Public sector IT projects: stupendous incompetence or bad luck?

Mother of all curses

Why do so many government IT projects fail so spectacularly? Did someone in government break a dozen mirrors, walk under a ladder and shoot an albatross out of the sky, all on Friday the 13th?

In a recent report – Government’s approach to technology suppliers: addressing the challenges – the National Audit Office (NAO) nailed several reasons why government digital ambition often takes a nosedive, recommending alternative approaches to ensure success.

None of it will surprise channel companies that have worked in partnership with government departments. However, and somewhat ironically, the NAO report provides a roadmap of sorts for channel players to step in and ensure it doesn’t happen again.   

The NAO cites the following reasons that government, at a general level, struggles with IT projects:

• There are not enough people with digital commercial skills in government. The government’s central digital function is not formally responsible for extensive engagement in digital procurement.
• Procurement guidance does not address all the complexities of digital commercial issues. Greater departmental and external input on the more complex issues is needed.
• Government needs to invest in capability to improve its understanding of digital markets, its technical expertise and how to partner more effectively with suppliers.

At the departmental level, where most projects are launched, the NAO cites the following areas that need to be addressed:

• Departments do not make full use of their digital expertise for procurement.
• Programme teams often hasten to award contracts because of pressure to deliver, including before fully understanding what is needed from a contract.
• Approaches to contract design, which limit the flexibility for suppliers to use their expertise, can negatively impact successful digital delivery.

Of course, many channel outfits are going to look at the cost of pitching and winning public sector business as too expensive. Frameworks such as G-Cloud make it simpler, but given the number of hoops a bidder must jump through, they could end up feeling like it’s not worth it. Further, channel companies may question their expertise – for instance, they may have 80% of the required skills, but lack the other 20%, and hence feel it’s a waste of time to pitch.

Diamond in the mud

The answer to this issue, according to cloud security company Qualys, is partnership. Matt Middleton-Leal, managing director for Qualys EMEA North, says: “The solution for the channel is to work on partnerships and reach the public sector in a more collaborative way.” 

This has worked well for Qualys, which has several successful public sector healthcare projects under its belt. It means looking at public contracts that are out for tender, weighing up expertise, and seeing which potential partners could fill the gaps and bring in their own expertise.

Vendors may have a list of potential partners, or the channel can take the traditional route of contacts, industry associations, networking and events. There’s certainly strength in numbers, and when galvanised with dedicated expertise and solid references, a lucrative new contract door could certainly be prised open.

Crash and burn

But how many channel operators will say, “No thanks, we’re not putting our hands in the fire”? It’s certainly understandable given the number of government IT projects that crash and burn. But the key is to look closely at the reasons for failure and address them.

Condensing the points made by the NAO, the failures can be summed up in the phrase “poor planning”. If you were to cast a forensic eye over the £475m IT system for a purpose-built air traffic control centre that was delayed by six years while costs increased by £180m, or the trebling of a Ministry of Justice project from £146m to £447m that didn’t work properly years after the roll-out, you’d find all the reasons for failure wrapped up in “poor planning”.

Sat Gainda, data and cloud, head of engineering (AWS) for Version 1, sheds some light: “Different government departments have different approaches to procurement – there are silos within departments, the people are looking internally and inwards to tick off their project KPIs [key performance indicators], the scope is too big, there’s lack of accountability and budgets aren’t accurate.”

Gainda highlights the importance of modelling and putting a governance team in place at the start of a project: “We model the project, do as much as possible upfront and track the modelling against KPIs. Then we can flag issues to a senior public sector project manager, such as a need to bring third-party experts on board, facilitate communication between siloed operations, highlight risks and the potential risks if nothing is done.

“If we reach agreement with the client and are ready to go, we deploy a governance team from our side and propose a governance team from the client’s side. This ensures full responsibility is taken by all involved. Cost governance is also very important because there can be hidden costs, such as bandwidth with cloud management.”

Eyes tightly shut

Problems typically arise when the client has little desire to look beyond its initial scope after meeting with service providers and vendors or resists the idea of overarching governance teams.

As an example, look no further than the disastrous NPfIT project, which aimed to digitise patient records across the UK. Dubbed the world’s largest civil IT programme, the lack of adequate end user engagement, the absence of a phased change management approach, and underestimating the scale of the project was its death knell. Expected to cost £2.3bn over three years, it ended up hitting a whopping £12.4bn over 10 years.

