CSA Computer Saga Rolls On
Over the summer the Commons’ Work and Pensions Select Committee produced a report examining the DWP’s use of IT in service delivery - Department for Work and Pensions Management of Information Technology Projects: Making IT Deliver for DWP Customers - that blasted the department and EDS for failures in connection with Child Support Reform (CSR). Its introduction offers a thinly veiled critique of the current situation:
Much of modern life is dependent upon IT systems reliably processing vast amounts of data speedily without major incident. When they work, reliable and stable IT systems can deliver new services and efficiencies to the benefit of all. But too often, the actual experience can be the very opposite of that. Defective IT systems can cause serious problems and distress to thousands of people. These problems are compounded when IT failures involve the delivery of crucial public services, especially, as in the case of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), where IT programmes directly affect people who are in low-income households and claiming benefits and paying or receiving child maintenance. Defective IT systems may result in: a DWP customer discovering that a regular benefit has been reduced only after the payment is received; thousands of non-resident parents making the wrong maintenance payments; and failure to calculate entitlement properly when people apply for benefit. Customers’ telephone calls may go unanswered, or are finally put through to a member of staff who has no knowledge at all of the particular case and, because of faulty IT technology, is unable to access any relevant files electronically. It is a lucky caller who gets put through to somebody that can actually retrieve the relevant files onto their screen, and extract the necessary information before the computer screen crashes. Defective IT can also have an adverse effect on staff morale and turnover, which is especially damaging in an organisation, such as DWP, that already suffers from high levels of absenteeism and staff turnover compared with some other Government departments and the private sector
Interestingly, the report also raised the question of whether or not IT driven business process redesigns should be regarded as policy issues and therefore subject to prior (and more open subsequent) debate within Parliament. They also suggested that while CSR was sold on the basis of a simplification of policy, the fact that it was to be delivered by an increase in the complexity of IT systems was crucial and should have been debated by Parliament; that it was not raises a question over the mis-selling of the policy. To avoid such situations arising again they argued for greater openness in the future :
Our main recommendations for improving the success rate of IT systems centre around improving accountability. We believe that greater openness is important in its own right, but should also lead to a higher success rate. CS2 demonstrates the lack of accountability that exists, even for defective systems. Although CS2 has been subject to a number of reviews, we have not been given access to these reviews on grounds of confidentiality- which is certainly convenient for the Department and makes us suspicious.
Last week, the government’s response to the report was published and it refused to budge on this issue, arguing:
The implementation of policies requires countless decisions on a range of issues on a daily basis. The Government values its interaction with Parliament on the broader issues around implementation of policies and its approach in general to these issues. It sees individual decisions as a matter for the Department and its Ministers.
The committee chair - Archy Kirkwood - issued a stinging press release in response, in which he argued:
Overall, we are very dissatisfied with the Government’s response. The Government’s record on IT projects needs to get better. We produced a well-argued report into how the Government’s record on IT projects could be improved. Our report was widely recognised throughout the media and industry as a solid piece of work with a set of impressive recommendations. However, we have received a response from the Department that all too often does not fully engage with the letter or spirit of the report’s recommendations. In particular, the Committee sets out an overwhelming case why Parliament and the public require more detailed information about IT projects, including the business case. But instead of addressing the Committee’s concern, the Department defends its secretive approach on grounds of commercial confidentiality and says that it will make information available in the context of the Freedom of Information Act. This isn’t good enough. We will not let the matter rest here.
Some of the specialist press have picked the story up, including Public Technology and The Register (with an hilarious URL that ends eds_is_pants!). The Register have been running on this one for some time, producing a piece slamming EDS after the initial report was published and an earlier article outlining some of the key failures of the new CSA system including that some CSA staff ‘are using pocket calculators to work out what people owe, thanks to the comprehensive failure of its IT system from EDS’ and that ‘less than half the 320,000 applications received since March 2003, when the system was launched, has been processed’.
