One answer is that there are at least four certainties in the life of any UK or US government:
1) Over-optimism
2) A willingness to believe inspirational thought-leaders in the private sector who say that, yes, complexity in government can be simplified with technology (as opposed to changing the way things are done)
3) An insistence by ruling politicians and senior civil servants that what seems to be an IT-based disaster is, in fact, a success
4) What can be covered up will be
In short nothing is likely to change under the Tories.
[There will also be countless project successes but they will probably be smaller scale and overshadowed by lumbering giants which will, by force of Nature, head towards cliff edges].
PS: Privacyint has tweeted an important 5th:
- Dismiss their critics as luddites.
Links:
More than half of £19bn overspend on government projects due to IT projects - ComputerWeekly.com
IT projects among the Government's worst failures - Information Age
Out of control: how the government overspends on capital projects - Taxpayers' Alliance
18 truths: the long fail of complexity - Michael Krigsman
IT and its role in project failures - Arun Gupta
Reflections on project failure - Peter Salmon
Simple architectures for complex enterprises - Roger Sessions
]]>"It makes you think what information on me can be viewed, and by whom. NHS Hull has told me nothing was printed off or changed, but the employee could easily have written down details...I'm a foster carer so confidentiality is particularly important to me. NHS Hull must have known about this a long time ago and I think it's appalling it's taken this long to inform people."
"I am also one of those patients who have had their personal medical records viewed and find it distressing... I ask, why would someone want to look at personnel records when in their position of trust. Confidentiality towards others must be one of the most important parts to their job ..."
"The crooked employee had access to data so it could be collated for work purposes. This person used their access to get into individual records which is quite clearly against the rules. That person, an employee of the Trust at the time when the records were accessed, broke their confidentiality undertaking. That is gross misconduct, and normally results in summary dismissal. You can't blame the Trust for malicious and/or criminal acts performed by individuals."
"The person who accessed the records had access ...as he worked for the IT dept within the NHS.... Around 90% of the patients affected will be genuine access for NHS purposes, not on this person's own accord. I myself have been affected by this and [I'm] aware the person did more than access my records but I do not fault NHS Hull for what has happened. They have handled the case very well and effectively. It has not taken over a year to come to light, as the person involved was only discovered in early months of this year."
"How did this person gain access to the records if they were not permitted to do so? Sounds as if NHS Hull is partly to blame for this little fiasco. The worrying thing about it though is this person's motive. Medical information really isn't that interesting, so I wonder if they were planning to sell people's information to someone for profit?"
NHS Hull can confirm that a former employee has been found to have accessed a number of patient records without authorisation.
The former employee was found to have inappropriately accessed electronic medical records between May 2008 and June 2009.
The individual concerned was authorised to use collated and anonymised patient data during the course of their day-to-day work but was not permitted to access individual patient records.
A total of 358 patients across 20 GP practices have been affected by this. All patients involved have been notified in writing and given a point of contact for more information and support. All of the affected GP practices have also been informed.
Today, health managers have expressed just how appalled they are with their former employee's actions.
Kath Tanfield, Director of Performance, Governance & Informatics for NHS Hull says:
"We take patient confidentiality very seriously and are disturbed to find that patient confidentiality rules have been breached in such a manner.
"It is shocking to us that an individual who takes on a public service role and who agrees to abide by strict confidentiality agreements should go on to abuse their position and violate patients' rights to privacy.
"Patients and the public rightly expect all health service employees to protect and respect their personal information. They have every right to be outraged by this individual's actions, and as the organisation who employed this person, we too feel appalled and let down by their behaviour."
NHS Hull has conducted its own review and is cooperating fully with the police investigation which is now underway.
Mr. Bacon: To ask the Secretary of State for
Health how much local service providers have been paid for the (a) set-up costs and (b) running costs of each of the Lorenzo
systems deployed in NHS trusts; and what his latest estimate is of the average
cost per site of deploying the Lorenzo software system. [299006]
Mr. Mike O'Brien: The average agreed deployment
charge per site for full deployment of all bundles of service of the Lorenzo
software system, when complete, is £6.468 million. The total of payments
made to the local service provider, to 30 September 2009, for deployment
(set-up) activity to date for Lorenzo products is £434,400. In the same period,
service charge (running cost) payments have totalled £27,117.
Mr. Bacon: To ask the Secretary of State for
Health what his most recent estimate is of the highest number of live concurrent
users of the Lorenzo software system at NHS Bury (a) at any one time and (b) on any one day.
