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Cerner project over budget by 100 times amount of local heart monitor donations
By Tony Collins When the Lord Mayor of Bristol presented a cheque for £20,000 to buy 10 cardiac monitors for local hospitals he could not have known that NHS officials were quietly spending more than...
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Whitehall to relent on secrecy over mega projects – after 10-year campaign?
By Tony Collins The Cabinet Office may be about to change its decade-old policy of not publishing reports on the progress or otherwise of its large, costly and risky IT-based projects. A change of...
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Francis Maude talks open govt – and Whitehall does the opposite
By Tony Collins “If people do not know what you’re doing, they don’t know what you’re doing wrong.” – Sir Arnold Robinson, Cabinet Secretary in a discussion on open government in Yes Minister. Francis...
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Why is MoD spending more on IT when its data is poor?
By Tony Collins The Ministry of Defence and the three services have spent many hundreds of millions of pounds on logistics IT systems over the past 20 years, and new IT projects are planned. But the...
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Poor IT suppliers to face ban from contracts?
By Tony Collins The Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude is due to meet representatives of suppliers today, including Accenture BT,Capgemini, Capita, HP, IBM, Interserve, Logica, Serco, and Steria....
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Cancer waits mix-up – how concerned is the Trust?
By Tony Collins When a passenger jet crashes, if the airline’s next board meeting barely mentions it, and instead discusses a catering award and a staff survey, those booked on flights with the airline...
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A mega-outsourcing plan in Cornwall beset by naive fanaticism?
By Tony Collins Comment and analysis An inner circle of councillors at Cornwall council is rushing plans to sign a big outsourcing deal despite a council vote against it. The aims of the deal include...
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Somerset’s dispute with IBM is “escalating”.
By Tony Collins Somerset County Council says in a paper due to be discussed next week that its dispute with the IBM-led Southwest One joint venture is “escalating” and that there is a need to “restore...
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Barnet’s undemocratic BT/Capita outsourcing plan?
By Tony Collins Barnet Council is remarkably defensive about its plan to outsource IT, customer services, finance, payroll, HR, corporate procurement and other services to BT or Capita, by the end of...
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Does a Mid Staffs culture still pervade the NHS?
By Tony Collins The Francis report on Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust highlighted appalling record-keeping among other problems. One of the case studies in the report was that of an...
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When Whitehall shuns statutory scrutiny
By Tony Collins In some ways central departments are deeply accountable. They provide volumes of statistics and reports to the centre of government (Cabinet Office and Treasury) – as far as their...
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Universal Credit – good for its IT suppliers?
By Tony Collins The DWP is conceding in its own tangential way that the IT for Universal Credit is not up to scratch; and an article in the Daily Telegraph suggests that Universal Credit this year (and...
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Trust spends £16.6m on consultants for Cerner EPR
By Tony Collins Reading-based Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust says in an FOI response that its spending on “computer consultants since the inception of the EPR system is £16.6m”. The Trust’s total...
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Has 2 decades of outsourcing cut costs at HMRC?
By Tony Collins If HMRC’s experience is anything to go by, outsourcing can, in the long-term, at least triple an organisation’s IT costs. When Inland Revenue contracted out its 2,000-strong IT...
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Why does truth on Universal Credit emerge only now?
By Tony Collins For nearly a year the Department for Work and Pensions, its ministers and senior officials, have told Parliament that Universal Credit IT is on track and on budget. Together with DWP...
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IT suppliers out of control of DWP on Universal Credit?
By Tony Collins The Department for Work and Pensions is investigating with consultants PwC whether poor financial controls on payments to IT suppliers have “materialised into cash that should not have...
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Does outsourcing make corruption more likely?
By Tony Collins Few journalists want to write about corruption in local government unless they have specific evidence from a court case. Which helps to explain why a well-researched report on the...
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Who polices police IT reports?
By Tony Collins The police, and civil and public servants in central government, the NHS and local authorities criticise journalists for biased reporting – taking selected facts out of context. They’re...
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More IT-based megaprojects derail amid claims all is well
By Tony Collins If one thing unites all failing IT-based megaprojects in the public sector it is the defensive shield of denial that suppliers and their clients hold up when confronted by bad news. It...
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A great speech in praise of the Public Accounts Committee
By Tony Collins Margaret Hodge spoke incisively this week about her five years as chairman of the 160 year-old Public Accounts Committee. It’s assumed that civil servants answer to ministers who are...
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