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Tories and IT procurement: headline-grabbing opportunism

Francis Maude has made the bold statement that the Tories will ban IT projects that cost over £100m. It looks good in the headlines. He said:

“Labour’s IT procurement process has been marked by a catalogue of failures, late deliveries and cost overruns.

“We need a freeze on signing up to yet more failed projects.”

You can read the full story in the Telegraph by following this link.

A week is clearly a long time in Tory politics.

On December 22  I blogged about the £5bn proposal by Lord Hanningfield‘s Tory administration in Essex to hand over the running of services it is unable to provide effectively itself to IBM. You can remind yourself of the story here.

Contrast the Tories’ willingness to talk tough on cash limits on  IT projects at the centre (probably quite sensible knowing how badly some of them have failed), with their example in local government in Essex. Unlike other local authorities, Essex are off-loading services that they clearly believe they are no longer capable of delivering. It strikes me as a comprehensive admission of political failure to deliver. If Maude’s boast is to have any credibility, the sheer untested lunacy of Hanningfield’s project demands robust intervention from Cameron et al.

Just as irresponsible spending on projects in Whitehall needs clamping down on, so local authorities, including Tory Essex, should not receive carte blanche to experiment with innovative IT projects at vast public expense.

Headline-grabbing opportunism is one thing. Dealing with your own IT cowboys is something entirely different.

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Tory-run Essex County Council becomes Cameron’s sandbox

IBM takes on services in Essex as part of £5bn privatisation deal

It is one of those headlines that makes you wonder where on earth it will lead. I’ve spent the past hour wondering if my immediate Tweet in response was over the top and a misinterpretation of what is going on:

Essex Tories begin revolutionary dismantling of public services – with Cameron’s full support

It wasn’t.

This is a deal that has the potential to fundamentally alter the nature of local government in England. A Cameron win in 2010 could see a revolution in the provision of local services that strangles political differentiation, subjugates community priorities to an ideology of technocratic efficiency – and all whilst reassuring voters that these changes are merely efficient and (of course) apolitical.

Superficially, the attraction is obvious.

Politicians are held in contempt on a national and local level. (Ironically, Lord Hanningfield bridges the gap between the national expenses scandal and the crisis in local service provision in extraordinary fashion, with reports that detectives have sent files to the Crown Prosecution Service alleging fraud, just at the point that Essex County Council, which he leads, is condemned for its appalling record on children’s services.) What better way to score a political victory than to tacitly acknowledge that distrust by placing the delivery of services in the hands of a non-political and widely-respected industry leader such as IBM?

IBM has considerable experience of public service delivery in Canada, as the Times article linked in the headline shows. There is an impressively detailed exposition of its objectives and relationship with Canadian public services in IBM’s paper Service Canada – A New Paradigm in Public Service Delivery. Even a cursory reading demonstrates that IBM’s engagement in Canada is very, very different to what is being reported has been agreed with Hanningfield. Prioritising 21st Century public service delivery in a mountainous, multi-lingual country, that is the second largest in the world, yet the ninth least densely populated, is rather different from the Essex experience (Langdon Hills may boast “one of the most astonishing prospects to be beheld“, but. let’s face it, we’re not exactly talking the Rockies here). Yet even with these laudable objectives, the project has attracted criticism on a variety of levels, for its effect on women, its impact on health care and even concerns for national security. (A google search consisting of “public services” “wholesale privatization” and “canada” is revealing.)

I have no ideological objection to the delivery of public services through the private sector. I believe that the well-considered and appropriate out-sourcing of services and the importation of industry best practice have led to genuine improvements in service. The key to its success is the accountability that comes from having contracts that are carefully scrutinised, regularly reviewed and competitively tendered for.

At the same time, I am very conscious that public services are exactly that: services provided to the public by authorities that should be transparent, prepared for detailed scrutiny and, ultimately, held to account. There is a balance to be struck and the job of local politicians is to strike that balance, serving the needs of those they represent as best they can. Those in opposition draw attention to deficiencies in current services and offer an alternative programme for local priorities.

Ultimately, the people who pay for and use those services decide who they want in charge.

Hanningfield’s wheeling and dealing should send a chill through anyone who still places a value on choice, transparency, accountability, competition and social justice. Companies like IBM don’t invest in technological infrastructure to run services for a couple of years. They expect to be the partner of choice for many. The contract we are told is for eight – well beyond the date of the next County Council elections. And as many will have noticed,  it is measurably harder to extract detailed information from private sector partners, council officers nervously explaining that such information is restricted due to the need to observe commercial confidentiality (actually it isn’t, a lot of the time, but that’s another story).