[299192]
Mr. Mike O'Brien: As at 9 November 2009, the
highest number of live concurrent users logged into the Lorenzo software system
at the NHS Bury Primary Care Trust (PCT) at any one time is 93. This occurred on
the day the PCT went live with the system, on 3 November 2009.
Mr. Bacon: To ask the Secretary of State for
Health what the projected lifetime costs are in respect of each contractor under
the National Programme for IT in the NHS; and how much each such contractor had
been paid on the latest date for which figures are available.
[299189]
Mr. Mike O'Brien: Relevant information is
contained in the following table.
|
National programme for IT by key
elements: Projected lifetime costs and expenditure to 31 March
2009 | ||
|
£
million | ||
|
Core
contracts |
Projected lifetime
costs(
1) |
Expenditure to 31 March
2009(
1) |
|
Notes: | ||
"In February 1984 the C&AG [Comptroller and Auditor General - head of the National Audit Office] reported the results of a National Audit Office examination of a selection of computer projects in four departments which had encountered serious difficulties ... the C&AG identified a number of common weaknesses and concluded that across government departments as a whole much more needed to be done to improve:
strategic planning
project management
system design and development"
"We have taken evidence on cases of poor decision taking and weak project management on many occasions. The same lessons have still not been learnt, making the management by the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) of C-Nomis a prime example of how not to develop a project."
"From the outset those responsible failed to identify the modifications required to the
software to meet NOMS' needs. The Home Office assessed it as broadly meeting the needs of the prison service, but as a North American product the software needed to be adapted for UK legislation.
"In respect of probation, there was a serious failure to understand the magnitude and cost of the changes which would be needed, even though the Home Office recognised at the start that the software met only 29% of the needs of the Probation Service. The estimated cost of developing the C-NOMIS application rose from £99m in 2005 to £254m by July 2007 due to customisation."
"The programme team running C-NOMIS reported that the programme was delivering on time and to budget, when it was not."Over-optimism and the culture of good news
"In May 2005, as part of the C-NOMIS project approval process, the Home Office's
Programme and Project Management Support Unit certified the C-NOMIS project as not suffering from the eight common causes of project failure. Subsequent analysis of the underlying causes of the costs increases and delay by the National Audit Office indicated that C-NOMIS suffered from four of the eight common causes of project failure in full and three in part."
"Planning for the C-NOMIS project was unrealistic, in part because of an over]]> Contracts without competitive tenders - an open door to potential corruption?
optimistic 'good news' culture which was not challenged with sufficient rigour by
senior management with in-depth knowledge of the business."
"The first Senior Responsible Owner and other senior people involved with C-NOMIS demonstrated a remarkable lack of insight and rigour, coupled with naivety and over-optimism."
"Contracts were agreed with suppliers without testing the market through a competitive tendering process, and the contracts themselves were weak." [changes went undocumented and tens of millions of pounds cannot be accounted for]
"To avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, Departments must use existing guidance."Soaring costs
"The original cost estimate rose from £234 million in 2005 to £690 million in July 2007. NOMS [National Offender Management Service] agreed that, with hindsight, there had been a gross underestimate of costs and that the original cost estimates were badly prepared... The NOMIS programme was revised and scaled back to three offender databases for £513m, for delivery by 2011."Without financial management where did this leave EDS, one of the main suppliers?
"Financial management was almost non-existent. The project did not have a dedicated5 years after launch systems are still not in place
financial team until 2007 and no-one was actively monitoring the budget.
"As a result, NOMS cannot provide the detail to say what the £161m used to October 2007 was spent on, although can say in broad terms that EDS was paid £87m and the remainder went on a combination of payments to other suppliers and NOMS costs."
"In 2003, Lord Carter's Correctional Services Review recommended bringing together prisons and probation services and introducing 'end-to-end offender management'. This change was designed to improve the supervision of individual offenders throughout their sentence by a single offender manager ...The National Offender Management Service, initially part of the Home Office and since May 2007, part of the Ministry of Justice, was created in June 2004 to bring this about.Nobody accountable
"Some five years later, the information systems required to support offender management are still not in place."
