OK I'm feeling a bit more generous.
And I've looked at the list of Maude's.
He's certainly got a couple of the big fails on the list
" procurement timescales are far too long and costly, squeezing out all but the biggest, usually multinational, suppliers"
" too little attention has been given at senior level to the implementation of big ICT projects and programmes, either by senior officials or by ministers. Similarly, senior responsible owners (SROs) have rarely been allowed to stay in post long enough."
and *maybe* some ideas to fix them
# greatly streamline procurement and specify outcomes rather than inputs
Tell them what's wanted, every little bit of information they expect to collect.
# create a presumption against projects having a lifetime value of more than £100 million
I think that would call BS to the claims of ID card savings.
# impose compulsory open standards, starting with interoperability and security.
Goodbye IE6?
# expect SROs to stay in post until an appropriate break in the life of a project/programme; and
Stopping the game of project pass-the-parcel so helpful in avoiding civil service blame. Managers *might* not get an annual bonus
No word on data centre co location. (FFS 190+ data centres for a country the size of some US *states*. I'm not *even* suggesting consolidation. Just sharing power, data and air con and security. All areas where bigger is *always* better. Cables from *multiple* sub stations. Fat FO backbone straight into the nearest exchanges).
The more I know of the UK Home Civil Service the more it resembles NASA *before* it unified its accounts systems across 11 sites under SAP (and discovered $546 *billion* in funds they could not account for, according to CFO magazine).
Some bits are not bad and do deliver benefits above their cost like JPL
Some bits work better when they are split up (like the Home Office -> Ministry of Justice and Home Office)
Some bits should be shut down and most of the staff just let go. MOD Procurement springs to mind. If it's not the MSFC of the Civil service I don't know what is.
Neither is anywhere *near* as unified as you would expect what are basically different departments of the *same* government to be.
But remember even *relatively* small systems are reputed to be s**t.
The prison management system (NOMIS). Pretty much ticks *all* the fail points on Maude's list. I've also heard claims of 30 minute login times for the Borders Agency Oracle based "Adelphi" system (No that that zero after the 3 is not a typo).
*Cautious* thumbs up but we'll see if they can make a difference.