As this government embarks on a large AI investment programme in digital technology we should remember past disasters and learn from them. The infamous nationalised Post Office computer programme Horizon led to the false imprisonment of staff and haywire accounting. Taxpayers are picking up a huge bill for bad computers and big compensation.The contracts have cost around £2,5 bn with £1.4 bn on compensation and legal defences of the PO.
We should also remember the Blair government launching the very large £6.2 bn digitalisation National Programme for IT in the NHS. Doctors and hospitals found a centralised solution did not work for them so the system development was abandoned in 2011.
The Home Office Emergency Services Network has experienced large delays and cost overruns. Their eborders system had to be terminated.
The government has so far failed to set out how it is spending its budget of an extra £3.25 bn for AI over three years. What will we get for this? How will the contracts be drawn up? How will it be distributed between departments and Agencies? Will it be carried through without the extra costs and stress of redundancies? When and how will the staff savings be achieved?
Past experience of too many programmes is cost overrun and sometimes big project failure. Both the expensive National Programme for IT for the NHS and Post Office Horizon started under the previous Labour government and had to be terminated/ remedied under a successor government.
November 4, 2025
ah my speciality subject
lots needs more scrutiny, like the money and data being given to palantir in uncontrolled ways
AI is a lot of hype and in a bubble which will burst, there is some substance underneath but lots of radically different things are labelled AI just to get support from decision makers with little clue
governments have thrown money at “white heat of technology” many times with limited success
what the UK needs more than virtue signalling tech spend is massive shift of decision making over to individual citizens and away from the state, and let the money and investments follow those individual citizen decisions. on everything including healthcare, housing, education, tax administration, and so much more. and then if spend on tech is forced to respond to individual end citizen decisions the enormous power of the intelligence of the end consumers can be leveraged.
and yes there is enormous obvious failures in current IT and business change programs, but you have to look at how leaders of these are hired, and how the recruitment business operates, there are some simple fixes which could help a lot.
massive top down change, like wes streetings current reorganising of NHS and department of health, always fails because it is not handing power to individual citizen customers, we should know by now.
November 4, 2025
Ian
The problem with Government designed programmes is that the whole point, is that Government wants to control its citizens, The exact opposite of a democracy and what you propose.
The days of the population trying to be self sufficient, with ambition to better themselves and their families, to invest in their own future with prudent management of their own finances, have been slowly eroded and penalised with increased tax and regulation now for decades.
We now have a situation where the Government does not trust the people, and the people do not trust the Government.
November 4, 2025
yes but the reason the west won the economic war with the communist block is empowered consumers, using their countless individual buying decisions to force the providers to constantly innovate and optimise.
it was not the state in the west which won, it was the economic power and freedom in the hands of individuals
we need to use that powerful force again, and hand as much power as possible over to individuals and away from the state
November 5, 2025
The economic “war” is continual and the West isn’t win.
Your empowered consumers simply chose the cheapest tat, driving production overseas while ignoring the theft of IP and designs facilitating that lower cost production.
Eventually that lack of foresight has come back to bite the consumers who now have no jobs in manufacturing and productive activities eviscerating our economy and leaving us vulnerable to all and sundry.
We are drowning and our mix of clueless and greedy politicians have simply helped our competitors put the hose pipe in our mouths and turn on the tap.
November 5, 2025
a lot of truth in much of that, but choice to make production too expensive here with over zealous regulations and taxes is made by the ruling classes… without that the end consumers would choose local production much more often
November 4, 2025
@Berkshire Alan. _ as you say it is the Government designing. The want systems that give the access to monitor activity of the wider population before everything else. It the reason UK systems, corporations and yes the young are exposed to the worst the worlds most malicious perpetrators, the government in fear of the people has to have access at all times. Remove the Governments fear of the people and the internet works for everyone.
The Online Safety Act 2023, is not about the individual being allowed to keep them selves safe. Its about the Government thinking it is keeping itself safe. It does nothing but keep doors open for the authorities to walk in, that is if they can get in before the world malcontents.
