Disastrous universal credit IT system hangs in balance as Iain Duncan Smith quits

Op-ed: Ex-minister, who repeatedly hit "reset" on chaotic omni-dole project, backs out.

Read the whole story

 

[PhilipStorry]

A government IT program is overdue AND over budget?

Well, I'm shocked. Shocked.

Just... numb from the very shock of it all.

I think I'll need to go and have a lie down.

 

[maehara]

Personally, I reckon the UC omnishambles has precisely nothing to do with IDS' theatrics. Govt IT overruns? Blame the civil servants and move a few of them on. The blame for any IT fiasco would never have landed on IDS' desk.

The real reason: 100% #euref and the opportunity to stick many knives into the IN camp, 0% UC, 0% genuine concern over national cohesion or 'caring Conservatism'.

 

[has]

Hey, nice to know it's not just the Scots who are incompetent.

Perhaps if all the gubmit IT projects knocked a couple zeros off their budget to chase away all the extortionate vulturesconsultants and handed the job to their own people who already have all the knowledge and experience in running their existing systems, they might get somewhere someday. Yeah, crazy talk, I know.

 

[Some Idiot]

IT's actually less of a disaster as the training going on behind the scenes at the 'Service Centres'. There seems, at least from my experience, to be a culture of lying by omission within those centres. For example, I'm still receiving letters requesting more information on something I sent over six months ago.

 

[WesGordon]

When I first heard that IDS has resigned, I expected to learn that it was linked with an imminent collapse of the UC system. I didn't exactly shout "Liar" when I heard the claim that he was upset about taking even more from our most vulnerable citizens, but that's what I was thinking. He's done this repeatedly (and almost gleefully) over the years. The suggestion that he wanted to make a big splash about exiting the EU didn't really make sense either. The captain is joining the rats and leaving his crew to go down with the ship.

 

[TheColinous]

John Major's 'bastards' never went away. They were always there, and now they're back in the limelight, and it's... glorious.

Even John Redwood came back to offer his opinions. John Howard crawled out of whatever crypt his coffin is located in these days to tell everyone to stop it. Of course, IDS is one of the bastards, and always was.

But this is the shower of incompetents we voted for. We have to live with them, I suppose.

 

[scoobie]

TheColinous[/url]":j88b2y82]John Major's 'bastards' never went away. They were always there, and now they're back in the limelight, and it's... glorious.

Even John Redwood came back to offer his opinions. John Howard crawled out of whatever crypt his coffin is located in these days to tell everyone to stop it. Of course, IDS is one of the bastards, and always was.

But this is the shower of incompetents we voted for. We have to live with them, I suppose.

With this George and Boris stuff going on, its almost like the rest of the party is looking for an unexpected outsider to rally around, seems fashionable nowadays....... Whatever happened to Ann Widdecombe?

 

[Toufman]

One has to admire the hypocrisy of politicians of all ilks to launch projects with impossible deadlines, to kick the can down the road until well after their mandate is due to expire then to have a tantrum in public whenever said projects are delayed due to poor decision making and finally to throw the towel half way through achieving their great reforms for someone else to pick up the pieces... while keeping their job as MP.

Meanwhile the taxpayers have to listen to their wailing as they exist the center stage to join their backbench peers in Parliament. Accountability as its best.

Project managers would get fired for incompetence 10 times for trying to pull up similar bullsh*t

Edit: spelling fail

 

[peterford]

Just a reminder that you tend not to hear about IT projects that work well - and those that have teething problems often settle down to become things that people take for granted.

Lets not use this to smear everything eh?

 

[ChickenHawk]

Amongst other things, I am a trainee CAB advisor (although I am only speaking for myself here) and one thing that is clear in the materials is that Benefits and Welfare is a quagmire of confusing benefits, misleading names, and weird arbitrary distinctions. Employment and Support allowance for example doesn't have anything to do with Employment - a recipient may in fact be completely incapable of work.

Universal Credit is at its core such a common sense idea that it confuses me exactly as to why this IT system is so damn complicated. Rather than different benefits with different payout amounts, it's one rate, with some extras on top for certain groups (eg more if you're disabled and need extra funds for the extra living costs). Surely at its core it's just a billing system in reverse?

