Socially, it is unacceptable in the upper echelons of class (middle class upwards) to place bets in a betting shop. This lot have also exploited the working classes for years. So they've taken jobs in the finance sector and disguised their gambling habits with SOX, exotic products, and all kinds of really complicated words implying things are controlled. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXBcmqwTV9s&feature=related.
They've then used our money without asking us to lend to people who cannot afford to pay it back. So governments around the world have part nationalised the banks with vast amounts that could have fed every starving child across the world for decades. Guess whose still running the part nationalised banks the same people who made money from systems encouraging lending to people who couldn't pay it back.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQdNLFVdwfQ
Friday 19 June 2009
NHS : Less Free at the Point of Need
Central government is actively encouraging all public sector bodies to operate joined up services. As a result you will see various public sector departments and quangos sharing the use of each other's services, staff and property. Nothing wrong with that. The problem is each partner thinks 'corporately' and sees the other as a supplier or customer. So what happens is they develop contracts outlining legally binding rules. Private sector lawyers and bureaucrats do well from the arrangement as it keeps them busy and profitable at your expense. Money that could be of more benefit to those delivering front-line services. Local government working with the NHS is a classic example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LePgSxmI3U&feature=related
- You pay council tax to the local council.
- You pay income tax, national insurance and VAT. A portion goes to the NHS and local government.
- Local government agrees to offer the NHS use of council facilities.
- The NHS wants to do lots of things that local government dont agree with and vice versa.
- Local government also thinks they are poor and the NHS rich so they attempt to charge private sector rates for service charges. Which the NHS pay to local government using money you have paid the NHS.
- Both the NHS and local government employ there own auditors, commercial managers and accountants to check everything. Both use similar systems to manage, control and account for the flow of money. Both the NHS and local government tend not to have the in-house expertise to implement these systems so they both employ the same management consultants to help who normally charge 900 pounds per day.
- Local government pays for a load of legal advice to protect their interest whilst the NHS pays for their own legal advice to protect their interest.
- If either party breaks the rules in the contract either party is entitled to a cash sum in the form of a penalty. (the cash is your money and comes from the same overall pot).
- In the event either party cant pay or wont pay the NHS can take local government to court and vice versa. Each party would then engage legal advisers. Basically, they are attempting to seek compensation (your money) by pay legal advisers using your money.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LePgSxmI3U&feature=related
Thursday 11 June 2009
The Off Shore IT Service Desk & the 8 Golden Rules
All the major business process outsourcers use off shore IT help desks. These guys are pitching this stuff to the public and private sector. ITIL is the methodology of choice for supporting IT. I think it’s pretty good when you read about it on paper. On paper if you are having problems with your PC you phone up, someone takes your details and then magically someone appears to fix your problem so you can get on with your life. Like all things to good to be true and all that… Firstly, most of the remote helpdesks use voice over IP telephony so the line tends to be crap and the guy at the end trying to help you cannot hear you. Secondly, the foreign guy only understands text book English. You know the version of the English language they speak on those teach yourself another language CDs you can get from the pound shops. Lastly, the guy at the end of the phone is not normally the guy that can fix something complex. So he has to call 1 of many resolution teams who may work for differing companies. The thing about IT is that it is complex and each resolution team only specialises in 1 bit of stuff that makes up your computer. Here are the rules of engagement when you are in a resolution team. Rule number 1 it is not profitable for a resolution team to work on support. The technical resource would be better utilised on a new commercial project. Rule number 2 a resolution group does not get involved in another resolution group’s turf because if you do you become responsible for supporting a piece of the puzzle you are not skilled or funded to do so. Rule number 3 always blame a problem on another resolution team so you don’t have to fix it. Rule number 4 always follow a script when fixing something coz if it is not in the script you can charge for it. Rule number 5 the problem always exists between the chair and keyboard. Rule number 6 get the customer to do the investigation by interrogating complex system tools in the hope the customer accidentally fixes the problem. Rule number 7 always charge the customer for the call so keep them hanging on and calling back. I knew a guy who had a problem with logging onto to email across the web. He knew exactly what the problem was. So he called the helpdesk and told Roger (real name Subrihiman Maraeeshee – asking an Asian guy to change their name because of their job is actually racist in this country not to mention downright dis-respectful) who to call and what needed to be done. He clearly stated that the resolution team should call him by phone because his email was down. He specifically asked for this request to be recorded on the call coz he knew he was dealing with automatons. 1 day passed nobody phoned him. 2 days later still no call. He phoned the helpdesk to ask Roger to contact the resolution team. On the call record the resolution team stated have emailed customer and left a contact telephone number. Oh I forgot rule number 8 a resolution team never takes a direct call from the customer. The customer must always use the help desk because it makes it easier to enforce rules 1-7.Problem exists between chair and keyboard...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNPzgPhHeWQ&feature=related&pos=2
£550 Million
550 Million
Just think about the difference you could make with 550 million pounds of tax payers cash. So if I were to tell you that you paid 550 million for 3 poor implementations of IT systems for little return on your investment would you be that surprised. The two organisations were EDS and Accenture. If their lawyers are reading this you can’t sue me for libel because all the info in this article is taken from reports available under the Freedom of Information Act.
