back to article UK government tech procurement lacks understanding, says watchdog

UK government plans its technology purchases with limited assessment of technical feasibility, according to a spending watchdog's analysis of the £14-billion-a-year procurement of digital services. Among findings in the latest National Audit Office (NAO) report [PDF], which evaluates the government's approach to technology …

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  1. Bronek Kozicki

    I am shocked. Not.

    1. Harry Kiri

      Technology is bought on a whim or a promise.

      We work in the 'is this technology worth it' space and determine cost / benefits, impacts and issues - in great human fashion, no 'leader' wants to hear that their idea or concept has downsides or won't deliver all that was promised. Progress is measured in how much physical stuff has been visibly bought, delivered / installed, not in whether there's been upfront work to understand and de-risk the project. By the time it starts going wrong, the original 'leader' has moved on, usually promoted.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. Willy Ekerslike

        Re: Technology is bought on a whim or a promise.

        It's an example of the general manglement malaise of focussing on outputs instead of outcomes. Understandable, though, as the former are usually a lot easier to measure than the latter, especially within the timescale of a government or business reporting cycle - and few people who make the big decisions are actually competent* to do so.

        *Competent in terms of education (understanding the why's), training (having the skills) and experience (being able to put the first two together).

    2. Eclectic Man Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Qualifications?

      Reading the article the thought occurred to 'tell me something I do not already know'.

      I was hoping that they would point out that a degree (even a first class degree form Oxford or Cambridge) in Classics, Mediaeval Philosophy, Ancient History, English Literature, Russian, Philosophy Politics and Economics, Modern History, Geography, Law, or Sociology does not qualify you in understanding computer system procurement. But then, what do I * know?

      Same as the people who reject human affected global warming without any scientific qualifications at all, but who are really sure that it is all a plot to destabilise their country's economy, when they could actually go to any university with a physics department and do the experiments themselves and discover that CO2 really does cause warming, and then do the arithmetic of how much fossil fuel has been burned in the last 150 years and what that has done to the atmosphere.

      OK, rant over, sorry

      *B.Sc., Ph.D. in mathematics, plus over 20 years IT security experience - a no-hoper, really.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Qualifications?

        From the disciplines you list: I think a procurement team might well need a lawyer. Conracts are not written in C.

      2. Terry 6 Silver badge

        Re: Qualifications?

        Arguably the degree in Classics types would be OK if they then spent a few years working n a tech capacity. But they don't and anyway the UK civil service is notorious for moving people out of jobs when they get good at them

      3. nijam Silver badge

        Re: Qualifications?

        > *B.Sc., Ph.D. in mathematics, plus over 20 years IT security experience - a no-hoper, really.

        Too right, how do you still even have a job?

        1. Eclectic Man Silver badge
          Happy

          Re: Qualifications?

          Actually, I 'politely' describe myself as "a gentlemen of leisure". Whilst the term "gentleman" is debatable, the "leisure" is not. I am also one of the 'inheritocracy'*, having received a very generous 'donation' from parents who are now sadly demised.

          * see e.g., The book of the same name by Eliza Philly, ISBN 978-1-785-90858-3

      4. OldGeezer
        Trollface

        Re: Qualifications?

        Yes, or like current IT manglement that have so called manglement qualifications but absolutely no idea how IT works or is developed/implemented. Just making sure the cattle produce 'somethng' in the timeframe and budget dictated from above.

      5. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: Qualifications?

        A politician with the academic credentials and action on climate change is the Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, the President of Mexico.

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

        One to watch/she's going to give as good as she gets from her incoming neighbour to the north.

    3. hoola Silver badge

      It is not as simple as this.

      Public Sector procurement is tied in with all sorts of other issues where the outcome is the principal point of the ITT is to prevent the organisation being sued by the companies with the unsuccessful responses. Then we have the utter insanity of the tender evaluation where you are not allowed to take you first hand experience of a company and use that to score down (or up... falls of chair laughing)!

      This is how we see the same truly awful players in a merry-go-round of fat contracts and failures.

      Now add in the the Private Sector will use every trick in the book to rip off the Public Sector as they see it as a bottomless supply of money and you start to see why there are so many issues.