November 4, 2025
Correct Ian. Digital ID cards are the next accident waiting to happen. If the government thinks it can link a single document to all government departments I’ll be amazed
Apart from the obvious entrepreneurs who will clone said document, it is a massive breach of our privacy.
Pay by mile for motorists is another area where a cottage industry will flourish fixing the speedometer.
November 4, 2025
It’s not my field of expertise or experience but you lay out the case from first principles and I shall carry your advice forward in my mind as the discussion continues over the years
November 4, 2025
Yes, spot on.
The salesman’s dream is selling to a magical thinker who believes throwing money at any problem solves it.
Causing all the competent people, who personify the white heat of technology, to move elsewhere just leaves energy eating Machines behind, no use to man or beast.
As Carnegie said, ‘To he who can use them, the tools.’
Thus money must be returned to those with the ability to make the modern world work. Else it never will, in Britain.
November 4, 2025
@iain gill – ‘AI is a lot of hype’ correct only because the media portrays it as something it isn’t. Starters there is no intelligence artificial or otherwise employed, it is just database summaries of what the majority of other people have suggested. Summaries can be good, but the Intelligent bit is the viewer understanding the source and knowing those with real knowledge block being ripped off, so real information cannot be part of any database, therefore database summaries.
November 4, 2025
You have not yet encountered what the IT industry has always defined as AI. Self aware, self-specifying and programming systems.
November 4, 2025
@iain gill – if only government had spent more effort on retaining the UK’s “white heat of technology” instead of offshoring it we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
ICL(the Post Office Horizon project) although corrupted by the Socialist Ideals of a Labour Government was subsequently got rid at the behest of Government to the Japanese for it to become Fujitsu. I am not suggesting for one minuet it would have survived, who knows, but government interference stopped it evolving, morphing seeding more effective start ups. Government too often look for knee-jerk solutions essentially for non-existent situations and because they have no real world experience of the subject do irrevocable damage.
Political ideology is the destruction of society
November 4, 2025
Government and those employed by it deny any problem. Therefore there can never be any ‘solution’ or progress.
November 4, 2025
IT is notorious for cost over-runs, ill-defined or changing user requirements, customers’ lack of knowledge of the technology, poor project management and large IT companies claiming they know what the customer wants and have a package waiting on the shelf, before even meeting with the customer and asking a bunch of simple questions, and then over promising on what the IT will achieve once delivered. Things may have changed but in my experience of UK government departments, they really did not even know how to manage a contract that reduced risk and incentivised the parties – suppliers and customers – to achieve mutually advantageous outcomes. I say this having worked as both customer and supplier on some of the few successful IT projects.
It seems that despite all sorts of QA type processes and supposedly best practices being devised and imposed by governments, disaster still follows disaster and the causes have not changed much over the last twenty to thirty years. Why does anyone expect an improvement if the same old approaches are repeated again and again? Can’t they learn from the successes?
November 4, 2025
well I was in one of the big suppliers into the NHS programme for IT which john mentions. we told the nhs it would not work, refused to bid, predicted exactly what did happen. but the nhs would not listen. there needs to be incentives for honourable decent suppliers to act like this.
November 4, 2025
Not the NHS managers money so what do they care. And not they who suffer it is does not work nor they who benefit if it does not. So the BBC modifying Trump speeches to, in effect libel, Trump. Their bias on climate alarmism is evil and absurd. Then we have 10 police officers going to arrest a man who exposed what goes on in migrant hotels for eating 77p of pasta but actually for being in effect a journalist. Yet steal a bag full of steak from Tesco and no one does a thing.
November 4, 2025
Can you name a large British arm of government or large institution that is actually competent, efficient and works I was asked by a recently retired lawyer the other day. I struggled to find one! Many are not merely incompetent and inefficient but actually do huge net harms.
November 4, 2025
There needs to be punishment for Decision makers who refuse to listen and waste taxpayers money.
