I liked a piece in Computer Weekly that commented on May's speech on Friday and said:
Border IT is however one of the biggest tech challenges when it comes to Brexit. Of the 85 IT systems at the UK border, 30 will need to be replaced or changed, but the government has said it does not expect “all new or updated IT systems to be ready” by the time the UK leaves the EU.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is in the middle of implementing its new customs IT system, however, the department can't guarantee it will be ready on time, and has been urged to go for a basic version of the system.
So we need a transition then or, to not put too fine a point on it we're ...... well, you know the rest.
It's always worth reminding ourselves of the realities Rees-Mogg ignores. And let's be clear: he can't ignore them. If we are to trade with the EU after March 2019 we have to give them data. If we can't, we won't trade. It really may well be that simple. They are not going to break their law to do so.
In that context another comment is also interesting:
May said she recognised that some of her ideas for a future customs and trading agreement “depend on technology, robust systems to ensure trust and confidence, and goodwill,” but that “they are serious and merit consideration by all sides”.
'When they're available' is, I think, the unwritten subtext. Right now they're not. Living on planet possible says it is the UK who is going to be doing a lot of compromising very soon.
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“they are serious and merit consideration by all sides”.
Aaah – it seems that May is setting up the blame game already and also asking the EU to spend money on special systems just for the UK. The Euro zone was set to up to avoid stuff like this.
The only thing that merits consideration for me is just to stop this nonsense. But we do seem to be on the way out. I listened to Any Questions yesterday on the radio and the biggest cheers were for those calling a stop to BREXIT but the BREXIT bunch were there peddling their usual sophistry.
Absolutely off topic for this thread, because I missed it at the time is your rebuttal of James (beg his pardon ‘sir’ James) Dyson’s pleading for favourable terms of trade at everybody else’s expense.
Re his electric car (which, rumour has it, will be cordless); having seen and occasionally the misfortune to use, the dog’s breakfast he calls a vacuum cleaner I can’t wait to see the monstrous apparition he has in mind for a vehicle. I trust he will incorporate a sort of trailing scoop to collect the bits that drop off onto the carriageway.
“…. but the government has said it does not expect “all new or updated IT systems to be ready” by the time the UK leaves the EU……”
On the basis of past performance of government commissioned computer systems,
– HMRC, Air Traffic Control, NHS, DWP and quite a few others plus the ones we don’t even know about – I’d put money on systems not being ready.
How can even the best programmers and systems designers produce a system to match a brief which cannot yet be specified ?
legitimate trade is not an issue, it is illicit trade which is problematic.
In the 80’s the border raised revenue to fund illegal organisations and HMGhad no Custome presence on the Irish border, leaving it to RoI C&E, RoI Garda with ocasional foor patrols from the NI Police accompanied by the Army.
RoI saw that the open border allowed for Oil smuggling at an unprecedented level, cigarettes, grain, and the importation of BSE (&later foot &mouth, Horsemeat) from the island of Great Britian. When you trail the Irish border on Google maps, there are warehouses on the line of the border, and some which cross the border – there are no tech solutions for these places!
Ireland cannot sustain the levels of tax losses, and London cannot sustain another wave of republlican bombings (and the army cannot deploy 25,000 troops to maintain the Queens peace apart from cost, there is no manpower) .
Ireland needs to be taken seriously as they have an equal vote in Europe – if there is to be a hard border, they can rightly demand Frontex to seal the border and cause untold issues for UK trade and transit routes (Heathrow, Southampton coud see reduced traffic).
the lack of understanding of HMG is astounding, with Hammond with his treasury brief the only one who comes close to the position of reality
“….with Hammond with his treasury brief the only one who comes close to the position of reality….”
If Hammond, as you suggest, is our best hope for sanity within government we really are in deep doo doos.
Well above the ocksters and sinking fast.
