Thinking Small - but in a Big Way...

I must have been quite a piece of work in a past life - certainly I was no angel. 

Because in my current incarnation to date I haven't clocked up nearly the number of mortal sins that would account for my I having to do such a large penance as to read - in detail - the new Government ICT Strategy.

For that is what I have just done.

It has certainly taught me a lesson for the future - I will mend my (multi-incarnated) ways.  And as my first act of altruism, I will explain what is in it.  So you don't have to read it. 

So (drumroll) here is the Trees around Nunhead introduction to the:

It is a truism that every strategy is written in reaction to the failed elements of the previous one.  With the NHS National Programme for IT in mind, therefore, this paper sets an upper limit on the size of project that ought to be countenanced.  Small is beautiful.  So nothing over £100m (lifetime costs). 

I'm sorry?

Yes that is what it says.  This is the BIG GOVERNMENT idea of Small.  So big projects seem to be OK so long as they aren't really, really, really Ginormous. 

Eighty million quid?  Chickenfeed, off you go. Spend it all at once. 

There is some vaguely sensible but hopelessly optimistic proposal for a common ICT Infrastructure for Government; removing silos, that kind of thing.  The lifetime cost of which I suspect will prove to be well over £100m, but let's skip over that for the moment, Francis.

But the most tiresome, annoying and worrying aspect of this "strategy", and what I really object to, is that "they" seem to have been suckered in to embracing the latest, trendy jargon and ICT marketing hype along with the apparently practical. 

It makes for strange reading:

To ensure that appropriate data is transparent and shared rather than duplicated, the Government will implement engagement processes for open data standards activity and crowd-source priority areas for data standards

Crowd-source?  Have they any idea what that means - and what the weaknesses and strengths of that model are?  Where it is best used, and where unhelpful? 

I imagine they think its something like an opinion poll or focus group.  Which it is, I suppose - I mean it is something like those things.

The Government will establish an approach and capabilities for agile delivery in government which can be replicated across departments (culture, multidisciplinary teams, risk-based testing, service-oriented architecture, product management and road-mapping)

So that's all right then. 

The word 'agile' has begun to make my skin crawl in sentences like this - because it has become almost content free.

Pardon my asking, but does this approach necessarily produce the best outcomes in, say, defence or health?  On what evidence?  Only asking...  It's just that A level students are taught about this stuff, and what it is and isn't good for, so they could have asked one about it if they'd only thought.

The Government will create a ‘virtual’ centre of excellence across government and the private sector which can enable fast start-up and mobilisation for agile projects 

The Government will identify a pilot project within each department to prove and embed the agile approach 

OK.  So they really mean the agile thing.  Whatever it is. 

This isn't necessarily reassuring.

And there is some Cloud stuff too:

To examine the benefits of delivering standardised desktop services using a cloud-based model, the Government will develop a desktop prototype for the cloud

To detail how services will shift to cloud-based technologies, the Government will publish a Cloud Computing Strategy with implementation plans

But then, you have to say Cloud in strategies nowadays, don't you?  So at least that's one box ticked.

In fact, I began to believe that ticking boxes is what this is all about.  The whole report boils down to some serious Government-sounding sentences peppered with enough random marketing hype to provide all the makings of a rich game of IT bollocks buzzword bingo. 

Or at least so I thought before I came across this:

A Government Skunkworks has been established to develop low-cost, fast and agile ICT solutions. Skunkworks provides a new channel for SMEs and entrepreneurs to participate in government ICT with new and innovative solutions. Skunkworks is embedded into the spending approvals process which identifies where existing products can be reused or solutions developed in-house. Skunkworks is working to develop an environment for SMEs to test their solutions to ensure compatibility within government’s future standardised cloud environment

Finally the parody became obvious even to me.  Skunkworks?
As with the spaghetti trees and the floating islands of San Serriffe, eventually the penny drops.  It is of course a spoof, just published (on March 30th as near as I can work out) a couple or so days too early.

But why would that be?  Why ruin a brilliant April Fool by putting it out in late March?  Not by choice surely - and please tell me it isn't an IT cockup?  That would just be too ironic.

You know, I think I know what happened.  "They" hired one or two other people  - 'industry experts' - to write this stuff.  Who sent in a spoof, for a bit of a laugh, and "they" didn't realise it was a joke. 