November 5, 2025
That’s really fascinating.
And with my limited experience, makes me think that there are so many opportunities for people to make a tonne of money in creating new software brands. You don’t even know how to code (but can help). And you need hardly any money (at the beginning you can hire coders from India and when the business takes off, coders from back home – and all the other jobs you create based in UK). So many in the High Tech Industry start off by creating some software to create a gap in the market. Musk started off in software development I believe
November 4, 2025
The economically illiterate Nigel Farage, fresh from Reform’s humiliating defeat at the Caerphilly by-election, made a rambling and incoherent speech yesterday – at his fourth press conference in six days – outlining Reform’s fiscal proposals. In case anybody missed it, here are the main points:-
1) Scrapping the promises of £90bn of tax cuts and raising the income tax threshold to £20k
2) The £10/hour minimum wage for young people to be cut by 50p
3) A 3 year freeze on the state pension, the abolition of the triple lock and making pensioners pay NI
4) Abolition of pensioner’s free bus passes, free prescriptions and the winter fuel payment
5) Severe restriction of PIP payments to the disabled and scrapping the Motability scheme in its entirety
5) Scrapping all free school meals and “scaling back” of childcare subsidies
6) Starting the privatisation of the NHS by introducing a £20 charge to see a GP
7) The introduction of widespread fracking in the national parks and (pointless) drilling in the N Sea
8) Farage failed to set out which of the £140bn in spending commitments, made last year, Reform will keep to
9) Farage refused to name a Reform Chancellor, a Defence Secretary, Home Secretary or a Foreign Secretary
Reform once had five MP’s. Now there are three. Looking at this deadful Reform austerity program, targeted at pensioners and the disabled, one wonders how this sort of rank economic incompetence is going to win over enough of the electorate to succeed at the next election.
Reply Reform still has 5 MPs as it has gained 2 as well as lost 2
November 4, 2025
SG,
Have you considered a job with BBC Verify?
November 4, 2025
even the BBC are careful with fairy stories.
November 4, 2025
SG
You really are suffering from NFS just like in the USA they have DTS.
Nigel has promised to balance the books, the majority who work and pay taxes agree with him.
As a country we are teetering on bankruptcy and he is the only one willing to do something about it.
November 4, 2025
He also predicted a general election in 2027, based on the economic collapse of this Country under this Government SG. This morning, Reeves is going to lay out why she needs to break manifesto promises not to raise income tax. There have been so many kites flown in the past few weeks, that the sky is full of them – bright red ones! None of this fills me with any confidence about the future and Farage may well be right about the timing of the next GE – albeit because we will be in deep trouble by then. So he has two years to get his act together, as does Kemi Badenoch.
You can complain about Farage all you want but we are in trouble and neither the useless Lib Dems or lunatic Greens are going to sort this out. So we’d better hope someone can and there aren’t too many candidates!
Reply He predicted a 2026 in the previous speech on migration. 2028/9 more likely.
November 4, 2025
“Farage refused to name a Reform Chancellor, a Defence Secretary, Home Secretary or a Foreign Secretary”
Ha ha – running out of inspiration by the time you got to (9) ? When people like you choose not to address the subject of a post at all (IT projects in this case) it makes you seem a bit obsessive and ridiculous. Just a bit of advice.
November 4, 2025
You may disagree with his proposals (I think most of them are very sensible), but at least Mr Farage has acknowledged that there is no magical money tree which will solve everything, and has had the nerve to say so.
He may well find a good many voters agree with him.
November 4, 2025
Caerphilly by-election election results
The winner Plaid Cymru with an increased vote of +20%
Labour lost achieving a minus -35%
Conservatives as expected were minus -15%
Reform increased to plus +35%
Labour lost as much as Reform gained and you suggest it was Reform that was humiliated.
That is Rachael Reeves style maths
No one knows what it is possible to define in election manifestos that wont come along if allowed in 40 months time. Just think of the irreversible damage 2TK has achieved in the last 18 months.