"The individuals who took the key decisions on C-NOMIS and were responsible for its monitoring and oversight have all retired or moved on, and no-one has been held to account for the estimated £41 million wasted due to delays and cost overruns."Complexity underestimated
"The original concept was ambitious but still technically feasible. Problems at every level, however, led to an out of control programme which eventually NOMS could no longer afford. NOMS significantly underestimated the technical complexity of the project."Standardize and simplify business processes - not mirror existing inefficiencies with new IT
"Rather than invest time and resources to develop and standardise the new ways of operating across its business areas, NOMS sought an IT system to unify the business and achieve end-to-end offender management.
"There was no sustained effort by NOMS to simplify and standardise its business processes reflecting management's misplaced confidence in C-NOMIS, their unrealistic expectations of what could be achieved by an IT solution and their underestimation of the time and costs to deliver it."
"NOMS should have thought through its business processes and introduced new,
standardised ways of working in conjunction with new IT support systems to
deliver end to end offender management."
"[There is a need to] standardise ways of working to avoid excessive customisation."
"Costs and progress were not monitored or reported for the first 3 years after the inception of C-NOMIS ... The Project Board, the NOMS Board, the Home Office senior management and Ministers were all unaware of the true cost and progress before May 2007."Senior Responsible Owner didn't have time or experience
"[The] Home Office's senior management at the time was wrong to appoint somebodyTwo teams thought each other was watching spending
as Senior Responsible Owner who did not have the skills or relevant experience, without also providing support and allowing the post holder time to carry out their responsibilities."
"The vacuum of leadership within NOMS contributed to confusion and created challenges for suppliers and the project team. The roles and responsibilities of the project team, the Offender Information Services (OIS) and NOMS business areas were unclear.Senior managers remain positive - and talks with EDS and other suppliers over costs of the revised C-Nomis continue
"For example, the part of NOMS responsible for administering the funding, the OIS, and the project team each thought the other was monitoring expenditure. The Project Board, chaired by the Senior Responsible Owner, was too large to be effective and had little contact with the project team.
"It did not actively manage delivery and it did not discuss programme finance until April 2007, almost 3 years after the start of the C-NOMIS pilot phase."
"NOMS has assured us that it has implemented the changes needed to deliver the revised NOMIS programme by 2011. However, there are significant challenges yet to address including further contract negotiations with suppliers ..."
"It is deeply depressing that after numerous highly critical PAC reports on IT projects in recent years, the same mistakes have occurred once again."Do departments have a minimum standard of competence?
"We question the purpose of our hard work if Whitehall accepts all our recommendations but still cannot ensure a minimum standard of competence."Too much power in too few hands
"Too much rested on the performance of a few key individuals to deliver success."
"NOMS did not respond with sufficient vigour to the Gateway review in 2006 thatThe main original objective won't be met
raised serious concerns about the delivery of the project."
"Despite the intentions, there will not be an integrated information systemIs Ministry of Justice still being over-optimistic?
providing a single offender record that will be accessible by all service providers
who come into contact with an offender."
"NOMS has promised substantial progress with the NOMIS programme ..."Out of control and unaffordable
"The original concept was ambitious but still technically feasible. Problems at every level, however, led to an out of control programme which eventually NOMS could no longer afford."Planning done on the back of an envelope?
"Prison and probation information requirements were quite different and each of the 42 probation areas had different ways of working. End-to-end offender management was little more than a concept, and what it meant in practice and the IT needed to support it had not been worked through."Ministers kept in the dark until 2007
"Although the NOMS Board failed to appreciate the full seriousness of the situation, it did instigate an investigation of the project's finances, which eventually led to the facts surfacing in 2007.
"Only then did the NOMS Board report the situation to ministers, recommending that a halt should be put on the whole of the programme and that the programme should be re-scoped."
"NOMS should not have been running a programme that had so little reporting to ministers or internally within the Department."
"Problems with the NOMIS project were not brought to the attention of the TreasuryLinks:
until February 2009."
The numbers of regular users of Release 1 of the Lorenzo software system in the national health service bodies concerned are as follows:
Five Boroughs Partnership NHS Trust - 43
Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust - 12
University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Trust - 96
Hereford Hospitals NHS Trust - 7
South Birmingham Primary Care Trust -16
"These figures exclude other registered users who use the system only occasionally.
"The highest number of live concurrent users across English NHS trusts at any one time, to date, is 19.
"This occurred on 6 October 2009. The number of concurrent users of the system is lower than the aggregate number of regular users because clinicians spend the majority of their time working directly with patients.
"Time spent using the system is relatively short, and in most care settings, users will log in and log out of the system repeatedly throughout the day."