House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs Committee The Rural Payments Agency and the implementation of the
Single Payment Scheme Third Report of Session 2006–07 Volume I
‘57. Accenture had received payments of a total of £42.7m from the RPA by the end of the 2005–06 Financial Year: £14.1 m in 2003–04, £10.2 m in 2004–05, and £18.4 m in 2005– 06.’
The irrationality of Accenture is such that given their performance they still want to do business with a customer they clearly had difficulty with in terms of managing expectations. The cynic in me thinks that firms like Accenture see the public sector as an easy touch and taking the hit on the reputation front is worth the return.
‘61. Accenture witnesses appeared to have been well schooled in not venturing comment on matters which they deemed were beyond their contractual observations. This attitude denied the Committee an important perspective on the way the SPS project was being run from the standpoint of a company at the heart of the venture. We regard this as an unacceptable attitude from a company of international repute and which may still aspire to work with UK government in other areas.’
Did you know that Accenture preaches Corporate Responsibility at a global level? They participate in the United Nations Global Compact, World Economic Forum and The Global Health Initiative. Why don’t they practise what they preach and give the money back they charged for their work with the Rural Payments Agency? Click http://www.accenture.com/Global/About_Accenture/Company_Overview/Corporate_Citizenship/Fostering_High_Performance/default.htm
By Accenture’s own admission - ‘Accenture continues to earn recognition for its efforts. For example, Accenture was named to Corporate Responsibility Officer's 100 Best Corporate Citizens for 2009. Accenture also has been included in the Dow Jones Sustainability North America Index for four years (2005-08) and received a 100 out of 100, a perfect score, on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index in 2007 and 2008. Read more about Accenture’s awards and recognition.’
100/100 on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index is beyond belief. One of Accenture’s clients is Shell. Do Accenture care about who they do business with given the relationship between human rights and oil in Nigeria? http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1999/nigeria/index.htm Shell recently settled out of court over unproven allegations that it was complicit in the execution of a well-known Nigerian environmental activist and author Ken Saro-Wiwa. Shell paid out 9.7 million quid. Click
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article6363058.ece
EDS were behind the failed system development for the Child Support Agency (http://news.zdnet.co.uk/leader/0,1000002982,39175379,00.htm). It cost us 450 million quid.
EDS has a poor history of engagements with the UK government. Yet the British Government never learned the lesson and awarded them the contract to develop the National Offender Management System(NOMS). Guess what it went pear shaped. http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/0809/national_offender_management.aspx
In November 2001, a £300 million PFI (Private Finance Initiative) project to supply the UK's Ministry of Defence with a payroll system encountered serious problems which threatened to stop the pay of over 30,000 personnel. EDS could not deliver the system and was allegedly rescued by a government bailout.[13]
In December 2003, EDS lost a 10-year £3 billion contract to run the UK Inland Revenue IT services after a series of serious delays in the payment of tax credits, the contract instead being awarded to the company Cap Gemini. EDS had operated systems for the Inland Revenue since 1994 but the performance of its system had been low, causing late arrival of tax credit payments for hundreds of thousands of people.[14][15]
In 2004, EDS was criticised by the UK's National Audit Office for its work on IT systems for the UK's CSA (Child Support Agency) which ran seriously over budget causing problems which led to the resignation of the CSA's head, Doug Smith on 2004-11-27. The system's rollout had been two years late and following its introduction in March 2003 the CSA was obliged to write off £1 billion in claims, while £750 million in child support payments from absent parents remained uncollected. An internal EDS memo was leaked that admitted that the CSA's system was "badly designed, badly tested and badly implemented". UK MPs described it as an "appalling waste of public money" and called for it to be scrapped.[16]
In 2006, EDS' Joint Personnel Administration (JPA) system for the RAF led to thousands of personnel not receiving correct pay due to "processing errors". EDS and MoD staff were reported to have "no definitive explanations for the errors".[17][18]
In September 2007 EDS paid $500,000 to settle an action by the US Securities and Exchange Commission regarding charges related to overstatement of its contract revenues in 2001–2003. At the time these caused a fall in share prices in 2002 which led to legal action against EDS from US shareholder groups.[19][20]