You appear to be getting your News from the BBC, and as one of their own whistle blowers have exposed(ref; Panorama/Trump) they doctor the news to portray the opposite to the ‘truth’
November 4, 2025
Nigel Farage gloats from Reform’s humiliating defeat of Conservatives, Lib Dems and Labour at the Caerphilly by-election. From a standing start Reform beat them out of sight and put up a serious challenge to Plaid Cumru.
You try to live in a fantasy universe but it won’t wash on here.
November 4, 2025
@ Sakara Gold – Grok suggests your list is not accurate, stating: –
1) True – “Farage explicitly rowed back on the £90bn tax cut pledge from Reform’s 2024 manifesto, calling it an “aspiration” not feasible now due to “wrecked” public finances; he said Reform must first “get public spending under control” before cuts. On the £20k threshold, he said he “want[s]” it but it’s “not realistic at this current moment in time,” reiterating it as a long-term goal only after economic stabilization.”
2) Partially True – “Farage suggested the minimum wage is “too high” for young workers (under 21), potentially cutting it to encourage hiring and “aspiration,” but he did not specify 50p or tie it to the £10/hour rate (current youth rates are lower, e.g., £7.55 for 18-20). He floated it as one option alongside raising the National Insurance threshold.”
3) Partially True – “Farage declined to commit to the triple lock (annual pension rises by the highest of earnings, inflation, or 2.5%), calling it unaffordable amid debt and hinting at potential abolition or freeze for “fiscal discipline”; no specific 3-year timeline was given. He did not mention making pensioners pay National Insurance.”
4) False – “No mention of abolishing these specific benefits; Farage broadly targeted “welfare” and “benefits bill” cuts but focused on asylum seekers, foreign aid, and net zero subsidies, not pensioner perks like bus passes, prescriptions, or winter fuel.”
5) Mostly True – “Farage pledged “substantially cut the size of the benefits bill,” explicitly including welfare for disabled people via PIP (Personal Independence Payment) restrictions; Motability (which provides cars to PIP recipients) was not named, but the cuts imply broad disability benefit reforms, including potential scrapping of related schemes.”
6) False – “No references to school meals or childcare subsidies; spending cuts targeted public sector size, pensions, welfare, civil service, and net zero, but education/family benefits were untouched in the speech.”
7) False – “Farage criticized Labour’s NHS mismanagement but pledged no privatization or GP charges; he focused on efficiency via “expertise” and private-sector involvement in management, not user fees or structural privatization.”
8) Mostly True – “Farage condemned the “lunatic” net zero push and vowed new North Sea oil/gas drilling to cut energy bills by £165/year; he called fracking “safe” and essential for energy security, implying expansion (though national parks were not explicitly named, environmental deregulation would enable it).”
9) True – “Reform’s 2024 manifesto included ~£140bn in new spending (e.g., defense, NHS, policing); Farage did not specify which to retain, vaguely promising to “cut spending” first while keeping “aspirations” like welfare expansions, drawing criticism for vagueness.”
10) – True – “Pressed on shadow cabinet roles, Farage refused to name specifics (e.g., no Chancellor pick), saying Reform would “bring expertise into government” via external advisers rather than traditional appointments, emphasizing “real economic expertise” over party figures.”
Grok concludes “Overall, about half the points (1, 9, 10) are direct reflections, while others exaggerate or invent details (e.g., 4, 6, 7) not in the speech.”.
November 4, 2025
Bearing in mind that we are already spending as much on debt interest as education and entering a doom loop where increased taxation, to pay for increased state spending, results in more bankruptcies and unemployment and less tax take, what other savings would you propose SG?
Farage thinks we’ll go bust by 2027?
When do you think it will happen?
