A mole in the local civil service I.T. development centre, informs me of all the waste and scams (which often leave them open mouthed) they come across, and its on the other side of 'a joke'. I was aware of these scenarios myself, as I had left the public sector over a decade ago, but theirs is a more recent account.
Before I can start exposing the lengths they go to to avoid reform or work, I need to first give a few brief technical terms of explanation:
- BA - Business Analyst - A specialist business user, who analyses, defines, documents, and propose solutions for large and/or complex business areas and prepares functional specifications of what the business want from an application or piece of software to be developed.
- PM - Project Manager - A manager, usually but not always from the business who co-ordinates all the work activities required to produce and deliver the required application or piece of software to be developed.
- Other - System Testers, System Analysts, Programmers / Developers, Project Office Management (POM) - other roles - some of which would normally come from within the business, but may come from contract workers e.g. System Analysts,and Programmers / Developers would be contracted in if there were not enough within the business - however the lead in each role should be business provided.
The mole reports that :-
- In the face of the department facing 20% to 25% budget cuts it has been busy extending all the contracts until next year, AND recruiting more contractors - apparently this so that they can then 'sack' all these additional contractors, and thus tell the government minister that they have made 20% to 25% budget cuts without actually cutting anything.
- On most of the projects, the Civil service is, through lack of anyone capable, unable to provide even BA's .... so the departments application requirements and development decisions are created by private contractors, who are not specialists of that departments needs.
- This complete lack of Civil Service talents or skills, even extends to not being able to staff the POM - a series of roles which are simply handling paperwork sign off, library functions, time-sheets etc .... very basic administration skills.
- When they tried to use Civil Servants on project tasks, the project immediately fell into arrears and chaos because they were totally incapable of performing any of the tasks - they were replaced with contractors, at four times the costs.
- The contractors are all provided by just one supplier, so its more expensive than the going rate for the same roles in private industry .... also its effectively a closed list of the same faces moving around the sites.
- The mole reports that you can usually spot the Civil Servant desks on site because there are rows of empty desks come 3 pm - they are also the ones who organise round after round of 'meetings' which perform no function other than to stop the civil servant organiser from actually having to do any work.
The 'shadow' assigned to the 'mole', came in on the Monday and was unhappy with their desk location (it was in the centre where the computer screen could be seen by everyone - so misuse i.e. cruising the Internet all day would be spotted) and went off sick for three days. When the 'shadow' turned up again at 09:30am on the Thursday, they refused to listen to what the 'mole' was trying to tell them, and kept trying to query old 'signed off' work, instead off dealing with current matters, then they went home at 3pm .... on the Friday they sat with the 'mole' until 11:20am when they announced they were going on an early lunch. 'Mole' asked if they would be back at 12:20pm and was told not until 2pm - the 'mole' finally reported that the 'shadow' failed to turn up at 2pm and had gone home - they had said that they had 'done their weekly hours and had taken 'flexi time' for the afternoon.
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| Project Management Team |
And this shambles is why the Civil Service can't run or deliver any I.T. projects - they have lost any skill base for even the most basic of the functions required to run or deliver a body of I.T. work (the destruction of ITSA, its own IT department was the initial cause of this).But more pertinently, they have in many project areas, largely lost any culture of work ethic or responsibility, and that's the most damaging loss of them all .....
It is a joke that "cuts" have to be made at all. My work has announced it has to "cut" £4 Million from it's budget in the next 3 years, a marvelous 20%. All this before we have any details of any level of cuts from the public spending review. We have a good surplus at the bank and financially could easily ride out the three years, unlike our rivals who will go under unless they are bailed out by the local council. Yet our management seems desperate to inflict cuts that will have a great impact on the standard of our work.
ReplyDeleteCuts are not required, what would be better is if the goverment borrowed the money from the future profits of the banks that they now own part of. And if we as a country owe 56Bn in debt, who was stupid enough to lend us that in the first place, name them and lets see how powerful they think they are, you want your cash we will just sell you Wales, we don't need it anymore.
True, a few nuclear bombs along the border and BOOM, Wales floats free ..... we may as well use the bombs before their 'use by date'!
ReplyDeleteI think your mole is a fantastist who probably dreamt all this up from his underground hideout no doubt influenced by all the stereo typing invective he reads in the press when he occasionally surfaces. I work in the Civil Service and although there are the odd slackers most people work their full hours and do a conscientious job. Far from being unable to do simple admin tasks they inerpret and administer complex legislation - may be they deliberately make a mess of menial tasks which they prefer to leave to your "highly intelligent and talented" computer consultants.
ReplyDelete'Anonymous' - you have placed a quote "highly intelligent and talented" in your comment, which is not used in the post .... but as you say, your a civil servant, used to interpreting 'complex legislation'.
ReplyDeleteFrom my experience I can assure you that the 'mole' isn't a fantasist - maybe you work in a front facing role, e.g A Job Centre, in which case you won't really know what happens in the large departmental centres, where there is nothing like the work discipline that you may be used to.
Your apparent disregard for 'menial tasks', and making a mess of them to let expensive contractors do them, says more about Civil Servants than you might have thought when you wrote it .... still if your all busy having to "interpret and administer complex legislation" in your work place, that would probably explain a lot of the issues, which I can confirm really do exist (I only left 18 months ago).
Hmm, just read the last two comments. For what its worth, the mole has been working for, alongside, and with Civil Service Projects for over 15 yrs, both in their current location and across other sites in the UK.
ReplyDeleteHardly a 'fantasist'.
I myself was on Government Project teams, when it was still I.T.S.A (before and just after it was disbanded), so there were in house project skills available as a Civil Service resource, but I left to become a "highly intelligent and talented" (to quote a comment) contractor myself ..... I wasn't in the little pool of contractors who have made a good living out of the Civil Service skill shortage, however I know many who have.
They all repeat variants on the 'Moles' tale ..... sorry anonymous, but as the 'Ex Civil Servant' says, its not loacal benefit offices, but the I.T Projects teams that are not up to the tasks.