Computer Weekly readers' give their views
Keep MiFID free from Westminster busybodies
"Clock is ticking as Brussels delivers its second-stage MiFID
draft." So stated your article on security (Computer Weekly, 14
February). Is that an alarm clock that counts the time to more cost
and confusion?
What concerns me and should concern anyone potentially on the
receiving end is the question of whether MiFID should be in the
form of a regulation or a directive. There is a very significant
difference.
To state that a directive allows a greater degree of discretion
in its incorporation into national law is its fatal flaw. A
directive is a gold-plater's dream. Bureaucrats, MPs, lobbyists -
in fact any busybody - can fiddle around with and expand the
transposition of a directive from a few A4 sheets in French to a
fully indexed, cross-referenced legal tome in English.
So long as the original directive is embedded, national
jurisdictions can add anything else they can think of and the UK
has a long and destructive record of doing just that.
We are among the EU's top gold-platers. Ask fishermen, farmers,
industry: our transposition of directives into UK law has added
untold costs and restrictions, and rendered some activities
practically impossible. Consider health and safety: no one dares
use a simple ladder now to change a bulb or clean the windows!
By contrast, a regulation must go directly into each state's law
untouched exactly as legislated and published by the European
Commission. For the busybody administration at Westminster a
regulation takes away the opportunity to gold-plate beneath the EU
facade.
So please let us have the certainty of a regulation on MiFID
rather than the uncertainty, chaos, time wasting and compliance
costs of a directive. Don't give discretion to those who will use
it ignorantly to shackle industry with red tape and political
interference. Rather look to examples in other less-interfering
jurisdictions of Europe that stick to the original text on a few A4
sheets.
Greville Warwick, MCS
Attention! Steer clear of information
icebergs
I read with interest the article "Use the MiFID effect to your
advantage"(Computer Weekly, 21 February), but I fear it was far too
diplomatic to raise anxiety levels much beyond "not another
regulation?".
The degree of blissful ignorance that many financial
institutions currently exercise with regard to the levels of
integration and transparency between the front and back office
demanded by MiFID is alarming. It conjures up images of Enterprise
Titanic sailing full steam into a night filled with icebergs of
information for which most organisations still disregard the need
to map, much less avoid.
As these organisations are actually creating the icebergs in the
first place, in the form of both structured and unstructured
content, it is not hard to envisage more than a few overnight
disasters over the horizon.
All of an organisation's assets will need to be discoverable,
regardless of whether they exist as text or voice, and will be
demanded in court, driven by customers who feel aggrieved that they
were sold something less than perfect up to five years
previously!
Ian Black. Aungate
The highs and lows of the offshoring saga
The idea that offshoring has removed the low-end jobs, but has
enabled us to create more high-end jobs (Letters, Computer Weekly,
28 February) is a little near-sighted.
Many of those in the high-end jobs gained experience in the
low-end jobs - and an understanding of the low-end jobs is always
valuable.
So while in the short term offshoring has enabled us to
concentrate on high-end jobs, in the longer term many of these jobs
will go to where the fundamental skills are: offshore.
Charles Woodward
Control spreadsheets to minimise risk of
errors
Was no one else alarmed that more than 70% of financial services
firms rely on spreadsheets for compliance monitoring? ("Warning on
spreadsheet reliance", Computer Weekly, 7 February). Especially
when other research has shown that up to 90% of spreadsheets are
thought to be unreliable.
And yet, whatever the potential for serious and frequent errors,
spreadsheets are here to stay. With more than 400 million users of
Microsoft Office, which includes Excel, the use of spreadsheets
within the enterprise has become even more entrenched and mission
critical.
We must focus our efforts on applying the right controls to
spreadsheets, by implementing secure user access, tracking changes
and retention management. In this way, compliance and operational
risk managers can feel more confident in creating clear audit
trails.
Karry Kleeman, Mobius Management Systems
Waking up to the value of software
investment
It is heartening to see that the Office of National Statistics
(ONS) has finally woken up to the huge contribution made by
software investment towards the economic wellbeing of the UK
("Software investment to raise UK GDP", Computer Weekly, 14
February).
The revision in the way the office compiles its figures makes it
abundantly clear that UK plc is a world leader in IT investment
while software production contributes significantly to gross
domestic product, with an expected 1% rise in future years.
Those in the know will not be surprised by the news that the
previous estimate for software developed within companies was five
times less than it should have been. But the problems experienced
by the ONS in recording software investment reflect the challenges
that face most boards on a daily basis.
It is often difficult to identify what proportion of IT spend is
truly value added investment and what is simply business as usual
running costs. The biggest grey area is maintenance and upgrade
costs, which may be used to extend business advantage but only if
spent wisely.
Richard Hall, Avanade
Keep those leftover bits, they'll come in
useful...
I was most interested to read the letter from Peter Monk on the
topic of electronic "green boxes" for recycling information
(Computer Weekly, 21 February).
I don't have the complete answer, but in my days as a hardware
engineer, I used to collect all the parity bits for re-use when I
ran diagnostics on a faulty memory stack, so I am sure it must be
possible.
Mike Faithfull, Corporate continuity manager, Luton Borough
Council
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