November 4, 2025
Thanks, SG. I think Farage also said he would reduce the Civil Service and “get a grip” on public service pensions? Also “end the lunacy of Net Zero”, which I understand is now also a Conservative Party policy as Kemi Badenoch has said it will bankrupt the country. Not that this appears to be a problem for those of the Left…
November 4, 2025
@Original Richard – you have to ask why did those now electioneering on behalf of the Conservatives, while as individuals in office having power, and being part of the collective responsibility of cabinet not change things then. It was the same problem and costs then as now and they had the authority to change things – but refused. Could it be they smell an election wining theme? You would then have to ask who in the UK Parliament with their proven track records keep their election promises?
November 4, 2025
OK, Reform still has five MPs but changing with high frequency. But what is Sir John’s take on Farage’s speech: anything incisive and topical?
November 4, 2025
It does not matter what Farage says or what date he predicts a GE. It matters what Reeves says.
Farage is right that before cutting taxes you have to cut spending. If only Truss had been as wise,
November 4, 2025
You are quoting from Roger Bootle’s recent paper
I have listened to Nigel’s press conference and none of these things were mentioned
November 4, 2025
I can see us throwing money at greedy tech companies who create things our bureacracies don’t need. Forget cost savings because they will only retrain or hire extra people to run it, not lay off existing people.
There’ll also be many things done which we the people don’t need and haven’t asked for, but which suit our rulers and the tech overlords. Things for which we all have to give up our liberty by having digital ID linked into the AI.
The AI systems themselves will have all the de-human flaws of tech, where the AI will fit you into a box and there is no human to review and over-rule it. A digital lock.
Altogether it’s another costly disaster in the waiting, with greatly more disastrous and sinister consequences for our way of life than previous ones.
November 4, 2025
“things done which we the people don’t need and haven’t asked for” and things that very often will do no good and often huge net harm. Landlord licensing, road blocking, net zero, net harm covid vaccines and lockdowns for example.
November 4, 2025
All fixed by a barcode tattoo on everyone’s back of neck
November 4, 2025
You are right about the long history of failed Government IT programmes, many years ago Peter Gershon was given the role of reforming IT project management from within the Cabinet Office. The lessons were learned and subsequently forgotten. The Post Office Horizon system was not primarily the fault of the Computer System or its supplier Fujitsu, it was the fault of Post Office Managers and especially the Post Office Auditors.
Of even greater concern than likely technical failure of the new system is understanding what the Governments intentions are for the new system, what are the risks to personal privacy and the risks of ever increasing Government control over the every day lives of citizens. What legislative controls and public protections will be put in place; these are essential requirements to be determined BEFORE a new system can be designed.
November 4, 2025
Here we go again, don’t forget the 5 stages of a project –
1 Enthusiasm
2 Disillusionment
3 Panic
4 Search for the guilty and punishment of the innocent
5 Honours and awards for non-participants
November 4, 2025
Another one for the list John was the test and trace app.
No problem with the production and distribution of the actual physical testing kits, but the trace app was simply not up to the job.
November 4, 2025
There are probably still personal details sitting in several spreadsheets without password protection someone on the civil service intranet. That would be an interesting case for the ICO to follow up.
November 4, 2025
somewhere on the intranet.
November 4, 2025
Like I keep banging on about, the High Tech industry is going to play a key role in rescuing Western Capitalism, our economy and culture and civilisation in general.
Elon Musk is now promoting his new Tesla Tiny Hone which will offer millions of cheap homes, based on clever tech in general including tech that perseveres / creates energy (so green tech involved too). It won’t affect the middle-class housing market that much. But it will greatly help young middle class people to get on the housing ladder and offer them real mental security as well as help the working classes so saving lots of money for the middle-class tax payers!
This will revolutionise the housing marketing but also productivity. Because the anxiety of not being able to buy your own house causes immense mental damage which greatly affects productivity.
Why I keep banging on about why politicians need to focus on HIGH TECH, HIGH TECH, HIGH TECH – and helping to create UK as world’s second silicon valley.
(Sure, High Tech takes away jobs but also creates new jobs in other areas and overall greatly boosts / solidifies the economy).