On 2007-10-16, British TV company BSkyB claimed £709m compensation from EDS, claiming that EDS' failure to meet its agreed service standards resulted not just from incompetence, but from fraud and deceit in the way it pitched for the contract.[20]
On 2008-02-04, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs is still waiting for compensation from EDS after settlement on failed delivery of IT services.[21]
On 2008-10-10 it was reported that a Ministry of Defence hard drive potentially containing the details of 100,000 Armed Forces personnel could not be located by EDS.[22]
What I cannot get my ahead around is that both EDS and Accenture would be the first to extol the virtues of good programme management, common sense project management, pragmatic change management and robust requirements management. They even have the nerve to sell this advice to their clients. If you are ever ‘fortunate’ enough to get a job interview as a management consultant with these guys the technical questioning is along the lines of proving you can avoid the pitfalls of programme failure by just doing the basics well. Yet why on earth did both these firms fail to follow their own advice? Maybe it’s just not profitable to practise what you preach. For any civil servants or MP reading this when dealing with the usual suspects always use outcome based agreements and never reward failure.
Finally, the 100 million went on a single payments system to pay farmers for growing too much and on an information system for keeping records on ex-convicts on probation. The money the farmers get is part of the 40 million we pay to the EU everyday. The money wasted on the probation service's new computer system is of little comfort to the families of the students murdered in New Cross by psychopaths who should have been in a secure facility.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZhy_VaYisU&feature=related&pos=0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNaY4xBiQp8&feature=related&pos=0
Just think about the difference you could make with 550 million pounds of tax payers cash. So if I were to tell you that you paid 550 million for 3 poor implementations of IT systems for little return on your investment would you be that surprised. The two organisations were EDS and Accenture. If their lawyers are reading this you can’t sue me for libel because all the info in this article is taken from reports available under the Freedom of Information Act.
House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs Committee The Rural Payments Agency and the implementation of the
Single Payment Scheme Third Report of Session 2006–07 Volume I
‘57. Accenture had received payments of a total of £42.7m from the RPA by the end of the 2005–06 Financial Year: £14.1 m in 2003–04, £10.2 m in 2004–05, and £18.4 m in 2005– 06.’
The irrationality of Accenture is such that given their performance they still want to do business with a customer they clearly had difficulty with in terms of managing expectations. The cynic in me thinks that firms like Accenture see the public sector as an easy touch and taking the hit on the reputation front is worth the return.
‘61. Accenture witnesses appeared to have been well schooled in not venturing comment on matters which they deemed were beyond their contractual observations. This attitude denied the Committee an important perspective on the way the SPS project was being run from the standpoint of a company at the heart of the venture. We regard this as an unacceptable attitude from a company of international repute and which may still aspire to work with UK government in other areas.’
Did you know that Accenture preaches Corporate Responsibility at a global level? They participate in the United Nations Global Compact, World Economic Forum and The Global Health Initiative. Why don’t they practise what they preach and give the money back they charged for their work with the Rural Payments Agency? Click http://www.accenture.com/Global/About_Accenture/Company_Overview/Corporate_Citizenship/Fostering_High_Performance/default.htm
By Accenture’s own admission - ‘Accenture continues to earn recognition for its efforts. For example, Accenture was named to Corporate Responsibility Officer's 100 Best Corporate Citizens for 2009. Accenture also has been included in the Dow Jones Sustainability North America Index for four years (2005-08) and received a 100 out of 100, a perfect score, on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index in 2007 and 2008. Read more about Accenture’s awards and recognition.’
100/100 on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index is beyond belief. One of Accenture’s clients is Shell. Do Accenture care about who they do business with given the relationship between human rights and oil in Nigeria? http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1999/nigeria/index.htm Shell recently settled out of court over unproven allegations that it was complicit in the execution of a well-known Nigerian environmental activist and author Ken Saro-Wiwa. Shell paid out 9.7 million quid. Click
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article6363058.ece
EDS were behind the failed system development for the Child Support Agency (http://news.zdnet.co.uk/leader/0,1000002982,39175379,00.htm). It cost us 450 million quid.
