"If things go wrong with government IT we should hold
our hands up, fix the problem or learn the lessons." So said
Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden this month.
Nobody could argue with this. But when things go wrong with
government IT, nobody does hold up their hand and admit
responsibility. Investigations of the causes of dozens of large
IT-related failures show that organisations tend to react to crises
in similar ways: they try to cover up.
But a corporate antipathy to criticism, and a welcoming of
positive comments only, or even affected optimism, can be early
warning of an IT disaster.
In private and public sectors alike, secrecy and cover-up can be
part of the DNA, but it is more generally injurious in the public
sector - which is a pity because hiding the specific lessons from
mistakes debases the work of thousands of IT staff in the public
sector who are helping to keep hundreds of complex systems running
smoothly in what are often difficult circumstances.
Cover-ups continue
It takes only a small number of cover-ups over major failures to
sustain the impression among MPs, taxpayers and the media that
government IT and incompetence are synonymous. Yet the cover-ups
continue.
Computer Weekly's requests under the
Freedom of Information Act for details of
particular IT projects involving the Department for Work and
Pensions, the Office of Government Commerce (OGC), which oversees
IT projects in central government, the Department of Health and the
Cabinet Office have been rejected emphatically.
The OGC, for example, is spending tens of thousands of pounds of
public money on legal fees to fight a decision by the information
commissioner that the results of Gateway reviews on the progress of
the ID cards project be published.
Some OGC executives would prefer to be open about mistakes made
on government IT projects, but the organisation's culture, and that
of Whitehall generally, requires that openness is seen as an evil
spirit that visits sleepers during a nightmare.
Whitehall officials prefer to publish reports that praise
everything to do with IT, though few lessons will be learned from
running commentaries from the observation tower at Heathrow Airport
on the safe landing of planes.
Refreshing change
So it is refreshing to note that the Identity and Passport
Service is being open about the lessons and mistakes in its key IT
projects
(
Computer Weekly, 16 January). If all organisations followed the
lead of the Passport Service, it would help to dispel the mystique
over IT project management.
More importantly, openness and honesty in reporting how and why
projects have gone wrong would go a long way to making directors,
or ministers, more accountable for failures.
While there is secrecy, they can take comfort during any
IT-related failure that the full facts will probably not emerge. If
they know the truth will be told, they may do more in future to
avoid a costly IT disaster.
More on the blog
For more on the lessons learned from the Passport Office and
other IT projects, read Tony Collins' blog.
www.computerweekly.com/blogs/tony_collins