      Yes, we know there are problems round scope creep and all sorts of other funky stuff but in many cases these changes are forced down during the implementation by changes in legislation, either directly or indirectly from systems that have to be integrated or by undue delay.

      Unbelievable amounts of time is spent gather requirements and getting sign off from stake holders. The result of this is that the requirements are often not fit for purpose.

      IT Mangelement don't have much of a clue because they are more interested in covering their own arses than listening to the advice from people who understand.

      I have yet to find any Project Managers in Public or Private Sector that truly understand what they are doing. All they are interested in is Gant charts and closing stuff off. I have seen whole chunks of a project closed off to meet timescales knowing that we are still working on delivering said section or waiting for the customer to implement a critical prerequisite.

    4. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
      Holmes

      Incompetent Managers

      What's changed in the last 100 years?

      In The Tender Ship, Manhattan Project engineer and Virginia Tech professor Arthur Squires used Shute's account of the R100 and R101 as a primary illustration of his thesis that governments are usually incompetent managers of technology projects.

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

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

  2. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

    Yet another no doubt costly report from the Department for the Bleedin' Obvious.

    Any chance of them coming up with a workable solution? Or will that have to wait until they've hired a few dozen more management consultants?

    1. Harry Kiri

      The conclusion is obvious, but...

      To be fair, the NAO arent chuffed with the situation and having had interactions with them do have suggested pragmatic governance in publically available documents, I thought good observations on the problems and how to address them. But no-one wants to listen to 'can we just have a think about this first'. See NHS IT scandal and the yet to occur AI everywhere nonsense announced recently.

      1. Loudon D'Arcy

        Re: The conclusion is obvious, but...

        > See NHS IT scandal and the yet to occur AI everywhere nonsense announced recently.

        Don't forget the Covid "Test and Trace" app, which cost... <deep breath> ...£37 billion.

        The Independent: Scathing report blasts ‘unimaginable’ £37bn cost of coronavirus test and trace system

        (For comparison's sake, the cost of building the Panama Canal was estimated at $639 million in 1914. In today's money, that's the equivalent of $20.1 billion or £16.5 billion. The Channel Tunnel cost £9.5 billion in 1994, which is equivalent to £19.5 billion today. Combined cost = £36 billion)

        1. fnusnu

          Re: The conclusion is obvious, but...

          I was £35m: https://fullfact.org/health/NHS-test-and-trace-app-37-billion-instagram/

          1. Loudon D'Arcy

            Re: The conclusion is obvious, but...

            Okay, I used imprecise language.

            Yes, the app was a snip, at a mere £35 million. (How did the devs keep food on the table?)

            The Test And Trace system was allocated a total budget of £37 billion over two years. But only 25.7 billion had been spent by June 2022, with a lifetime cost of £29.3 billion.

            Nevertheless, it was still an astoundingly huge sum of money to spend on a single, short-term IT project.

            BBC: Covid-19: NHS Test and Trace 'no clear impact' despite £37bn budget

            BMJ: Covid-19: NHS Test and Trace failed despite “eye watering” budget, MPs conclude

            1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

              Re: The conclusion is obvious, but...

              It wasn't just the app, it was the whole system including the test labs and the "free" tests themselves.. A waste of time and money, certainly, but not all thrown just at the app developers.

              1. MonkeyJuice Bronze badge

                Re: The conclusion is obvious, but...

                I remember speaking to a friend at the time who's son had been recruited by the test and trace team as a call operator. They spent 10 months getting paid and the phone never rang once.

    2. UnknownUnknown

      A centre of excellence used to exist until torn down by the Tories, and continued by New Labour and Coalition, and largely doesn’t exist anymore except as part of the endless and unnecessary rounds of procurement framework vomiting out of The Cabinet Office and source of gov.uk.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Computer_and_Telecommunications_Agency

      Comms, Networking, Hosting, Computing Excellence, IT Strategy, Project Management Framework (PRINCE), Service Management Framework (ITIL) etc….

      With deep irony - Indeed sounds very similar to this weeks (ignoring the financially starved Alan Turing Institute) exactly what NuNuLabour were wanting with Sovereign Computing Hosting/Services and AI nous.

  3. Guy de Loimbard Silver badge
    Stop

    This requires a significant

    change in culture and approach.

