the beat goes on
Sorry to keep going on about the massive legacy of Government incompetence and profligacy with public money, but…
Silicon.com: National Insurance system costs double to £300m
The Inland Revenue’s national insurance computer system, funded through the controversial private finance initiative, has cost the government more than double the figure initially agreed.
The best bit? The contract to oversee the system has been taken away from Accenture and given to Capgemini of Foreign Office Prism cock-up fame.
…and…
Financial Director: NAO slams Whitehall over IT failures
It will take another 30 years before Whitehall can successfully deliver major IT projects unless fundamental changes are made, says a leading adviser to the National Audit Office (NAO) report on public sector efficiency.
Posted on April 4th, 2006 at 10:29 pm
| See also • good omens • a confederacy of dunces (part 6,735) • departmental daisy chaining |
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I’m not sure whether this is supposed to show that governments are crap at spending public money or that private companies are crap at doing what they are supposed to do with public money. Or are we just all in the crap?
We now have only three defences against these infernal cards left. Government IT incompetence, emigration, or clogging the system with new passport applications (although they are even clamping down on your right to get a new passport.)
It’s like this. If you hire builders and they make a mess of your house, it’s as if you have to hire more builders from the same company to clean up the mess. Companies are in it for the money, and the way the contracts are written, they make more money the more of a mess they make of it.
If, say, the government insisted that the software was owned by them or open source, then they could get rid of one lot and get in a new lot to carry on where the other ones left off. Because that would be a legitimate threat, they’d get better performance from the contractors.