UK government isn't keeping track of the risk posed by legacy systems, says Central Digital and Data Office

The UK government currently lacks a central, dynamic list of its legacy computing estate and the risks associated with ageing IT infrastructure and applications, Joanna Davinson, exec director at the Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO), has told MPs. But she said the Cabinet Office, which encompasses CDDO, was working on …

[Julz]

So

a person who stands to gain a load of money to conduct an audit recommends an audit. Colour me surprised.

[Roland6]

Re: So

A person who is also clearly intent on empire building...

There is no real reason why the UK government actually needs "a central, dynamic list of its legacy computing estate", it only needs to ensure each department maintains such information about the systems under their control, which in turn effectively means they have fully implemented ITSM...

[Warm Braw]

Systems implicated in an underpayment of state pensions

The problem here is not the existence of "legacy systems", it's the disconnect between policy-making and implementation.

Governments are constantly changing the "business rules" for cases going forward, whilst grandfathering existing cases, without giving any thought as to how they will be administered. This typically means it's uneconomic to reimplement systems (because you'd have to duplicate all the existing rules despite them being phased out) and there isn't really a business case for future cases because the initial numbers will be dwarfed by legacy cases. Give it a couple of parliaments and most of the calculations are being done manually.

There could well be several dozen ministers passing through office during the lifetime of a computer system and unfortunately they don't really seem to want to face their transience and plan accordingly.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they could get some contractors in to do the work? Oh wait...

[Eclectic Man]

re: Contractors

Well, Dido Harding* is available, and has experience of Excel spreadsheets. (What could possibly go wrong?)

*I apologise for swearing this early in the day.

[xyz]

Re: re: Contractors

Just what i was thinking... HMG tends to work mostly due to dept guerilla workers' Excel do-das because the honking great "official" data monsters don't work. Dildo Hardon... Fnar, fnar.

[Adrian 4]

Maybe they could get some competent politicians ?

Nope, that's a non-starter.

[SundogUK]

The politicians don't need to be competent, they just need to represent the people who elected them. The problem is the civil service, who do need to be competent but don't care because it's someone else's money they're pissing up the wall.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that's a common misconception. When I worked as a civil servant there were quite a lot of us who worked hard despite the poor pay and conditions (I doubled my salary when I left and no longer had to put up with threadbare carpets or having to wear gloves in a poorly heated office for example).

It's also worth noting that things go wrong in an even more expensive way when private companies get involved in government projects

Most of the problem comes from government who change their mind every five seconds (even on the core working of the system), don't think things through don't want to listen when questions are raised and want it all done for tuppence ha-penny.

Yes I see this in banks and other organisations too but nothing on the scale of government.

[Dan 55]

Not a problem

Handy crib sheet which can be applied to any department or system:

1. Cut funding to the bone.

2. Wait for headlines when something goes wrong.

3. Get chums in to fix it.

4. Profit!

5. It wasn't fixed after all - suspend a few laws, call in the army.

[Primus Secundus Tertius]

Computer storage required

I guess this list of legacy systems will be held on a computer somewhere. Probably on one of the ICL 1900 systems that are still around.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Computer storage required

I thought they were on 3900s even 30 years ago :-)

[katrinab]

Re: Computer storage required

No, they will be stored in a Lotus 123 spreadsheet somewhere.

[Eclectic Man]

I've got a little list

I once interviewed some local government civil servants about their IT systems that they wanted to outsource. They did not know any of the following in detail:

What systems they had.

What hardware they were using.

What applications they were running.

Who had access to their data.

Their network topology.

The constraints on other organisations' staff using their data.

The constraints on using data provided by other organisations. (In fact they did not seem to understand that there might be constraints on their uses of data received form other organisations.)

Their current OS's, and patch status.

And yes, I was talking to their senior IT team.

The idea that HMG could possibly get together a list of even the most important 10% of their (outdated) legacy systems with any accuracy is frankly mind-boggling.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I've got a little list, but let's put it in the cloud

So they waste lots of money and then find out it doesn't work.

Have not got the right connections / interfaces.

It is the wrong classification.

Have not got the skill sets to do the additional work.

Going to cost lots more than budget.

Just accept the risk's nobody will know, I am retiring soon.

Leave it and just do the bits we can put in the cloud.

So can is kicked down the street and wonder why the bill to fix it keeps going up.

[karlkarl]

The issue is that they have been paid to jump onto the next Microsoft product. Unfortunately that *is* legacy too. The whole design, security stack, everything.

They are almost better off with the ancient mainframes they are trying to wean themselves away from.

That said, this did amuse me: https://docs.publishing.service.gov.uk/manual/debian-packaging.html

Just something about seeing the Debian packaging docs in the UK government website made me feel warm and fuzzy. Can renew my car tax whilst checking out .deb packaging best practices ;)

[Anonymous Coward]

I work in multiple civil service departments, reporting to ministers. The consulting fee varies but is usually £1000 to £1400 per day.

Facts:

Everything possible is outsourced. The Conservatives started the ball rolling in 2010, so you can imagine how extensive this is now. Consulting firms fill the void of competent management, and I include ministers and cabinet ministers in that group. TheRegister should look at just how many bodies Deloitte, PA Consulting, Ernst&Young, CapGemini, CGI, Accenture, and the other firms have in place to take the place.

Each government, the new brexit incompetents included, change department structures. They slice and dice. The result is unpredictable staffing and civil servants changing departments too often to maintain stability. Central departmental control is not possible, so all services are outsourced. This includes legacy management, core security functions, and anything else you can think of. Most departments do not even use a modern ISMS. It is a disgrace. The Foreign Office was merged with the Department for International Development. Why? There are many more examples. With such frequent change, stability and core system management is almost impossible. Add in the fad of moving to the cloud and it's easy to see that consulting firms are having the time of their life.

The current state of affairs is the worst I have ever seen it. This happened in the 1980s but was resolved when New Labour came into power.

[Anonymous Coward]

If outsourcing is such a great help to generate better results, then why doesn't the government outsource parliament? If the UK was run by Amazon then I expect that all the current issues would have been resolved six months ago.

[Binraider]

An overdependency on consultants would suggest they have lost the ability to develop and train leaders from within the organisation, and this is probably not by accident. I've seen some very high profile, competent CEO's brought into government quangos; e.g. DEFRA picked up Steve Holliday (ex NG CEO). The orgs aren't completely oblivious to their failings to have done this, but if day to day execution is stuck on contractor dependency... It's only a matter of time, before it's re-organised, again. (And repeat loss of skills, contractor dependency, yada).

Tories being what they are, they like outsourcing because it's a way to funnel printed money to their mates consultancy businesses; and therefore high costs are favourable (in their corner).

People keep voting one way though. The sour taste of Gordon Brown's incompetence is not lost on anyone. Undoing the damage is a 10-15 year development programme, so winning one election isn't enough. If and when the country gets off it's arse and actually votes for something other than mediocrity. A lot of people scared by the prospect of change, despite the obvious failings (lurching from crisis-to-crisis, every, single day). An end to first past the post would help in this regard - as it enforces a choice of only 2 viable candidates in most constituencies; promoting mediocrity.

[SundogUK]

"...but was resolved when New Labour came into power."

This is horseshit. My brother and a good friend of mine both made hay as consultants when Blair and Brown were in charge and got the boot the moment Labour were kicked out.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a difference between anecdotes and reality. It was not the norm to see senior consultants (Executive level, Director level) filling the void where roles weren't filled within the core government and civil service department.

Consultants will always be required, but the project role they fill should be ringfenced. An over reliance on very senior consultants from big consultancies means that the core knowledge within the forever changing department disappears.