    Having worked in this space in the past, there are too many people making decisions on tech that they aren't vaguely qualified to even think about, never mind make a decision.

    I could wax lyrical about a few of the programmes I was involved in, but I suspect they will be so far removed from reality that none of the learned El Reg readers would believe a government entity could be so inefficient! </sarcasm>

  4. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    "an overemphasis on acquiring the minimum requirement or cheapest resource"

    Wasn't it Niel Armstrong who commented on how he was going to space on something built with the lowest bidder ?

    It worked out for him, thank goodness, but sometimes the government would do well to remember that cheapest isn't always best.

    Something that costs more often has a reason for it (not always though, it's tricky).

    1. Guy de Loimbard Silver badge

      Re: "an overemphasis on acquiring the minimum requirement or cheapest resource"

      I remember this quote from Armageddon movie:

      "You know we're sitting on four million pounds of fuel, one nuclear weapon and a thing that has 270,000 moving parts built by the lowest bidder. Makes you feel good, doesn't it?"

      Not sure if that was paraphrased from the Apollo missions, be great it it was.

      1. Missing Semicolon Silver badge

        Re: "an overemphasis on acquiring the minimum requirement or cheapest resource"

        Apparently from John Glenn's biography:

        “I guess the question I'm asked the most often is: "When you were sitting in that capsule listening to the count-down, how did you feel?" Well, the answer to that one is easy. I felt exactly how you would feel if you were getting ready to launch and knew you were sitting on top of two million parts -- all built by the lowest bidder on a government contract.”

    2. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

      Re: "an overemphasis on acquiring the minimum requirement or cheapest resource"

      Something that costs more often has a reason for it (not always though, it's tricky)

      Speaking as someone who has done a number of Public Body procurement cycles - you really, really don't have to go for the lowest bidder. What you go for is someone that can do the job and offers 'value for money' - which is up to you to define.

      And when you examine the cheaper option, they (generally) lack one or more of the feature set that you require and are hoping that you are sloppy and overlook that. They are generally also the ones that sue/put in lots of FOI requests if they don't get the contract that we were offering. Also, generally, the weasel words in their offerings reveal that they didn't actually have the capacity currently but that the contract would enable them to do so..

      Doesn't mean we haven't had some turkeys but that's generally because that was all the procurement portal offered us and it was a case of "choose the least-worst"

      1. Terry 6 Silver badge

        Re: "an overemphasis on acquiring the minimum requirement or cheapest resource"

        Going for the lowest bidder, in public bodies (I don't know about private industry) is not about best value, it's just about lowest price. And that's because senior management want to spend as little as possible so that they can show how well they’re doing. . Projects are always underfunded - they’re even underfunded for the lowest bid, so that bits are omitted or ignored, to keep within an illusory budget. For example the lovely promise will include computer controlled door access. But when you ask where the budget for the computers controlling the access is they say, "don't worry that's a detail - it's be sorted out". And come completion date there will be a building with doors that have no access control - because no budget. Not to mention the promised floor to ceiling secure storage which has now become a standard cupboard with a wooden door. The security cameras at key points will have become one camera at the front and one at the back door. And so on.

        1. Blogitus Maximus

          Re: "an overemphasis on acquiring the minimum requirement or cheapest resource"

          Ahem.

          https://metayellow.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/5/0/125075342/753310342.jpg

  5. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Coat

    *Decades* of resellers, consultants and consultants have...

    persuaded Ministers that competent internal procurement and project management skills are unnecessary

    And 46 years on from Margaret Thatcher this is what you get.

    The question is given that the current Administration has a hugemajority (and therefore can do pretty much what they want, although it is usually a good idea to try for consensus if you want things to stay in place ) what will they do about it?

    IDK. Hopefully something that will produce some enduring benefits.

    1. 42656e4d203239 Silver badge
      Holmes

      Re: *Decades* of resellers, consultants and consultants have...

      >>And 46 years on from Margaret Thatcher this is what you get.

      In another context, didn't Mr Gove mutter something about "....had enough of experts...."?

      Transpires that if you don't have in-house experts you don't know what you are asking, so make mistakes when asking the questions and, susequently get shafted for the inevitable goal post moves.

