Re: £22K? Is that all?
Senior management tend to have a more risk based approach to decisions than engineers. The engineer (software, civil, electrical, mechanical etc.) wants to make something that actually works. Failure is usually obvious (smoke and flames rising from the equipment, people screaming and running away, that sort of thing). However for management, particularly senior management, they ask themselves, what is the cost of doing this properly, compared to the cost of doing it well-enough that no-one notices we've cut corners plus the probability that it will fail multiplied by the cost of failure, while I am likely to be held liable? What is the cost of not being able to do this at all?
The first Shuttle disaster was because the USA did not want to be seen to be unable to launch rockets at sub-zero temperatures due to the political decision to make the solid fuel boosters in three parts in states which needed the jobs, rather than in one part in a state near the launchpad. Three parts required seals, which required checking. According to the rules the booster segments had to be circular, which was tested by checking that three diameters were equal after retrieval from the ocean after splashdown. Feynman writes about this failure quite eloquently in his memoirs. The booster blew up and the astronauts died because of political pressure to launch when the science and engineers said "no".
The £22k IBM has been fined is, to IBM less than a peanut, but now the precedent has been set, they will have to check that other indirect discrimination is rooted out, or at least not ignored, the next fine will be a lot bigger.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