 

[giantbee]

Bob knows he has tried hard enough to bury the problems with it in the past:

http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2016/03 ... t-problems

 

[escape_velocity]

scoobie[/url]":2fub73iv]

TheColinous[/url]":2fub73iv]John Major's 'bastards' never went away. They were always there, and now they're back in the limelight, and it's... glorious.

Even John Redwood came back to offer his opinions. John Howard crawled out of whatever crypt his coffin is located in these days to tell everyone to stop it. Of course, IDS is one of the bastards, and always was.

But this is the shower of incompetents we voted for. We have to live with them, I suppose.

With this George and Boris stuff going on, its almost like the rest of the party is looking for an unexpected outsider to rally around, seems fashionable nowadays....... Whatever happened to Ann Widdecombe?

Please, $DEITY, no!
AFAIK, the three (former?) front-runners for the Big Hat were Osborne, Johnson and May. IDS' sudden fit of "conscience" has spiked Osborne, which will help May, and will also help Johnson.

TBH, I'd rather they spent the money they've wasted on this UC nonsense on benefits and be done with it. I went through a period on benefits myself a number of years ago and it's a bloody miserable existence; begrudging some poor bugger a few quid to feed himself in a country as rich as ours strikes me as pointless parsimony.

Seeing so much of our tax wasted (on UC, the Royals, and so much other utter *cack*) used to make me angry, but it's gone on for so long now that I'm just past caring. The Tory manifesto was only ever meant as a bargaining tool for what they thought would be another coalition with Lib-Dems; when they won the election outright, there were rather a lot of twitchy backsides at Tory HQ, mainly Osborne's as all that austerity he thought he'd be able to wind in because "the Lib Dems made me, aren't I a softie?" turned out to be something else entirely.

So yes, another slap for Osborne and, perhaps, a temporary reminder that he isn't even half as clever as he thinks he is.

 

[r3loaded]

ChickenHawk[/url]":10ka3u38]Amongst other things, I am a trainee CAB advisor (although I am only speaking for myself here) and one thing that is clear in the materials is that Benefits and Welfare is a quagmire of confusing benefits, misleading names, and weird arbitrary distinctions. Employment and Support allowance for example doesn't have anything to do with Employment - a recipient may in fact be completely incapable of work.

Maybe they should give the Basic Income a shot? Everyone, whether in or out of work would get a guaranteed minimum income regardless of circumstances. As it gets added to your existing income, it'll get taxed back off you if you earn enough so the worst off will benefit the most. It'll make setting a minimum wage redundant as employers will have to offer a competitive rate that workers will actually bother working for. Plus, by dismantling the existing gargantuan administrative structure for deciding benefit eligibility, the government might be able to recover enough money to pay for the whole thing.

It'll also boost the creation of startups - a budding entrepreneur will be able to quit their day job and focus their savings and time on a business, without having to worry about how they'll eat/pay rent or rely on a spouse or family for support. This is a scenario which is not covered by the current benefits system.

 

[ChickenHawk]

r3loaded[/url]":173ppkme]

ChickenHawk[/url]":173ppkme]Amongst other things, I am a trainee CAB advisor (although I am only speaking for myself here) and one thing that is clear in the materials is that Benefits and Welfare is a quagmire of confusing benefits, misleading names, and weird arbitrary distinctions. Employment and Support allowance for example doesn't have anything to do with Employment - a recipient may in fact be completely incapable of work.

Maybe they should give the Basic Income a shot? Everyone, whether in or out of work would get a guaranteed minimum income regardless of circumstances. As it gets added to your existing income, it'll get taxed back off you if you earn enough so the worst off will benefit the most. It'll make setting a minimum wage redundant as employers will have to offer a competitive rate that workers will actually bother working for. Plus, by dismantling the existing gargantuan administrative structure for deciding benefit eligibility, the government might be able to recover enough money to pay for the whole thing.

It'll also boost the creation of startups - a budding entrepreneur will be able to quit their day job and focus their savings and time on a business, without having to worry about how they'll eat/pay rent or rely on a spouse or family for support. This is a scenario which is not covered by the current benefits system.