      Yeh it costs money to employ experts, who might be less than fully employed on projects, but it is an insurance against budget overruns due to incorrectly specified systems which probably works out cheaper than said overruns.

      Icon cos not even Mr Holmes could have predicted the outcome /s

      1. Eclectic Man Silver badge

        Re: *Decades* of resellers, consultants and consultants have...

        Not something I ever thought I'd do, but ... (deep breath)

        In defence of Mr Gove, he said the British people had had enough of experts who were wrong.

        Of course, I wanted the interviewer to ask Mr Gove if he happened to be 'an expert' on anything, but sadly that little dream of mine did not come true.

        1. Big Softie

          Re: *Decades* of resellers, consultants and consultants have...

          He would not have answered that question since evasion is a technique he appears well skilled at...

      2. Terry 6 Silver badge

        Re: *Decades* of resellers, consultants and consultants have...

        In fact, before the " make mistakes when asking the questions " bit they need to know what questions to ask. And that means both technical stuff of the "How do we integrate these different data sources" type and the "What do people do, why do they do it and how" questions.

        1. Eclectic Man Silver badge
          Coat

          Re: *Decades* of resellers, consultants and consultants have...

          Terry 6 > "How do we integrate these different data sources"

          Well obviously. you need a computer for that.

          and "What do people do, why do they do it and how"

          Well now you're just being silly, expecting manglement to know what is actually going on and why.

          Sorry. I'll get my coat, its the one with an abacus, my CV and a P45 in the pocket.

    2. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

      Re: *Decades* of resellers, consultants and consultants have...

      persuaded Ministers that competent internal procurement and project management skills are unnecessary

      We actually have a pretty good head of procurement. Knows very little about IT but is more than happy to take advice from those of us that do while making sure that the contract language actually matches what the vendor had promised.. (not always guarenteed!)

      1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Coat

        "We actually have a pretty good head of procurement. "

        Quite possibly.

        But do you (and they) work for a government department?

        That's the where the problem lies.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Surprise.....Agile Is Not The Answer!!

    Quote: "....Setting requirements for digital programs can be particularly difficult...."

    Quote: "...contracts being awarded before the true requirement is fully understood..."

    Ha....Twentieth Century Thinking hard at work!!

    Wake Up...."requirements" are a thing of the past....what we need is "user stories" and a pretty wall covered in yellow sticky "Post-It" notes!!

    Oh....and the idea that you might need some project managers, or a time line.......what you need is a "Product Owner" or two....

    By now you've got the picture.....in 2025, IT development teams:

    - don't have requirements

    - don't use concepts like "architecture"

    - really hate the idea of "management" (which is believed to be "interference")

    - ...and because there are no "requirements", IT Teams have very limited ideas about testing

    .........so is anyone surprised when estimates are poor and cost and time over-runs are frequent? Surely not!!!!!

    1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

      Re: Surprise.....Agile Is Not The Answer!!

      Wake Up...."requirements" are a thing of the past....what we need is "user stories" and a pretty wall covered in yellow sticky "Post-It" notes!!

      Ah - you've visited the old NHS NPfIT Spine development office too then?

    2. RJW

      Re: Surprise.....Agile Is Not The Answer!!

      Bring back the good old functional specs, I love them!

      One source of truth for the Customer, BA's, Programmers, Testers, Service Management Team.

      A lot easier than trying to work out the functionality of the system by trawling through 1000's of PBI's in Azure DevOps.

    3. Giles C Silver badge

      Re: Surprise.....Agile Is Not The Answer!!

      Private sector worker here….

      We needed a new network monitoring system, so just 4 of us sat in a room for an afternoon and came up with a list of requirements for what we needed it to do.

      After that we consolidated it down into a list of questions.

      Then we found a number of suppliers who supposedly offered a suitable solution and we sent the questions to them and evaluated the replies before speaking to about 6 suppliers (some of which were not what we wanted) shortlisted it down to 2 and went for a proof of concept with one of them.

      I suppose the only difference is that we were the people who would operate and administer the system so we did know what we were talking about…

      1. Terry 6 Silver badge

        Re: Surprise.....Agile Is Not The Answer!!

