Burnham's spanner in the works leaves UK government tech scattered across Whitehall OPINION A week after becoming the UK's seventh Prime Minister in ten years, Andy Burnham has made some good headlines, but, among the promises to cap bus fares and end rough sleeping, something was missing. The post of a dedicated technology minister is gone. The last serving secretary of state, Liz Kendall, was sacked when …
“Responsibility for getting to grips with legacy systems, public sector data, and commercial relationships with tech giants now sits apart from the mission to use AI to improve prosperity and transform the public sector.”
I think the mission to use A.I for anything should sit apart, then be dumped. Perhaps use actual intelligence to address problems.
Yeah, I’m concerned about the availability of actual intelligence too, but I think you get my point.
he has acted to prevent yet another build up of vested interests and hegemony that inevitably strangles any progress.
Sorry, with 30 years of having the media direct our policies. AI tells me the only logical position to take is a contrarian. If they don't like it, then it must have some merit.
My work email address will change as a result of this, nothing will change other than websites and letter headings.
Everything we've heard from Starmer, Burnham, and indeed the small fleet of under-powered Tory prime ministers who preceded them has been platitudes rather than substantive policies to make a real change. Absent decisive policy implemented with an acceptance of the inevitability of collateral damage, what we get is a layering of small usually well-meant changes that without any real direction become counter-productive. A good example is the endless prattle about economic growth being the number one objective, whilst other uniparty policies on energy and employment policy make UK business costs too high to grow anything other than the list of business closures.
I have over 30 years private sector experience, and you know how much that experience is usefully used by DBT/BIST? That's right, it isn't used at all. So what's the chance that shifting a few mandarins' reporting lines to a new minister will change much? Even within a department, it's staggering how stilted communication and coordination is across the organisation.
Wasn't there a DCMS a couple of reorganisations ago?
DCMS has been around for years. Ork-1 reported to them when I joined and that was in 2009 (ah, those long-ago innocent days when I thought actually having a career was within my grasp. Still, the pension will be nice once I reach the hallowed age).
>> Liz Kendall - history graduate, was 'in charge' of science.
There are too many lawyers in parliament. They know how to argue over a comma in a sentence, but probably can't change a spark plug. No worries, they can get someone else to do it (buy it in), and shove it onto expenses.
Let's be honest here. The government is not going to pay a 'good' salary to somebody who knows how to get to grips with its IT estate. By 'good' I mean in comparison to the private sector. The same would-be candidates can get a lot more money, and with a tenth of the hassles from people who probably think Windows 11 is a good operating system.
"Let's be honest here. The government is not going to pay a 'good' salary to somebody who knows how to get to grips with its IT estate."
Try: They'll pay over the market rates to their mates to do a p-poor job of it. Then pay more to other mates to 'fix' the mess by making more mess, all the while hoping the public will just give up in disgust and be glad they've got a roof over their heads... or at least they do at the moment. Tomorrow? Well... got to tax people to pay for all these costly mistakes...
Here's a bit of history on what those terms mean... (if anyone's interested :p )
To be fired: Your tools are burned so you cannot work in that field again (until you replace the burned tools, anyway)
To be sacked: To be given your tools in a sack and told to be on your way.
Redundancy: The post you hold is no longer required. You might be offered redeployment or, if no suitable post is available, be paid off and 'let go'.
To be let go: See being Sacked.
So... unless they're being offered redeployment, then they are, in effect, being sacked...
The usual suspects will get the contracts and they will work as badly as they do now.
But Burnham is simplifying things, getting the opposition onside over social care to try to share the blame for the extra we are all going to be charged. After internet censorship and universal surveillance, we are edging towards a one party state. Xi should sue, nicking all his ideas like this.
Consensus is actually a good idea. It might even lead to good, effective government. it ensures that we stop lurching from one half-completed thing to another ever time government changes. That presupposes that the policy being applied is a good one, but again, consensus might help with that.
Once the realisation is dealt with that to get High Tax, Hood Outcomes, Beat Places to Live …. Like the Nordics ….. things will start to turn the corner and improve.
That starts with well off/‘self employed’ and above paying fair taxes - like paying your base salary up to £100K on PAYE and no ‘dividends as salary’ at a reduced rate and no NI.
> A new AI minister role was created and filled by Kanishka Narayan to work jointly with the Cabinet Office and BIST. He will attend Cabinet.
Keeping to the time honored tradition of putting people in charge of IT who are technologically clueless.
Keeping to the time honoured tradition of putting people in charge of IT who are technologically clueless.
I remember being told as a newbie that "IT project managers don't need to know anything about IT".
Which, to an extent, is true. As long as they LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE WHO DO! I've suffered through enough IT projects where the PM has got a fixed idea in it's head about how long $IT_TASK will take (probably the time the Programme Manager/Director has allocated for that task) and is spectacularly resistant to changing their mind because of the 'political' implications.
And, when the faecal matter hits the air movement device and the project is catastrophically overdue, guess who the fingers get pointed at? Yup. Not the PM. Usually the poor IT techies who "haven't delivered to time and budget".
A pox on the lot of them - apart from the (very few) good ones that are actually prepared to listen to the people that know what they are talking about.
Whatever his previous failings are or his future ones may be, this is true of Andy Burnham…
I, and thousands of others, booed, heckled, sang demands to him and when appropriate cheered and clapped him.
He listened.
Shit got done.
I’ll have a soft spot for him because of that, but won’t hesitate to boo him again if need be.
As Arbiter said, re-organisation gives the illusion of progress.
But in many cases the progress is completely illusory as there will be a period or rearranging the desks, getting new stationery printed up and having endless meetings with tea and biscuits to work out what they are doing and who will get the seats next to the window.
I have had two really good IT related projects terminated twice by the old Department of Trade and Industry, in both cases when the projects were in sight of coming up with something really useful and close to achieving the stated project goals.
I'm not a civil servant, but worked for organisations which were being paid to develop the systems, in both cases being overseen by government agencies.
How about "NEVER"?
Yup....we can get some traction about "boats on The Channel".
Yup....we can get some outrage about someone (who?) paying Nigel (who?) some huge number of pounds (how many?)
Yup....Yippee!....we've got our seventh PM in ten years........the afterglow will last ten minutes!
And now we get to........................"government computing policy"..................
Really???
Well not with that attitude.
I think that "they spent billions of taxpayer money on a computer system that doesn't work" gets some traction. More than the nonsense with Farage, which was a comparatively tiny sum and *wasn't* taxpayer money. No, people don't care about that at all, it's just the media themselves that are obsessed with that story.