I was head of IT for 15 years for a medium-sized organisation. IT systems from inception need, a) in depth analysis (which requires time), b) accurate and elegant (if poss) programming (which require time) c) Beta testing (which requires lots of time) and d) no moving of the goalposts (which always happens, then requires time). (This is not an exhaustive list). After a while patience runs out because time runs out quickly followed by money running out. The PM is dreaming with her eyes wide open.
She has no time….
John LeBrune,
It also requires good Project Management to keep everything on the rails, but the performance of numerous public sector IT projects suggests that good Project Managers are in short supply, at least in the public sector.
Ditto John and Ken – Ive spent many years firstly in the IT industry and then advising both public and private sector organisations. This would be the sort of project that would normally take years to do properly. May and her team have not a clue about what they are suggesting and no chance of implementing anything workable in the timescale. I suspect their civil service advisors are trying to tell them but are being ignored, as they are ignored on just about everything at the moment.
So not just a hard Brexit but a complete mess. On the evidence of what they have published to date, I have rather more confidence that the EU and the EU countries have done a lot more planning.
I heard someone say on BBC’s Any Questions (it was a chap called Brendan O’Neill from an online magazine called Spiked) that our expectation that Ireland may see the restart of hostilities again because of BREXIT as a ‘racist expectation’.
That is not my feeling at all. My opinion of the Irish is that unlike the almost totally brow-beaten Welsh, Scottish and (Yes!) the very brow beaten and defeated English, the Irish are less tolerant of English ruling class stupidity and pig ignorance. I have always had a sneaking admiration of this Irish trait.
So if British BREXIT hurts Ireland, Irish society will not take the consequences lying down. I just hope and pray that the Irish fight back in the Courts and other legal and trade avenues and keep it at that.
And I hope that they do it well and expose my English Government as the damned irresponsible fools that they are.
I have heard it said the Irish are less tolerant of fools
I couldn’t possibly comment
Pilgrim,
I fervently hope that hostilities will not return in Ireland and the Irish will have no truck with it
However I fear that a fudged border solution might see the return of large-scale smuggling, which will inevitably increases the threat of gangsterism and violence. It was a factor before the Good Friday Agreement: all sorts of scams were perpetrated, some small scale, some large, but it created the culture and circumstances for money laundering (lots of hot money that couldn’t go through legit books), arms smuggling (which fuelled sectarian violence), drug running etc.
I couldn’t agree with you more Ken. The violence that could break out over territory by different smuggling groups could be disastrous.
Rees-Mogg and his magical Brexit wand waving pixie dust everywhere. I feel so safe.
I worked in it for over two decades.
Creating a system where the requirements with a written spec is not easy. My experience is that the written spec is always (and I mean always) incomplete. They delay in actual implementation greatly depends on how incomplete the specification is.
Working to an as yet not defined/written specification with a fixed implementation date?
You must be joking.
PS Remember E-Borders?
I post this every six months, trying to pick somewhere freqented by those not hard-of-thinking. I wrote this December ’16. Seems to be holding up quite well. Well, except for the idea that we had actually agreed a finish date. That seems to have been abandonded along with every other sane management technique……Some people seem to think there should be a plan for Brexit, technically that is not possible… read on…
December 2016
Project Brexit
I have spent much of the last forty years in the world of major project management. Largely in the oil and gas industry out of Aberdeen, but in other parts of the world as well and in other industries where projects get very big, such as nuclear power, defence and the largest of civil engineering jobs. My specific discipline — the software techniques used to understand and control these projects — is common across all of these industries, as are many, indeed most, of the theoretical frameworks we use to describe and manage these largest of jobs. I am flattered to be described as a “subject matter expert” by my clients in the oil and gas industry, however even SMEs have been quiet of late in the oil industry, and so I turned my attention to the largest project ever undertaken in Britain, Brexit.
The important distinguishing feature of a project is that it stops. This is not manufacturing or running a shop. We make something, deliver it, and the job is over. Brexit is a project. But if we examine it that way without any consideration as to whether it is “right” or “wrong” to do, it is doomed to failure.