November 4, 2025
Musk’s idea here is not new. But he’s the one who’s just really going for it.
November 4, 2025
Sir John is 100% right to warn people about all this.
When I set up a business, I needed some software for a website I had, and could nearly have been ripped off if I hadn’t really researched. So I ended up paying £250 for some software (which was created for me by a student at university making extra money – the guy was charming and hard-working, absolute pleasure to work with). But here are some quotes I received from some digital marketing agencies:
– £15K (x 1)
– £10K (x 1)
– £5K (x 2)
– £3K (x 5)
– £2K (x 10)
– £1K (x 5)
Small but great example of the reality of digital world. If government aren’t careful, they can be ripped off with the tax payer picking up the bill. Perhaps one of the most important skills of politicians is to become experts in a particular field and be experts in how to get the best price for products / services – for the sake of the tax payer.
November 4, 2025
@Ed M – many years ago I was invited to a seminar at the Microsoft Campus for their launch the latest updates they made to MS Office. I was struck by the comments of one of their developers giving the presentation, he said the aim was for MS Office to be as good as ‘Open Office’
For those that are in the know ‘Open Office’ was previously called IBM Symphony, made into an open source program and made available for free. It is to-day still a free download as are its off shoots such as Libre Office.
November 4, 2025
The Government can’t fall back on a student.
Politicians should not be buying anything. They have people who should be experts in various fields, those people need to be held to account, and there should be contracts which punish contract winners if they don’t deliver what is specified and agreed.
November 4, 2025
Ah AI – that tool which gives the answer it is programmed to give.
Good AI is what we called automation. My experience of online government sites is that they are excellent when they work but when the automation goes wrong or needs intervention unnecessary delays ensue.
Our government does not need to invest in ChatGPT so that civil servants can create presentations, sort their emails or communicated with each other even less but invest in more and better automation.
I fear that the largest amount of money will go into subscriptions for civil servants to sort their emails and seek incorrect answers to questions that an entry level researcher should be able to correctly answer.
November 4, 2025
I did an internet search last week to find the answer to a DEI related question. The AI search answer that we are forced to see at the top of the search gave me an unequivocal “Yes” indicating that I must defer to the DEI issue.
A deeper dive into the links below revealed the opposite was true.
Beware pre-programmed AI.
November 4, 2025
Despite our ever growing debt problem, HMG continue to throw money in every direction at any possible black hole.
Yes, they are deliberately vague, for a reason.
This government’s action display a grand dichotomy, while they know their excess spend and tax will ruin the country, they also act out the required steps to get the country active and winning — Unfortunately this last part is pure theatre.
Mere incompetence is not the only thing behind the huge failures with IT projects, the wastage is deliberate.
November 4, 2025
We’re upgrading the IT processes in our company. This task requires understanding of how your system operates, the flaws and the destination for the database system. It also needs the ingenuity of the people you have to put it into place.
For government to do the same, it also needs all these qualities. I doubt there are anyone who can fit the bill and definitely not government ministers.
I’ve just been listening to the rantings of a delusional woman.
Unfortunately she is the chancellor of the exchequer.
November 4, 2025
If as, Ms Reeves says, her priorities are to cut inflations, get economic growth and repay debt why does everything this government does increase inflation, kill growth and make repaying the debt so much much less likely (higher taxes, NI, minimum wage increase, extra employment red tape, net zero, vat on school fees, the war on non-doms, landlords, motorists…)
November 4, 2025
The govt is inept at large IT projects: creating errors, malfunctions, delays and gross wastes of money.
It could be better to fund small private AI projects each focusing on intelligence in narrower fields of speciality, decided by competitive tender.
Narrow fields like History, Geography, Language and Biology among others would enable easier control and accuracy. Only then when those have a proven track record would it be appropriate to collaborate into a single AI source that can accurately answer virtually all questions.
November 4, 2025
The problem is that the public sector is too slow and lazy to deal with I.T. solutions.