I was in favour of a basic income, but this assignment I'm working on (I'm also a law student) leaves me not so sure. I'm worried if this is another Speenhamland, which guaranteed a minimum income to people - but it also required you to work if you could, with Speenhamland making up the difference between what you earned and what you needed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speenhamland_system

The Assignment is about Polanyi's book "the great transformation", and as he puts it whilst Speenhamland was well meaning, the result was actually it ended up depressing wages so pretty much everyone ended up on the breadline anyway.

Wondering also if work credits currently fit the same hole...

I think it can only have that positive impact if there really is no obligation to work...

I see some advantages in that in that unproductive people will leave the labour market, increasing average productivity; and that those who want to write a book or start a business can knowing the basics are covered... but I'm not sure its going to be financially feasable

But at the end of the day, surely thats still a tangent. ATOS or Fujitsu, or whoever it ends up being is still going to overcharge us for an IT system they might never deliver in order to manage it.

 

[Lwio]

This is politics at it's most raw. He's quitting on a bet that the UK will exit the EU and Boris will then become PM bringing him back in as probably the new chancellor. In the meantime they play with people lives. Scum.

 

[gbjbaanb]

ChickenHawk[/url]":2qn1p0gg]Amongst other things, I am a trainee CAB advisor (although I am only speaking for myself here) and one thing that is clear in the materials is that Benefits and Welfare is a quagmire of confusing benefits, misleading names, and weird arbitrary distinctions. Employment and Support allowance for example doesn't have anything to do with Employment - a recipient may in fact be completely incapable of work.

Universal Credit is at its core such a common sense idea that it confuses me exactly as to why this IT system is so damn complicated. Rather than different benefits with different payout amounts, it's one rate, with some extras on top for certain groups (eg more if you're disabled and need extra funds for the extra living costs). Surely at its core it's just a billing system in reverse?

Yes it should be simple to implement, feed a bunch of data from different departments, aggregate them, and run an algorithm over it to work out how much you get.

But then, rather than give it to me to write, they give it to consultancies who have 1 or 2 good people and a huge number of outsourced (ie cheapest) "IT" workers and contractors who get paid by the day.

I've worked on such things, it was hell attempting to do good work in the face of so much incompetence.

 

[peterford]

gbjbaanb[/url]":14ds4w0a]
Yes it should be simple to implement, feed a bunch of data from different departments, aggregate them, and run an algorithm over it to work out how much you get.

But then, rather than give it to me to write, they give it to consultancies who have 1 or 2 good people and a huge number of outsourced (ie cheapest) "IT" workers and contractors who get paid by the day.

I've worked on such things, it was hell attempting to do good work in the face of so much incompetence.

I don't often criticise someone I don't know, but based on this comment, you are utterly ignorant on this subject.

Government systems- especially those like universal credit are rarely technically complicated. The problem is that they translate law into code and this is incredibly complicated. Law makers don't think through every possible outcome, but creating these systems means you have to. This is where most delay comes from.

If you think you can translate huge areas of benefit law to code then you are either a god like genius or a chancer. The rest of your comment leads me to one of these.

No, I do not work on universal credit.

 

[Sixty_Hurtz]

Minor correction: Universal Credit should be capitalised. It took me a couple of tries to parse the headline until I realised it was about the benefit.

ChickenHawk[/url]":12tnf7ai]
Universal Credit is at its core such a common sense idea that it confuses me exactly as to why this IT system is so damn complicated. Rather than different benefits with different payout amounts, it's one rate, with some extras on top for certain groups (eg more if you're disabled and need extra funds for the extra living costs). Surely at its core it's just a billing system in reverse?

It's incredibly difficult to communicate how complex the DWP is to outsiders. We're talking about a department that employs ~100k people, and operates as a few different executive agencies (PDCS, JCP, etc. It also still uses legacy systems that are decades old. You're right that the basic idea behind UC is sound, but actually pulling it all together was always going to be a shitstorm. In the long run it's a good idea though.

 

[Demento]

As I said on the UK Politics thread, it's really incredible that someone can be so universally perceived as a Bastard that not a single person in the United Kingdom believes he resigned over a matter of principle.