In order for a project to be successful, there are some important ingredients. Brexit lacks all of them, except a “Project Must Finish By” date, the only information that we have. In March of 2019 the project finishes.
Let me painfully go through just some of the missing ingredients:
A scope of work. Famously, there isn’t one. It is as if a shipbuilding company had accepted a contract to deliver a ship in March 2019, but nobody knows what sort of ship. All we know is the launch date. This in itself makes the project to build the Holyrood parliament seem well founded in comparison.
Budget. There isn’t one. This project will go ahead no matter what it costs.
Contract Management. We have started this job without knowing what the terms and conditions are. Any of them. I cannot think of an analogy that expresses my horror at this strongly enough, other than to repeat it. We have started this job without knowing what the terms and conditions are. We are going to negotiate the T&Cs as we go along. How many times has that worked?
Benefit analysis. If you believe £350m a week for the NHS, you will believe anything I suppose, but in fairness there was a benefit analysis available this June from the proponents of the project. I do not think I am being too partisan if I suggest it has not stood up to scrutiny. In essence — there isn’t one.
Deliverables. All projects of this size have a list of deliverables, rather than a single event. The channel tunnel for example had operational parameters of availability, running costs, number of passengers, there will have been more I am sure. There are no quantified deliverables for Brexit. “less immigration” “more manufacturing jobs” are aspirations, not numbers. This inflates dramatically the impact of my next heading:
Expectations. When we spend this much money on a project, there are expectations which have to be met. If, for example, our shipyard successfully builds two new ferries, but the service to users on the routes they are deployed on does not improve, then it is likely that the expectations of the users of the project will not be met and the project may not be deemed a success. What do people expect from this project? Everyone has been allowed to invent their own expectations. Madness must ensue. For some it is control of immigration, for some it is leaving the single market, for some “taking back control” whatever that means. One could argue that with no scope of work, no budget, no benefit study and no deliverables, expectation management is impossible. I do argue that. And that means we have no way to measure:
Success. There is no way to measure this. The project must then fail.
I could carry on for a few thousand words more about what is wrong/missing with this project. Can I see the risk register? I thought not.
I am often called in to project control environments to help improve them. I certainly have plenty experience of projects that could have gone better. The simple truth I have observed is that success or failure is determined at or before the start, not the end of a project. Project success is a function of how ready we are to start the project. In more that forty years I have never seen a project less ready to start.
At the risk of tautology, this is technically the worst project I have ever experienced, and I’ve been parachuted into some lulus. It is hardly started and we are at the Supreme Court already.
All of the above just spells failure. Indeed I suspect Brexit cannot be done at all.
All I can think of to make it better, is comfort eating.
Extremely well put
Thanks
Very well put
Another recurring attribute of failed projects is management who insist on going ahead even when all the warning signs are flashing red. And who have got the scapegoats already lined up
Whether you agree with Brexit or not, there is not a cat in hells chance of this succeeding in the timeframe
So who is going to ‘bell the cat’? Does not look like it is Corbyn at the moment.
“Brexit cannot be done at all”.
A very well made conclusion that I have also drawn. My one quibble with your whole analysis would be that in spite of there being no budget, and a decision to spend whatever it takes, the resources actually to do even the tasks that have been vaguely identified (such as management, personal, equipment, buildings) have not been assembled to carry out rafts of basic tasks on deadline day (for example for Customs & Excise alone). It is as if the Government already knew that it can’t be done.
I can only speculate that for some Brexiteers at least, this (disorder?) is calculated; and precisely what they wish to achieve.
I think you are right to presume disorder is part of he prescription
Mr Kelly
I understand your concerns but I’m not sure your analysis is correct. I appreciate you know a lot more about Project Management than I do, but I would’ve thought Brexit was an overall policy within which there must be dozens of self-contained projects so that, e.g.,those projects include;
1 Establishing effective Irish border
2 Completely re-working Customs controls
3 Completely re-working Immigration controls
4 Negotiating a trade agreement with the EU
5 “Filleting” UK common law to remove European law & the (baleful to conservatives) ECHR.
etc etc. The difficulty, as I see it, apart from the vast amount of work in a short timescale, is that I don’t see how, e.g., we can do (1) before (4) or vice versa.