The technology grows more quickly than the public sector can handle. It makes the mistake of commissioning grand schemes that gobble up years of planning and ridiculous sums of taxpayer money only to find they are out of date before they have even been started.
First, the public needs to get more efficient without the need for more IT.
I.T. is not a magic bullet. Sacking the lazy staff is.
November 4, 2025
“First, the public SECTOR needs to get more efficient without the need for more IT.” (sorry, typo)
November 4, 2025
Agree
November 4, 2025
Sir John
I would add how much of the money from the hardworking taxpayer will remain in the UK to nurture and develop a resilient self reliant UK technology base? To slushing around the UK economy causing growth and wealth creation. Then how much of it will be trafficked abroad/off shored to prop up another regime?
The UK used to be a leader in these sort of things but Government aided by a lazy Civil Service, swapped expediency, the long term, for a quick buck – so the sold or allowed to be sold the ‘Crown Jewels’ the Nations and its Citizens future. Now our competitor Nations are laughing, reaping the rewards all at the expense of the hardworking UK Taxpayer. The Government fighting the people
A couple of things the UK NHS online appointment system at least here in Wokingham is not in the UK but housed abroad outside UK jurisdiction.
All the so-called hacks, attacks on IT systems reported so far this year have been actually had their systems, structures and ownership outside of the UK. Again beyond touch of any UK legal jurisdiction, just costing those companies millions, therefore the country millions.
The thing always missed when UK Governments do the purchasing(or get involved in anything), as having no real world experience, is that the price paid is not the same as the ‘cost’. They don’t evaluate the long term destruction they do, they just pat themselves on the back for being today’s ‘cheap’ option
November 4, 2025
Like many Government scheme, this one appears to have started with a sum of money being thrown at it , and working backwards from that, rather than the more sensible approach, which would be that of any commercial organisation, of identifying a need, deciding how to meet it, and then, finally, budgeting for the cost.
November 4, 2025
I just watched the Chancellors speaking from Downing Street and learnt nothing
She fails to understand the reason why borrowing costs are so high is because of the decisions she has made
A pre budget speech to make excuses for her own disaster
November 4, 2025
Big IT projects often go wrong in the private sector too (I have experience) so the chances of the public sector managing them is zero. One of the main issues I think is lack of professional project management experience in the public sector – they are incapable of writing well-scoped tender documents and then specifying and managing and sticking to the scope. I think they are probably also very naive in thinking the IT suppliers don’t have better project managers who despite presenting as “partners” are constantly looking to increase scope and costs and timescale. It’s the same in the MoD’s multiple procurement disasters.
November 4, 2025
A classic example of the inability of big Government to deliver. So many IT botch-ups, which would take too long to list. But then it is only the taxpayers’ money. You might as well stand on the Humber Bridge throwing £20 notes into the sea!
Forget IT and concentrate on reducing government spending, then we can save some money and afford tax cuts.
November 4, 2025
Agreed. The Government needs to stop micro managing. It need to give up most of its ‘acquis communitaire’.
November 4, 2025
Just wait till the IT system chaos, over-run and delay with the introduction of I.D.s
November 4, 2025
Let us guess how the government will ‘invest’ in AI: taking stakes in companies which claim to be working eg on ‘climate change’, a condition that grants and subsidies will be paid to companies with x% women on the board, priority for companies which are in some way ‘diverse’, various other as yet unspecified political objectives.
As we see in the actual markets (of which these ministers may be unaware as they have no relevant training or experience) there is no shortage of funding for AI. The good – or potentially good – projects get plenty of funding from the free capital markets. Those that are weaker don’t.
There is one thing which the government could do to assist AI, and indeed every other sector. And that is a radical reduction in energy prices. This needs a 180 deg U-turn on the Milliband agenda, so let’s not hold our breath.
November 4, 2025
I used AI to find out how much tax I would have to pay if I moved from a house that I had let to tenants 20 years ago. It was very efficient and took seconds to cover the whole rates and allowances. The answer including CGT, stamp duty and vat plus sales fees was about £95k. So I won’t be moving and HMG can forget its tax grab.
