UK.gov: Real time PAYE and new benefits systems WILL work HMRC's real time information (RTI) project is "very much on track" to being a "successful government IT project", and universal credit is on time and on budget, exchequer secretary to the treasury David Gauke and welfare reform minister Lord Freud have said. The ministers' comments follow a recent report by the All-Party …
Sorry; should have caveated that; I _think_ they asked for an extra £96m, but the exceptions spreadsheet (part of their "transparency program") doesn't actually specify units on the ICT page, so they could have been asking for an extra 96 computers. But knowledge of their other programs, and the curious tie in with the APPGT report, suggest it really is millions.
OK UK Gov,
Lets say you pay a programmer 40k per year... so let say that costs double that at 80k per employee per year...
£100m gives you 1250 programmers for a year! or 125 for 10 years!!
Which is a lot, a hell of a lot... Just how do you justify a single program costing in this region!
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... just a shame I didn't get in first to predict it. To be fair, there have been a number of public sector IT screw ups, but there are as many screw ups in the private sector - you just don't hear about them.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - if you think you're so bloody clever, go and make your fortune in delivering public sector IT on time and on budget. Anyone? No, I didn't think so.
Interestingly, there are large government It projects that do go well, you just don't hear about them. Did you read about the IT system to support Employment and Support Allowance (replacement for Incapacity Benefit)? No you didn't, because it was on time and on budget (and incidentally I worked on it from start to finish).
I get the impression that many of the public sector IT failures are due to the fact some twat stands up in parliament and says 'the new infrastructure project will be complete in 8 weeks and the kit will be made entirely from recycled cardboard'.
It's then down to the poor bastards on the project to build their 8 month project into an 8 week period and somehow spin something on the cardboard issue.
Also, I've been informed that the civil service is set up a bit like the military, so if you are a certain 'level' of manager - let's say 'F6 level' - then you are capable of managing projects in excess of £100m. Never mind that your previous 10 years were spent administering the stationary contract, you're now running the new massive IT gig. :)
My fave HMRC story is still HMRC Ambition:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/18/hmrc_ambition/
While you're probably right about sign-off levels and the related risks, I suspect you're being a little unfair in this case on Stephen Banyard, who does have a good track record and the support of many senior figures outside HMRC for doing a good job over a long period of time - and think how much he'd be demanding in salary and pensions to run a £100m project in the private sector... however, he may well be very much the exception. (If you want to check his salary it's somewhere on the HMRC site; £120-140k IIRC)
But you're bang on the money about political pressures - RTI had been kicking around as a concept for ages, and should have been rolled out over 5 years, like pensions auto-enrolment, but the government wanted it for Universal Credit and so we got the insane timetable they're now struggling with.
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