Re: ****ing hell
GDS have been trying to standardise IT acrross central and local government for donkeys years! The problem is that each Government department wants to be the trailblazer - the leading light, nobody wants to be a follower.
It's a bit like the whole Shared Services push, back in the late 2000's in Local Government - everyone wanted to provide a shared service, but nobody wanted to consume a shared service!
And this is all BEFORE you add polictics into the mix - no Conservative run Local Authority wants to be dictated to by a Labour Government, and the Local Government Act reliably gives them the autonomy not to have to follow what Central Government tells them (to a large degree).
In some ways I would support a dictatorship - each of the authorities responsible for Social Care (Adult and Childrens) are buying software solutions from a handful of vendors. All with different database schemas, none of them able to talk to each other, none of them (easily) able to share information wtih other agencies - it's why we have issues such as Baby P, because information isn't in a single place, isn't easily share'able, and instead relies on the largely diligent work of human beings working for each ot the agencies (police, health, social care, etc) - who understandably make mistakes.
Each of those software vendors actively encourage those Local Authorities to customise their solutions to fit antiquated and overly complex processes unique to them, and why wouldn't they? It's how they make their money - on custom implementations via Professional Service fees, and they get a bite of that same cherry every time theres an upgrade. And to ensure that Gravy Train the vendors insist you can't be more than two versions behind in order to maintain support, and then release three versions a year! And who would let their system, responsible for vulnerable children be out of support?
The irony is none of these authorities are doing anything different to the rest - they're all doing the same things (housing, highways, council tax revenue collection, waste, recycling, social care, payroll, etc) - you could standardise the process and mandate it across the country. It would require legislation change of the Local Government Act, but I reckon it would stop idiots that clearly know nothing about technology, can't run a project, and have no commercial nouse, from p1ssing away tax payers money!