I am going to ask it how many civil servants it could get rid of if it was in charge instead of Sir Humphrey. He certainly won’t ask it himself.
November 4, 2025
The initial answer from grok was the government hopes to cut 10k back office jobs but 2027 and save £2.3bn. Well, that’s going to solve the problem isn’t it. Meanwhile extra HMRC staff are joining to help with the tax raid.
November 4, 2025
In today’s Media
“A UK semiconductor factory owned by China has shut down production of crucial microchips as Beijing tightens its grip on the global electronics supply chain.”
Or read Dynex Semiconductor, ownership transferred by the UK Government to China, along with it IP, expertise, knowledge etc. That was defence equipment/technolagy the ‘rail-gun’ gone. Now the UK will have to buy direct(import) from China and the Chinese Government being able to hold the UK to ransom for vital the safety and security of the Nation.
Who exactly does the UK Parliament work for? It is clearly not the Nation or its people
November 4, 2025
Government should negotiate mutually satisfactory prices with IT suppliers for pioneering, bespoke systems never before seen by anyone and having done so tell such cheats and liars that it will pay them double if ever a fully working, as specified, system is delivered but accept no charges before then. If government does end up paying double, given it will assuredly have what it asked for, that may well end up the cheaper option.
Meanwhile government ought to confine its IT purchases to systems currently successfully used by others.
November 4, 2025
“Doctors and hospitals found a centralised solution did not work for them” – how very hoity-toity of them.
And that’s the problem, right there: well-funded service providers dictating what services they will and won’t provide to the customers how fund them.
November 4, 2025
Chagos Bill (The Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill) has its second reading in the Lords today …..watch this space for another cockup
https://order-order.com/2025/11/04/labour-pulls-chagos-bill-from-lords-votes-before-defeat/?fbclid=IwY2xjawN2xeNleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHhjHUClbXCYSJnuyDcc6iGal5GqdJBJOwMrfR6eSvv0mQWbivJyJjFDYjro9_aem_KubO_uZQ7s9seJVJp1c6Zg
Reply We fight on against it. Interesting delay today
November 4, 2025
Well done the Lords. Seems Starmer does not want to test the Commons again.
November 4, 2025
The government in the lords reaffirmed the decision to give away the chagoes islands was for our security, as the UN might, at some time in the future, vote/instruct the UK to transfer sovereignty
Reply The UN does not have the powers to require us to give Chagos away!
November 5, 2025
It only has to ‘VOTE’ ….
I was quoting the lords labour foreign minister who said last night, if they didn’t do a deal now, under international UN treaty a deal in the future could be imposed via a vote at the UN
Reply It cannot. We have a veto at Security Council. General body cannot bind its members
November 5, 2025
….and yet, under the threat of a future UN vote we’re giving away the Chagoes Islands, ….and are happy to do so
November 4, 2025
I note the irony that the plan to transfer the management of payments for civil service pensions to Capita has run into problems. Perhaps it should be allowed to fail so they can learn something.
November 4, 2025
Capita was the same company that cocked up UK military recruitment ….they made the whole process IT reliant
November 4, 2025
Misuse, misappropriation, inopportunity or just IT cock-up’s
The Army in the 90s issued new combat laptop based on windows 3.1 while shops where selling laptops with windows XP; they also issued new vehicle born satellite communications system while the same system, handheld, can be brought off the shelve from the USA for a faction of the cost
Currently I’ve witness the doubling of time spent on administration in colleges and universities due to the extra demands of IT ….I expect government departments and the NHS are even worst
IT isn’t the panacea it claims, it has to be productive and not a burden on users time or finance
November 10, 2025
Hurrah Sir John!
Thank you for your insight into all these economic problems.
We need you to continue to highlight all that’s going wrong with our country and to suggest ways to improve it!
William McCracken.