
Now, in the face of a Better Together campaign that has insisted iScotland won't get the pound, they can only have the Royals that no one else wants, like Camilla and Eugenie, and that they can have BBC3 and that's it, Mr Salmond is intent on raising the stakes.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/viewpoint/the-shackleton-report-issue-20.1408345333
98.5% against change in UK status (ie. shared sovereignty with Spain).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibraltar_sovereignty_referendum,_2002
- Not all big projects do fail. The new passport system ca. 2008 was a good example of a successful project which dramatically improved turnaround. The project had well-defined objectives which didn't change significantly.
- Projects that failed or went over budget generally reflected either changes in specs (often due to public pressure) or (I suspect) a tacit agreement between Ministry and bidders to keep the estimates low and let the cost float up later: my impression is that this was common in the defence sector
- Some projects succeeded in parts - e.g. the famous/notorious NHS IT project was successful in delivering local IT record-keeping (greatly reducing the scandal of patient files going astray) but failed for the national spine (partly because the users (GPs who already had their own incompatible systems) hadn't really been persuaded).
- Ministers aren't project managers and shouldn't be expected to be - it's a discreet skill and for a large project requires full-time attention which they certainly can't supply.What they need is clarity on what they hope to achieve, in as much detail as they consider necessary.
Specs in a large project (and although projects should be broken down if possible, it's not always possible) may well need to change as development reveals aspects that are unacceptable for either technical or policy reasons - insisting that an initial design is perfect is unwise. The answer to that is probably pilot projects, and the political system with its 5-year cycle makes that difficult. To be fair to IDS, the decision to put Universal Credit into pilots probably prevented a much bigger disaster.
Don't worry about JosiasJessop, he humiliated himself by saying ISIS was "all Ed Miliband's fault", he's a pretty desperate Tory spinner.
Would be interested to hear your view on the demands made for major programmes to make public their risk registers..
And I gave my reasons. You may not agree, but I reckon those people in Iraq, and many in Syria, would not be dead if he had actually had a spine.
And I Am Not A Tory (tm).
Remember, Assad is still using chemical weapons:
http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/05/13/syria-strong-evidence-government-used-chemicals-weapon
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10796175/Syria-chemical-weapons-the-proof-that-Assad-regime-launching-chlorine-attacks-on-children.html
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/evidence-mounts-of-chlorine-gas-attacks-in-syria-a-968108.html
The only people humiliating themselves are those who think Miliband's actions last year in any way improved the lot of Syrians and Iraqis.
And now we're going to be arming the Kurds ...
@ReutersOpinion: Scotland wants its independence from the UK, but we have to ask: What’s the problem, Scotland? http://t.co/uGsLumd6MG http://t.co/4otIxnzdPN
The Agency insisted that equipment had to be installed by a certain date to meet a payment deadline, so it was installed. It wasn't configured or working, the design work had not been done, but to delay the installation and do it right couldn't be agreed between the parties.
1) Not all big projects do fail. I never claimed they did, but when they do, they do in a massive way. It would be interesting to know if there is any way of feeding back lessons learned from successful and failed projects to new ones.
2) Any changes in specs should undergo a thorough process and be visible to the public. Any tacit agreements between a ministry and suppliers over and above specifications should be banned. In fact, they sound vaguely fraudulent.
3) Did the NHS IT project deliver record keeping? I know it delivered an email system, but that in itself is soon to be replaced (1). It seems precious little for ten billion pounds.
4) Minister should not be project managers, but they should have a reasonable grasp of process if they are going to be responsible for such massive spending on projects.
"Although projects should be broken down if possible, it's not always possible"
That's an interesting statement. Why can projects not always be broken down? I'd love to see examples.
(1): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHSmail
As for Mr. Jessop being a Tory spinner, the idea is laughable, at least it is to anyone who has read his posts over the months,
Whilst most people are looking at the failing train companies ramping fares up yet again, something Miliband has said he'd stop once he's PM, thankfully.
Me and Ms Briskin may be off duty tonight - football on the normal tv/itv/stv. (7.45 - Arsenal are the British team)
What I did say was that Ed Miliband has blood on his hands
Lol
As rates rise we should also be due a recession in due course.
Unless it was Lots of Love?
Energy prices going up? Pass a law saying they can't go up.
Train fares going up? Tell them to stop putting them up.
The only puzzle is why no-one else has ever thought of these simple but effective solutions before the genius Ed Miliband came to propose them. Not even Blair and Brown ever thought of these brilliant wheezes.
Fortunately Ed Miliband has more backbone.
Then again, I've never managed a team bigger than eight people, on projects that lasted less than a year (and in a couple of cases sometimes just a fortnight from specification to delivery). That's consumer electronics for you. The big-project world is probably very different in every way.
It's not 'backbone', it's extraordinary naivety which would shame a sixth-form debating society.
[I'm assuming, of course, that he believes all this simplistic tosh. I suppose you might try to argue that he should be given the benefit of the doubt and we should hope that it is just cynical dishonesty, but I fear the evidence suggests otherwise. Either way it won't turn out well.]
Time for a change.
I reckon the best project managers in the country are currently working for the Aircraft Carrier Alliance. The design phase was a massive cock-up, not least because of politicians sticking their oar in every five minutes, but the build has been masterful.
Hardly time for a change. Quite the opposite - time to keep up the superb work.
We just have to hope that the electorate don't risk the experiment of seeing just how much worse Balls and Miliband can make things. If they do, the only consolation will be being able to laugh at the angst of Labour supporters.
30 Tory MPs voted against Syrian itervention
Here is a list of the 30 MPs from the Tory who voted against it:
Presume Cameron called these the C word
David Amess (Southend West)
Richard Bacon (Norfolk South)
Steven Baker (Wycombe)
John Baron (Basildon and Billericay)
Andrew Bingham (High Peak)
Crispin Blunt (Reigate)
Fiona Bruce (Congleton)
Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford)
David Davies (Monmouth)
Philip Davies (Shipley)
David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden)
Nick de Bois (Enfield North)
Richard Drax (Dorset South)
Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey)
Philip Hollobone (Kettering)
Adam Holloway (Gravesham)
Phillip Lee (Bracknell)
Julian Lewis (New Forest East)
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley)
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage)
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley)
Anne-Marie Morris (Newton Abbot)
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole)
Sir Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills)
Sir Peter Tapsell (Louth and Horncastle)
Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight)
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes)
Charles Walker (Broxbourne)
Chris White (Warwick and Leamington)
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes
Point to point is more popular than hub and spoke.
Moscow, Paris and NY all operate multiple airports rather than one hub.
The air and noise pollution to the many residents of London is unacceptable and not in the public interest.
A third runway would only benefit the foreign owners of Heathrow.
How's the bunker?
Anyway, for, specifically JVC (sponser) and Glory hunting (football-fan term) - I'm a bit of an Arsenal fan and now have a Gf.
Err, C'mon the gunners!?1
But I am not sure why you are bothered, IIRC you are a Putinista, and presumably think it is OK for dictators to gas their people.
Whadda ya think????
Trouble is, DFW has a similar max capacity to a 3-runway LHR, as the various runways interfere with each other by being too close together, or are set at different angles.
Oh no it isn't evidence.
And yet you want this guy to be PM.
If, God forbid, Ed Miliband becomes PM, he will within three years be universally regarded as even worse than Brown. You may quote this back to me in 2018 if there's a Labour government.
That's really close to London and many from there and from across Britain are happy to connect there if needs be.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28860566
The Americans seem to be finding quite a few "problems" with our banks.....Shouldn't our regulators be finding them first?
Good on them