[Gllug] Government IT projects and wasted money

[Alistair Mann]

James Courtier-Dutton wrote:
>  Hi,
>
>  I have worked on a number of government IT projects. I find the
>  biggest waste of money is due to stuff being classified. For example,
>  I work on project A, and take 2 years to get from project start to
>  delivered project. I then move to Project B, that is really aiming to
>  achieve exactly what project A has just done, but because of the
>  project being "classified", we cannot copy anything from project A,
>  but instead re-do everything and take another 2 years to deliver it.
>  Of course, Project A never knows about Project B because of its
>  classification as SECRET, so how do difference government departments
>  even know if they are duplicating work or not. Even me, who has
>  happened to work on both projects, am not allowed to tell project B
>  that project A exists. It is all highly frustrating. Does anyone have
>  any ideas how I could improve the situation at all?

You could leave for the private sector.

Fun aside, fixing this problem is undesirable, and here's why.

Far more than efficiency or effectiveness, Government work requires 
accountability and responsibility: Parliament to the people, Ministers 
to Parliament, top end civil servants to Ministers and so on down the 
chain to your good self. This is so because in order to pay you, 
Parliament takes money from those who've earned it as part of a bargain: 
in return for the cash and a free-hand in conducting the business of 
Government, the electors get to vote the elected out.

Not wanting to lose their duck houses, the elected ensure someone else 
takes on as much responsibility as possible so when the balloon goes up, 
they're not holding the bag. Everyone else must do the same, so that 
creates a natural tension wherein everyone has very specific 
responsibilities, and where they are not accountable except to very 
specific offices and individuals. To do anything else increases the risk 
that a problem will indeed land at their door, and a problem invites 
gardening leave.

This is not like an open source project; problems land at the doors of 
only those who want to fix them. Peer-review makes each peer in the 
project accountable to the others. This is possible in large part 
because there is no bargain between the project and those who use it 
(See GPL v3, 15 & 16.)

An example. You bring, with agreement, Module C from Health Dept's 
Project A to Environment Dept's Project B, and it's an unutterable 
disaster that sees pages and pages in Private Eye. Who is responsible -- 
The Health minister? Environment? Both, neither? Suddenly, the work of 
Government is even more opaque, and it appears that several someones are 
dodging the accountability at the heart of the bargain that sees you get 
paid.

Your role in Government work is to complete the work assigned to you in 
the manner required by your superiors, who have themselves to do the 
same, all the way up to Parliament whose superiors are the voting public 
... and the manner required for Parliament is for accountability and 
responsibility above effectiveness or efficiency. It is undesirable that 
you pursue the second two because they *must* come at the expense of the 
first.

Cynic that I am. Lol!

Cheers,
-- 
Alistair Mann (ex of the DTi)
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