 

[has]

peterford[/url]":2ar3208y]

gbjbaanb[/url]":2ar3208y]
Yes it should be simple to implement, feed a bunch of data from different departments, aggregate them, and run an algorithm over it to work out how much you get.

But then, rather than give it to me to write, they give it to consultancies who have 1 or 2 good people and a huge number of outsourced (ie cheapest) "IT" workers and contractors who get paid by the day.

I've worked on such things, it was hell attempting to do good work in the face of so much incompetence.

I don't often criticise someone I don't know, but based on this comment, you are utterly ignorant on this subject.

Government systems- especially those like universal credit are rarely technically complicated. The problem is that they translate law into code and this is incredibly complicated. Law makers don't think through every possible outcome, but creating these systems means you have to. This is where most delay comes from.

Here's a radical idea: Ditch all the consultants and outsource drones, and allow the government department to assemble its own compact, focused problerm-solving team that combines law makers, administrators, and developers into a single heterogeneous group that works in-house as a single unit to learn and understand the problem space and build the tools to serve it better.

Nothing is more utterly useless and less likely to yield a valid solution than programmers who only know how to program, managers who only know how to manage, and consultants who only know how to put zeros on the end of every invoice. If a programmer can't be arsed to learn about law or a lawyer can't describe how it works to non-lawyers, replace them with those that do. And don't be afraid to pay top dollar to secure the right people, because it will still work out infinitely cheaper than these endlessly repeating too-vast-and-ignorant-ever-to-succeed boondoggles that serve solely to inflate the usual private-sector suspects on the taxpayer dime with little but excuses in return.

 

[gbjbaanb]

peterford[/url]":22o0mlto]

gbjbaanb[/url]":22o0mlto]
Yes it should be simple to implement, feed a bunch of data from different departments, aggregate them, and run an algorithm over it to work out how much you get.

But then, rather than give it to me to write, they give it to consultancies who have 1 or 2 good people and a huge number of outsourced (ie cheapest) "IT" workers and contractors who get paid by the day.

I've worked on such things, it was hell attempting to do good work in the face of so much incompetence.

I don't often criticise someone I don't know, but based on this comment, you are utterly ignorant on this subject.

Government systems- especially those like universal credit are rarely technically complicated. The problem is that they translate law into code and this is incredibly complicated. Law makers don't think through every possible outcome, but creating these systems means you have to. This is where most delay comes from.

If you think you can translate huge areas of benefit law to code then you are either a god like genius or a chancer. The rest of your comment leads me to one of these.

No, I do not work on universal credit.

I worked on FiReControl, it was some, stuff we did for other customers and the only difference would have been a few fire-specific modules and national scale (which considering the number if calls fire gets compared to police or ambulance is less nationally than some constabularies). Add it was, the government and consultancy made it watt more complex than necessary, requirements that even conflicted with each other were common. They had 4 years working on those requirements....

Benefit law isn't impossibly complicated, it's all written down. There might be a lot of it, but that's only a problem of writing out algorithms that apply them.

I also worked on credit reference software. Taking inputs from so many different data feeds, writing out credit scores based on a lot of factors, that's not materially different from universal credit IMHO.

 

[peterford]

gbjbaanb[/url]":1acdnbqk]

peterford[/url]":1acdnbqk]

gbjbaanb[/url]":1acdnbqk]
Yes it should be simple to implement, feed a bunch of data from different departments, aggregate them, and run an algorithm over it to work out how much you get.

But then, rather than give it to me to write, they give it to consultancies who have 1 or 2 good people and a huge number of outsourced (ie cheapest) "IT" workers and contractors who get paid by the day.

I've worked on such things, it was hell attempting to do good work in the face of so much incompetence.

I don't often criticise someone I don't know, but based on this comment, you are utterly ignorant on this subject.

Government systems- especially those like universal credit are rarely technically complicated. The problem is that they translate law into code and this is incredibly complicated. Law makers don't think through every possible outcome, but creating these systems means you have to. This is where most delay comes from.

If you think you can translate huge areas of benefit law to code then you are either a god like genius or a chancer. The rest of your comment leads me to one of these.

No, I do not work on universal credit.