You can just imagine the scene in Francis Maude's office:

"If it's complete and ready to go then why don't we send it out now?  No point in waiting to the end of the month if we can put it out early, is there?  So let's just publish it shall we?"
"Yes, Minister." 

Still, it could have been worse.  Imagine what an awful cockup they might have made if they'd tried to be serious about it...

An Entirely Reasonable Assessment...

... of the rather dodgy Government White Paper entitled "Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS":-

Kurt Weill's "Seven Deadly Sins" - and several bonuses.

I appear to have acquired an annoying Amazon habit. 

However that may be, it meant that a few days back I impulse bought a copy of Kurt Weill's The Seven Deadly Sins sung by Marianne Faithfull (they really make it too easy to do that kind of thing). 

Really quite wonderful, and another reminder that classical opera singers tend not be so good at this more Music Theatre-y stuff.  

Of course, what I didn't notice in my hurry was that the CD had several other tracks on it, including The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, Pirate Jenny and Bilbao Song all sung by Faithfull.

And all fantastic.  Lucky me!

Just the other day - Stressed

I saw a strange man wandering around, his shirt covered with slogans.
One of which read:

Stressed spelled backwards is desserts

As indeed it is.

Poem of the Week

William Blake
James Thomson

He came to the desert of London town
Gray miles long;
He wandered up and he wandered down,
Singing a quiet song.
He came to the desert of London town,
Mirk miles broad;
He wandered up and he wandered down,
Ever alone with God.

There were thousands and thousands of human kind
In this desert of brick and stone;
But some were deaf and some were blind,
And he was there alone.
At length the good hour came; he died
As he had lived, alone.
He was not missed from the desert wide;
Perhaps he was found at the throne.

1866

Back out East

The peculiar am-dram staging gives everything the atmosphere of a heavily airbrushed school play, with Mike Leigh's technique applied to shop dummies.
It's the oddest combination since John Lydon advertised butter.
Tonight, some very bronze women ponder their interest in some heavily caramelised men and the caramelised men punch each other's arms playfully as the bronze women look each other up and down.

(Guardian TV Guide)

Yes, The Only Was is Essex is indeed back on our tellies.

Budget for Death

As.

As we face huge cuts to our social services and healthcare...

Government spending plans will test the NHS and social services in England to the limit, according to a report by the Commons Health Select Committee.


The MPs say the plans assume efficiency savings on a scale never before seen in the NHS, or in other countries.

(BBC Web site)

As we see huge reductions in budgets to our Universities and Schools...

Prof Steve Smith, head of Universities UK – suggests £3.2bn will be cut from university teaching budgets and a further £1bn slashed from research.


The losses are equivalent to some 57 per cent of the £7.3bn funding universities received directly from the state this year.

(Daily Telegraph)

As we watch our police force being substantially reduced...

Last week ministers unveiled plans to axe police stations and more than 150 courts to save millions from the criminal justice budget.


But experts predict that the 25 per cent cuts needed across Whitehall will lead to the loss of 35,000 police officers, 20,000 civilian staff and 4,000 community support officers.

(The Daily Mail) 

As we see many of our safeguards and protections taken away...

Liverpool Council has announced 100% funding cuts to Rape Crisis. Liverpool Rape Crisis helped 522 women last year with a meagre £60,000 funding from Liverpool City Council.

(Touchstone blog, reported widely elsewhere)

As we watch support for key environmental measures being eroded, increasing the likely impact on us of local and global climate change...

(Subsidies for Solar panels removed in this week’s budget)

As vicious reductions are applied to the fire service, to the armed forces, to libraries, to playschemes, to litter collection, to local parks services and to the Arts (actually the single most productive – in terms of income generated - part of the economy)...

To air-sea rescue, to community transport, to day centres, to the prison service, to legal aid...

There will be 547,000 fewer people each year getting help to resolve legal cases that matter to them and who can't afford their own legal advice. Many of them will be about family matters but they will also involve redundancy, housing, and debt which are all bound to get worse in the public sector squeeze.

(The Guardian)

To drug rehabilitation schemes, to the BBC, to youth clubs, to the disabled...

And as inequalities across society increase and increase again...

And as we discover, that if we are lucky enough to have a job, we are going to have to work harder, for longer, for less money...

Isn’t it nice to know we can still afford a foreign War?