        I suppose the only difference is that we were the people who would operate and administer the system so we did know what we were talking about…

        In the (UK) public sector that often seems to mean that you are disqualified from participating. Especially at the higher levels, where Oxbridge Old Etonians don't much trust the horny handed workers or uppity middle classes. We need to learn to know our place, which is not in the room where they're making important decisions.

  7. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    "Current government processes from business case development to contract award do not work well for digital programs. Departments can present investment cases without a detailed assessment of technical feasibility"

    That doesn't just apply to digital programmes. It's been a characteristic of UK and doubtless many other governments for years.

    1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Unhappy

      "It's been a characteristic of UK and doubtless many other governments for years."

      To which the obvious follow up question would be "Is the UK averagely bad or is there something about the UK Civil Service system that make it exceptional (but not in a good way)?

      1. jdiebdhidbsusbvwbsidnsoskebid Silver badge

        Re: "It's been a characteristic of UK and doubtless many other governments for years."

        "Is the UK averagely bad or is there something about the UK Civil Service system that make it exceptional"

        I've had exposure to UK and overseas government procurement and the UK isn't unique. There so often is a gap between government and private sector suppliers. I can best sum up as government is over optimistic about what suppliers will deliver for the price, and suppliers over promise. That's a big generalisation, but it's what I've seen over the years.

        1. Richard 12 Silver badge

          Re: "It's been a characteristic of UK and doubtless many other governments for years."

          Coupled with the fact that failing to deliver is often more profitable than a successful project.

          The "big names" fail almost* every time, yet they not only get the next contract, they even get paid extra to fix their own failure.

          The small companies stop bothering to tender because they know they'll never get it.

          * Citation needed

          1. jdiebdhidbsusbvwbsidnsoskebid Silver badge

            Re: "It's been a characteristic of UK and doubtless many other governments for years."

            Government often know that to fight poor contractor performance in a court against well paid corporate lawyers would be prohibitively expensive and time consuming with ultimately little real chance of getting recompense appropriate for spending tax payers' money on it.

            One could say that governments should equip themselves with the at least the same level of legal firepower as big business. The same argument could be made about technical skills as well. But it comes down to the same challenge that when it comes to salaries and the ability to attract and retain lots of high talent, government pockets aren't as deep (or as future focussed) as big business.

          2. Terry 6 Silver badge

            Re: "It's been a characteristic of UK and doubtless many other governments for years."

            I can perhaps support that in microcosm.

            As a small teaching service in a fairly small building we'd had our own cleaner and window cleaner for years. Local staff paid through the authority, but coming directly from our budget. They did a brilliant job, took pains to sort out the awkward details, like areas where we had kids being taught and so on.

            Then came the corporate contracors- as required by the council. Which costed us more than we were paying, plus various extra central admin costs on top. They seldom had the same people for three consecutive weeks, paid them less than we'd been paying, but charged us significantly more. Failed to clean properly ( dusty carpets and porthole windows at best) and somehow weren't responsible for doing certain bits of cleaning ( like the kids' desks) that our cleaner always did.

            Our local window cleaner didn't even bother to apply for the contract for our windows. It was just too complicated, and somehow the corporates were underbidding him even though we ended up paying more. Our local cleaner didn't apply for her equivalent job with the new corporate cleaning contractors because they were offering fewer hours and lower pay for the same job, even though we'd been charged more for the service. And our previously clean building and windows were filthy ever after.

  8. Tron Silver badge

    They're rubbish and they know it, clap your hands.

    Expect the UK to appoint a Digital Transition Czar to sort all this out in the next decade or four.

    Dido Harding, Liz Truss or, drum roll, Boris himself. Boris can promise 'world leading' anything if he is fully funded in his role. Speak to his agent.

    There is actually a really cost effective solution to this. Instead of paying £10bn for tech that doesn't work, we could pay the big tech outsourcers £5bn to do nothing (without any overspend). We could then go back to using paper, and still have a net saving. My only concern would be the great pen shortage of Summer 2026. Perhaps someone can ask Bic to ramp up supplies.

    1. Ken G Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: They're rubbish and they know it, clap your hands.

      BIC are French. You'll have to buy the best of British. Probably a gold plated fountain pen.

      1. Giles C Silver badge

        Re: They're rubbish and they know it, clap your hands.

        No just use Derwent pencils made in the Lake District for over 150 years

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