Labour still wating money even though not in power

[VHG]

So the Fire service control centre project (started by Labour in 2004) has cost 469 MILLION pounds and delivered almost nothing.

The empty buildings are still costing us 4 MILLION pounds a month in maintenance etc.

No wonder this country got in such debt under Labour.

So much for Gordon Brown being good at managing money (which I never believed anyway)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14974552

[VHG]

Sorry that should be "wasting money" not "wating money"

[jake-the-peg]

Yes almost as bad as the London Ambulance Service fiasco that happened under the TORY administration isn't it?


Nice try

[rojash]

It was certainly under Labour that the fire service fiasco happened, but if you look at the history of Government IT projects, you'll find that they are pretty much all disasters. It's the whole ethos of the government IT procurement that is at fault (i.e. it's much more to do with the Civil Service and the consultants and contractors themselves).

The way in which projects are defined, specified, designed and managed has changed very little since the mainframe days of the late 70s. And it's not in the interests of the contractors to try and correct this.

[jake-the-peg]

//The way in which projects are defined, specified, designed and managed has changed very little since the mainframe days of the late 70s//

Why do you say that Rojash?

Most Government Projects are managed under PRINCE2 Methodology which was released in 1996 and which replaced PRINCE which came out in 1986

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRINCE2

[rojash]

"Most Government Projects are managed under PRINCE2 Methodology which was released in 1996 and which replaced PRINCE which came out in 1986 "

PRINCE2 is a general purpose project management methodology. It doesn't actually dictate the software development process - merely the means of managing it. Most modern commercial software is developed using one or another form of Iterative and Incremental development techniques. This gives much faster results, and is far more responsive to changes in the users needs (and perceived needs).

Ask most people with experience of tendering for public projects, and you'll fin that by the time experts in software development get involved, there is a specification already in place - often a quite unrealistic one, based on the wishes of non-technical people, politicians, civil servants etc. As an expert you then have two choices: go with the flow and tender for a job that you know is going to fail (but at least you'll get paid for it), or point out all the faults with the specification, and get passed over.

As we know from experience, the big software contractors are regularly involved in spectacular failures, but they always walk away with a large pile of dosh, and they are always back on the list to participate in, and profit from, the next big failure.

[rojash]

... BTW I'm not blaming the IT contractors here. They have a pretty stark choice, work on jobs that they know will fail, or don't work. Rather like those financial sector workers who predicted the collapse of the banking system. They had a similar choice - go with the flow, take the money and run, or make waves, and find themselves without a job.

[rov1100]

The idea is good but like most government IT projects they come a cropper. The specification is to all encompassing and even small changes to the project can usually mean a massive change to the software. If Bill Gates is still having to insert changes to his Windows operating system after all these years you can understand the complexity and never getting it right.

Software like this can only work in a step wise method and changes made iteratively. To expect it to work as a whole is living in cloud cuckoo land!

[jake-the-peg]

Well you said "the way projects are defined specified and designed"

You didn't say the software development process

and I'm sure we both know that the definition at least of a project has a lot to do with the Prince Project initialisation document.

In any case I'd be extremely surprised if just using the waterfall method were responsible for this failure - they are usually much more involved than that.

In the London Ambulance case selecting the cheapest vendor who had submitted a hugely over-optimistic bid was one major factor

I'd expect that might well be a factor here.

I doubt either John Major or Gordon Brown selected the vendor in either case :c)


Incidently let's not pretend it's just Government projects

Wembley Stadium for example

[rojash]

"You didn't say the software development process "
Yes, sorry. As a software developer, I tend to assume that it's obvious that my comments are going to be pertinent to the software specification and development methodology. Consequently, I don't always make that clear :-)


"I doubt either John Major or Gordon Brown selected the vendor in either case :c)"

Hence my comment "It's the whole ethos of the government IT procurement that is at fault (i.e. it's much more to do with the Civil Service and the consultants and contractors themselves)"