I may be totally wrong, however, & please let me know if I am.
It seems to me that your list is easily contained within and covered by David Kelly’s analysis of major Project Management. All very large projects are made up of different components. What you seem to be describing is the interrelationships and scheduling of the components; which is simply explained by a Gantt Chart.
John W
Er… ‘simply’? That seems to be what David ‘MadMax’ Davis and co think!
At the risk of getting into semantics, this is a colossal programme made up of multiple interdependent projects. The dependencies and risk management dont bear thinking about. Anyway, the goverment has clearly put very little thought into any of this.
On another semantic point, having worked across the sectors, ive always been stuck by how public (and 3rd) sector talk about policy and projects, whereas in business its about:
– objectives-the result or outcome
– strategy-broadly how we’ll achieve the objectives
– projects-the detailed actions and resources
‘Pollcy’ tends to mix objectives and strategy. Separating the two can be very helpful
Brexit (flawed) logic seems to be:
Objective-cut immigration or cut regulation (and yes thats hugely simplified)
Strategy – leave the EU
Projects – ‘we’ll get back to you’
Another killer aspect in projects is that of Sponsorship and Ownership. The Brexit gang have shown a spectacular lack of any sense of responsibility for their actions or understanding of the implications and consequences.
Whether you agree with Brexit or not, this is a doomed project.
Robin,
Perhaps I did not pull it off, but the term “simply” was largely intended ironically (!)
I thought Eriugenus was being a little ungenerous to David Kelly’s considered and trenchant article (“I’m not sure your analysis is correct”); but even David Kelly doesn’t seem to agree, although I thought David’s reference to the “job” (singular, but in inverted commas, twice), followed by a reference to the ‘giant project’ (no inverted commas) left it slightly open, so that maybe I had a point after all: but hey, what do I know?
John W – irony noted!!
The claims by Fox, Davis, Hannan et al that this would be literally ‘simple’, perhaps prompted my response
What we’re all agreeing I think, is that seen through a programme management lens there is no way this can be a success
This fits into the category of ‘if you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there’! Apparently said by Lewis Carroll which is singularly appropriate
Robin,
Yes! You surprised me with your robust criticism, because I had sufficient vanity to believe that I had made my position clear, and luminously made my case. As I said, this just shows ….. what do I know?!
This is brilliant. Absolutely spot on and why those with our eyes wide open to this bloody nonsense are absolutely terrified. What a shock it will be to everyone still drinking the Brexit koolaid IF it actually all goes ahead.
[…] following comment was posted by David Kelly on the blog yesterday. It has, apparently, appeared as a comment on another couple […]
eriugenus,
Your point is well made. The whole “job” should probably be managed as several projects, but they inter relate in challenging ways. To use your examples, the new customs controls and new immigration controls probably share operational personnel? or not? who are trained using one or two training regimes? Essentially your projects are “level 2” of the unified Work Breakdown Structure of the giant project, which might well be dealt with as discrete projects.
The “job” however is SO FAR REMOVED from being managed properly, that the decision about project breakdown is purely acedemic.
I have found myself watching the old televison series “The thick of it” to escape the minute by minute contradictions of our government, and try and remember when I thought that this fiction represented poor government.
🙂
And thanks for the article David
Option 2 for the Irish border is known in the EU as the “Narnia Option”
Geoff says:
“Option 2 for the Irish border is known in the EU as the “Narnia Option””
I guess it’s a generational thing. They probably didn’t read Alice.
Read JK Rowling now, to understand politics in the next generation. ‘Pottering about’ could develop a whole new level of respectability in the chambers of power.