I worked on FiReControl, it was some, stuff we did for other customers and the only difference would have been a few fire-specific modules and national scale (which considering the number if calls fire gets compared to police or ambulance is less nationally than some constabularies). Add it was, the government and consultancy made it watt more complex than necessary, requirements that even conflicted with each other were common. They had 4 years working on those requirements....

Benefit law isn't impossibly complicated, it's all written down. There might be a lot of it, but that's only a problem of writing out algorithms that apply them.

I also worked on credit reference software. Taking inputs from so many different data feeds, writing out credit scores based on a lot of factors, that's not materially different from universal credit IMHO.

I think you need to check your ego.

You haven't disagreed with me at all - you say yourself the requirements conflict; so why is that the fault of "IT workers" and why should we "give it to [you]"?

Neither do I say that benefit law is impossibly complicated, I say incredibly complicated. There is a lot of it- that's the problem.

 

[peterford]

has[/url]":2yk5kk12]

peterford[/url]":2yk5kk12]

gbjbaanb[/url]":2yk5kk12]
Yes it should be simple to implement, feed a bunch of data from different departments, aggregate them, and run an algorithm over it to work out how much you get.

But then, rather than give it to me to write, they give it to consultancies who have 1 or 2 good people and a huge number of outsourced (ie cheapest) "IT" workers and contractors who get paid by the day.

I've worked on such things, it was hell attempting to do good work in the face of so much incompetence.

I don't often criticise someone I don't know, but based on this comment, you are utterly ignorant on this subject.

Government systems- especially those like universal credit are rarely technically complicated. The problem is that they translate law into code and this is incredibly complicated. Law makers don't think through every possible outcome, but creating these systems means you have to. This is where most delay comes from.

Here's a radical idea: Ditch all the consultants and outsource drones, and allow the government department to assemble its own compact, focused problerm-solving team that combines law makers, administrators, and developers into a single heterogeneous group that works in-house as a single unit to learn and understand the problem space and build the tools to serve it better.

Nothing is more utterly useless and less likely to yield a valid solution than programmers who only know how to program, managers who only know how to manage, and consultants who only know how to put zeros on the end of every invoice. If a programmer can't be arsed to learn about law or a lawyer can't describe how it works to non-lawyers, replace them with those that do. And don't be afraid to pay top dollar to secure the right people, because it will still work out infinitely cheaper than these endlessly repeating too-vast-and-ignorant-ever-to-succeed boondoggles that serve solely to inflate the usual private-sector suspects on the taxpayer dime with little but excuses in return.

That's actually what the UK government is trying to do in many cases. The trouble comes that because of the history they don't currently have huge experience or capacity. Learning quickly though, and the more modern , flexible technologies are helping them.

 

[flibamini]

IDS had a disastrous term as leader of Conservatives as promoter of extreme right wing class-ism, he didn't strike anyone as being very intelligent or articulate and he swiftly was dropped as party leader.

Gleeful indeed... he is gleefully obsessed with debasing the tenets of civil rights and equal rights and in favor of returning to a grotesque system of nobility, bourgeoisie, inherited wealth, low paid work, familes living in dusty mouldy semi detached houses of 3 rooms in squalor being paid a pittance for factory work, sires with grand country houses with servants, and so on. it's called UK conservative right wing.

The IT system was initially supervised by a tech illiterate old lord fogey of some kind who didn't know how to log into a computer.

If you had stated and developed the above two notions in your article, the first perhaps more subtly, it would be much more factual and much more salient.

The IT system is an example of government initiatives that are carried out by ministers without resort to select commitees to design their admin teams... when you set about making a 2 billion restructure, you should involve various well sourced experts as comitees to outline the course of action.

Ministers tend to want to direct the entire project themselves in a power rush of crazy ignorance, and it is part of the reason why governments are so very crap at doing anything at all... THE LACK OF SELECT COMITTEES AND HIGHLY QUALIFIED EXEC COMITTEES TO PLAN A COURSE OF ACTION FOR MULTIBILLION POUND DECISIONS.

We are most happy IDS has quit he is neither mentally nor morally equipped to take care of the job he was given, he was clearly positioned there as a joke.