EDS has a poor history of engagements with the UK government. Yet the British Government never learned the lesson and awarded them the contract to develop the National Offender Management System(NOMS). Guess what it went pear shaped. http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/0809/national_offender_management.aspx
In November 2001, a £300 million PFI (Private Finance Initiative) project to supply the UK's Ministry of Defence with a payroll system encountered serious problems which threatened to stop the pay of over 30,000 personnel. EDS could not deliver the system and was allegedly rescued by a government bailout.[13]
In December 2003, EDS lost a 10-year £3 billion contract to run the UK Inland Revenue IT services after a series of serious delays in the payment of tax credits, the contract instead being awarded to the company Cap Gemini. EDS had operated systems for the Inland Revenue since 1994 but the performance of its system had been low, causing late arrival of tax credit payments for hundreds of thousands of people.[14][15]
In 2004, EDS was criticised by the UK's National Audit Office for its work on IT systems for the UK's CSA (Child Support Agency) which ran seriously over budget causing problems which led to the resignation of the CSA's head, Doug Smith on 2004-11-27. The system's rollout had been two years late and following its introduction in March 2003 the CSA was obliged to write off £1 billion in claims, while £750 million in child support payments from absent parents remained uncollected. An internal EDS memo was leaked that admitted that the CSA's system was "badly designed, badly tested and badly implemented". UK MPs described it as an "appalling waste of public money" and called for it to be scrapped.[16]
In 2006, EDS' Joint Personnel Administration (JPA) system for the RAF led to thousands of personnel not receiving correct pay due to "processing errors". EDS and MoD staff were reported to have "no definitive explanations for the errors".[17][18]
In September 2007 EDS paid $500,000 to settle an action by the US Securities and Exchange Commission regarding charges related to overstatement of its contract revenues in 2001–2003. At the time these caused a fall in share prices in 2002 which led to legal action against EDS from US shareholder groups.[19][20]
On 2007-10-16, British TV company BSkyB claimed £709m compensation from EDS, claiming that EDS' failure to meet its agreed service standards resulted not just from incompetence, but from fraud and deceit in the way it pitched for the contract.[20]
On 2008-02-04, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs is still waiting for compensation from EDS after settlement on failed delivery of IT services.[21]
On 2008-10-10 it was reported that a Ministry of Defence hard drive potentially containing the details of 100,000 Armed Forces personnel could not be located by EDS.[22]
What I cannot get my ahead around is that both EDS and Accenture would be the first to extol the virtues of good programme management, common sense project management, pragmatic change management and robust requirements management. They even have the nerve to sell this advice to their clients. If you are ever ‘fortunate’ enough to get a job interview as a management consultant with these guys the technical questioning is along the lines of proving you can avoid the pitfalls of programme failure by just doing the basics well. Yet why on earth did both these firms fail to follow their own advice? Maybe it’s just not profitable to practise what you preach. For any civil servants or MP reading this when dealing with the usual suspects always use outcome based agreements and never reward failure.
Finally, the 100 million went on a single payments system to pay farmers for growing too much and on an information system for keeping records on ex-convicts on probation. The money the farmers get is part of the 40 million we pay to the EU everyday. The money wasted on the probation service's new computer system is of little comfort to the families of the students murdered in New Cross by psychopaths who should have been in a secure facility.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZhy_VaYisU&feature=related&pos=0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNaY4xBiQp8&feature=related&pos=0
Monday 8 June 2009
Contact Centres Eat Our Cash
Contact centres are the staple offering from the outsourcing industry. As customers, we know they are always busy - but most of their work is waste. 20 to 60 per cent of all calls represent 'failure demand' - demand caused by a previous error. In telecoms, the police and local authorities, a staggering 80 or 90 per cent of calls occur because of the same failure to provide proper service the first time around. Shareholders and tax payers are paying for this waste.
Contact centres turn working class people into automatons. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ-lJpL2oVg Contact centres are generally managed by those better educated than those who answer the phone. The UK has swapped life on an assembly line making useful stuff to life on an assembly line in a back office handling waste.
Get your revenge .... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5z4Vs26-TI&feature=related&pos=3
Contact centres turn working class people into automatons. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ-lJpL2oVg Contact centres are generally managed by those better educated than those who answer the phone. The UK has swapped life on an assembly line making useful stuff to life on an assembly line in a back office handling waste.
Get your revenge .... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5z4Vs26-TI&feature=related&pos=3
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