back to article DWP's poor IT systems threaten back-to-work scheme

IT issues threaten the effectiveness of the government's single welfare-to-work scheme, according to the Department for Work and Pensions' (DWP) IT training and software provider. Written evidence to Parliament's Work and Pensions Committee includes a submission by Seetec, warning that the Work Programme could be could be …

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  1. Pen-y-gors
    Coat

    nice one!

    >the Work Programme could be could be hampered by duplication of data entry

    could be!

  2. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    'Culture of fear'

    "Security protocols have created further problems by introducing a "culture of fear", says Seetec. As a consequence, service providers have implemented a blanket approach to mitigate any perceived risk of data loss, stifling innovation and the sharing of information."

    That's pretty much true of the entire civil service. With every department anxious to shed jobs as quickly and quietly as possible, 'breaches of security' are avoided at every turn.

    From personal experience, it's just taken me six months of back-and-forth negotiating and interminable meetings to be allowed to send (non-sensitive) files via e-mail and not by bike on a CD - which I have to get someone else to burn.

  3. Semaj

    NSS

    Damn right on all points - and not a surprise at all.

    Oh and PrAP is an EDS product, just so you know :)

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    lighten up, it's only money

    Another £3,000,000,000 to £5,000,000,000 to reward the usual crew of parasites for the equivalent of being paid to watch a game of snakes and ladders and getting a bonus every time somebody throws a six.

    Has anyone explained the term 'commercial risk' to them? Oh, I forgot, they don't need to know!

  5. Ross 7

    Closed/non-standard API

    Well it's not exactly in Capita et als interest to provide open APIs to their systems is it? Every vendor wants to lock their clients in - selling a man an IT system once is all well and good, but recurring income is what it's all about. It increases your share price as the stock market can see future income, rather than betting on how well your sales team does in the next 18 months. Senior staff are paid in shares to avoid tax, so greater share price = greater pay.

    If they want to have open systems then write that into the contacts in the first place!

    I still think that they do it all a*** about face anyway - they should tender for project management rather than the whole project. As it is there's only 2-3 vendors can supply the DWP the software they want - nobody else is big enough to meet the tender requirements. Blighty has thousands of very skilled IT outfits, so they should tender for a project manager, then it's their job to share out the units to different contractors who each write their bit of the project to spec. If one fails for some reason, you pass his little bit to someone better. Ofc that's never going to happen, as big business has an awful lot more champagne yacht parti...errrr sway with MPs than little business.

  6. Dave Bell

    Has anything really changed?

    We have a working world filled with short-term jobs, whether you're an IT contractor, a shop-assistant, or a bin-man.

    These schemes will find a huge number of jobs, and put people in work, but since the jobs won't last there's not going to be a lot of money to pay the bills for providing the IT. And there'll be a lot more work for HMRC, keeping track of PAYE for these short term workers, and dealing with the refunds over the year.

    And the politicians will be very enthusiastic about the number of available jobs. I wonder how you would measure it, I can see the room for arguments, but how long does the "average" job last today, compared to 20 or 30 years ago?

  7. Red Bren

    To centralise or decentralise?

    The DWP are being advised to develop common IT systems and standards. Isn't that what that big NHS IT project was supposed to do, but it's now suggested that locally sourced, small solutions are the way to go?

    1. chr0m4t1c

      Different requirements

      Most of DWP's business is centralised requirements being presented locally, the NHS is almost entirely driven by local requirements.

      People will often move for employment, but not for healthcare (e.g. I don't see a mass exodus to Scotland for free prescriptions).

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      centralise

      Any sensible solution is going to use common standards. So of course they didn't. Locally sourced? Well, it is all one organisation, so allowing different parts of it to go their own way on IT has no advantages but potentially huge costs.

      This is only a small country with a population under 70 million. A national system for *anything* should be comparatively cheap and straightforward to acquire. If Estonia can get it right, why can't we?

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