It’s unlikely many channel partners will be involved in a project of such magnitude. But other failures can also be steps to channel success. The calamitous NPfIT project illustrates the importance of spending time and resource on detailed modelling and developing detailed governance that covers all aspects of a project – from implementing networking hardware to developing user interfaces, establishing timelines for phased roll-outs and ensuring clear communications and demarcated responsibilities overseen by governance.

As Gainda says: “If a project is complex and there is no overall governance, it will likely fail.”

This was also underscored in a 2021 NAO cross-government report, The challenges in implementing digital change. The NAO said: “Responsibility for failure is nebulously collective and individual responsibility is, in practice, non-existent, which is not the way to run a big IT project.”

Tackling the problems

The phrase “nebulously collective” is a poetic way of saying there was no one in full charge – at all.

Looking retrospectively at the hall of shame, its clear that any public sector IT project needs ownership and governance at its heart, with responsibilities shared equally between providers and government. In short, those responsible for fiefdoms must look beyond their individual departments and towards the ultimate end goal.

But this requires flexibility and a shift in thinking within the public sector. Armed with the credentials of hard-won expertise and robust references, channel players can certainly nudge public sector departments in this direction.

Despite the many high-profile failures, there are successful government digital innovation IT projects such as the Home Office’s app for settling an EU citizen’s immigration status post-Brexit. This project was run by digital ID outfit WorldReach Software, which has an impressive track record in digital identity verification. You can put your vendor’s partner marketing programme on the likelihood that the company diplomatically insisted to the Home Office that it needs to defer to the experience of WorldReach before the project started.

Ashish Devalekar, executive vice-president and head of Europe at Mphasis, makes a further important point, and one that was likely a characteristic of the Home Office’s digital ID project: “Government players need to engage with technology suppliers well before issuing RFIs [requests for information] … for better scoping and realistic project timelines. They also need to create flexible procurement models and move away from rigid, one-size-fits-all contracts.”

From the channel perspective, this is an ideal situation. From the public sector perspective, there’s the view that suppliers input ahead of an RFI will likely be slanted in their own favour, so whatever feedback the department receives won’t be entirely objective. This is understandable.

For those who don’t fear treading where none have gone before, channel players could come in ahead of an RFI and provide an objective overview, but not insist on pitching for the business to show impartiality and build trust.

Shortage of digital skills is also a perennial issue and an area channel players are well placed to address. Government IT workers are well-versed in mainframe technologies, data warehousing and other back-office technologies. But many want to meet career goals and personal skills development by broadening their experience into digital transformation technologies.

For channel partners with the requisite expertise, skills transfer can be a bread-and-butter activity, and one that not only increases significantly the likelihood of project success but also cements a positive reputation within the public sector.

Mark Combie, head of delivery at Sherwen Studios, also points to a wider, often overlooked issue: “Often, digital transformation projects [have] a specific endpoint in sight without anticipating the continual enhancement and focus that maintaining digital infrastructures requires long after the initial transformation is complete.”

Big red flags and pots of gold

Viewed from a wider perspective, as the NAO obliquely points out, the public sector needs to be more flexible and receptive all the way along the project line to ensure success.

Colin Crow, managing director of Nexer Enterprise Applications, explains: “There needs to be a shift at the procurement stage from ‘We’ve planned to do this’ to ‘We need to achieve this, how can you help?’ This … approach fosters strong working relationships, builds trust and keeps the focus on the outcomes.”

Qualys led a security and support services project with Falkirk council for schools and colleges across the region. It was successful by making sure different departments had common goals at the start of the project and they understood why it was being implemented in a particular way. In short, it was about clear communication and understanding about end user goals from the start.

Jon Rimmer, chief experience officer at Mercator Digital, endorses this approach: “One of the most common themes [for failure] is a lack of understanding of the end user’s needs … Generally, large organisations face knowledge silos with different people in different parts of an organisation learning different things.” Channel partners working with people at the top can bridge these divides and help drive success.

It’s clear from the points above that public sector contracts that aren’t as detailed and comprehensive as they need to be, or where there isn’t willingness to be flexible on parameters, or there’s an unyielding attitude towards vendors and suppliers, all point to big red flags.

Based on a mountain of evidence, it might seem that government IT projects are to failure as tombstones are to cemeteries. You don’t have one without the other. But as the people quoted in this article testify to, projects don’t have to bomb – there are many successful outcomes.

Of course, channel outfits may understandably be reluctant to thrust their hand into a white-hot fire. But with prime minister Keir Starmer’s recent announcement about artificial intelligence (AI) driving the government’s Plan for Change, to help the public sector spend less time on admin and more time delivering services, there’s a pot of gold for the channel to dip into as long as hands are fireproofed with knowledge of what’s needed for success.