UK tax department: Bizarre IT spending incentives
Phil Pavitt, CIO for the UK tax department, recently spoke out against huge IT projects. Some of his comments are extraordinary.
Latest from Michael Krigsman
IRS rebate checks: more problems
The Internal Revenue Service continues to have system problems related to economic stimulus rebate checks. Given a program of this magnitude, in which the IRS will mail 130 million checks, unexpected problems caused by computer glitches are not surprising.
Miracles happen: a transparent gov't dashboard
Failed government projects often remain hidden behind layers of bureaucratic obfuscation, only to be revealed after an agency has wasted substantial time and money. Given this, imagine my surprise upon learning of a state agency providing the public with genuine transparency and openness with web-based, real-time project status reporting.
Boeing virtual fence: $30 billion failure
The Department of Homeland Security "virtual fence" project, being built by Boeing, is in big, big trouble. The virtual fence is a high-tech network of cameras, lighting, sensors, and technology designed to intercept illegal border crossings.
UK National Identity Scheme (NIS): "Costly white elephant"
Chalk up another massive IT problem for Her Majesty's government in the UK. According to InterGovWorld and the Financial Times, the UK has bidding has opened on a controversial multi-billion pound identity card program called the National Identity Scheme (NIS).
Wisconsin Fights Failure
The Wisconsin state legislature has created a special group to study IT project cost overruns, called The Speaker’s Task Force on Failed Information Technology Projects. So far, they have scheduled monthly meetings running through August.
"Reckless"
A report by the Work Foundation in the UK is sharply critical of public sector ICT (information and communication technology) projects, saying that “too much recklessness blights government IT projects.”The press release includes the following tidbits:Contrary to the stereotype, public sector managers have sometimes been too gung-ho in their attitude to risk when developing and implementing information technology projects, wasting many millions of pounds of taxpayer’s money in the process.
INTERVIEW: Lydia Segal on Government Waste and Corruption
Some of the most dramatic examples of IT-related waste can be seen in public sector projects. To get a handle on why government projects are so problematic, I spoke with Lydia Segal, one of the nation’s foremost experts on waste and corruption in public schools.
Bigger and Bigger Secrets
This is a follow-up to an earlier post about a $300M NSA project that will most likely never be used. The original article was written by Siobhan Gorman and published in the Baltimore Sun.
In an Emergency...
The Dashboard Spy offers a post describing emergency management information software. I researched these issues in-depth several years ago (conducted lots of interviews with government and industry leaders), to learn about emergency management processes and software.