Better governance and IT, we are told in a headline on the FT’s front page, would save the UK £20bn a year according to the boss of the National Audit Office Gareth Davies (January 16). But this is just restating what has been the permanent delusion afflicting all the UK’s chaotic IT projects.
We all use amazing technology, like our phones, and then wonder why government and NHS IT systems can’t just catch up. Surely, even children can program, so what’s the problem?
The answer is that companies like Amazon and Apple employ thousands of very competent developers who are clear what they are doing.
Contrast that with, for instance, Horizon. The Post Office is so complex it wasn’t even sure what it wanted; Fujitsu (as has become evident from the Post Office inquiry) wasn’t competent to program anything reliably; and the government contracted Horizon regardless, despite warnings.
What we need then is not new systems, but an improved culture around IT. We need far more expertise and competence.
If I was prime minister I’d rewrite the Medical Act 1858, which outlawed quack doctors, so as to outlaw quack IT practitioners. And we also need to replace the common law presumption that computer evidence is reliable. Evidence can’t be reliable while we have so many quack IT systems.
Professor Harold Thimbleby
Emeritus Professor of Computer Science, Swansea University, Swansea, UK