Couple the Essex example with Tory-run Barnet’s attempts to experiment with ‘no-frills’ local government services – two-tier services that lead to extra charges or rebates depending on how much you need them – and everyone involved in the political conversation of the country should take note:

The Cameron revolution is under way before a single vote has been cast and it shows every sign so far of being as ideological, divisive and destructive as Thatcher’s.

We in Essex and Barnet may be living in Cameron’s sandbox today, but the results of these experiments could inform the local services of everyone tomorrow – for years and year to come.

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“Right to Buy” and the strange death of the New Town concept

Tim Montgomerie has tweeted that today is the 30th anniversary of the Right to Buy Scheme introduced by Margaret Thatcher.  There is no doubt in my mind that it is a policy that has fundamentally altered the shape and original purpose of the New Town concept, creating something of an identity crisis for these sprawling conurbations which local politicians of all parties are struggling to overcome. As suppliers of social housing on enormous scales, the New Towns, like Basildon, were inspired by the concept of  Garden Cities, in a time when big government still believed it could socially engineer society. The New Towns Act was passed in 1946 and, between then and 1970, 21 New Towns were built. In a glorious piece of propaganda, the Central Office of Information attempted to explain the concept of these sustainable living areas in an informative cartoon about an ordinary bloke called Charley:

Many of the concepts are eerily prescient in an era when we are concerned with carbon footprints and quality leaving spaces. It’s important to remember, however, that the New Towns are entirely artificial. Unlike other villages, towns and cities, the New Towns had no historic focal point to draw people together. Indeed, in most cases, a huge amount of effort was put into destroying the character and history of the original area, instead of building in sympathy with it. This parliamentary exchange from 1954, between Mr Bernard Braine (as he was then) and Sir Thomas Dugdale reveals how pressure for development land was paramount. In Basildon, this has led to local people asking serious questions about the origins of the place they live in and fighting hard to save what little remains of the pre-New Town identity (e.g. the efforts of the Chalvedon Hall Community Group).

When places are shiny and new, they are usually attractive places to live. However, a home, in its broadest understanding, is not just the fabric of the building – it is the infrastructure that supports a community: roads, utilities and recreational facilities amongst others. The prospect of a new home and services beyond the imagining must have seemed incredible to those leaving the bomb-shattered ruins of the East End. However, with the provision of social housing on unprecedented scales as the foundation of the New Town, it seems obvious with hindsight that  “Right to Buy” would have an enormous effect on their purpose and future expansion.

Don’t get me wrong: “Right to Buy” and its promotion of home ownership encapsulates a fundamentally liberal aspiration. I wouldn’t suggest turning back the clock. However, by encouraging the social housing stock to be sold off, without permitting local authorities to use the proceeds of sale to provide new social housing,  Thatcher effectively destroyed this visionary concept of confident, sustainable communities.  On a social level, the gap between those who could afford to buy and those who could not became immediately visible in the heart of local communities.  On a planning level, physical expansion was required to attempt to meet the needs of those who had been promised a home but for whom there were few council properties available.

Skip forward thirty years and look at the situation of the New Towns now.

Just as they were built at a similar time, their infrastructure is coming to the end of its life at the same time. What would have been an incredible headache for local and national government in any event has been exacerbated by the pressure placed on New Town roads, services and utilities. Doctors surgeries overflow, roads and footpaths crumble, drains and pipes block and burst as capacity is exceeded – and new development encroaches more and more onto the green belts that were designated to provide recreational relief from the urban environment, preserve the distinct identity of urban communities and retain a much-needed connection to our environment. There is a danger in the South East, with regional initiatives such as the Thames Gateway redevelopment, that towns and villages may simply disappear into an anonymous morass of urban sprawl. Government risks failing again to grasp that communities are self-determining and not engineered, spending vast quantities of taxpayers’ money on enormous and totemic projects instead of stimulating the local economy by assuring the basic fabric of the places in which we already live.

“Right to Buy” is not to blame for the ills of the New Town. However, just as we can appreciate the liberation of the individual and the creation of opportunities to satisfy aspiration that it represented, so we should recognise that the fundamental mistakes of its implementation, driven by Thatcher’s peculiarly ideological politics, have contributed significantly to the difficulties faced by local government in sustaining these enormous and artificial conurbations. More importantly, and regardless of government (local and national), the fact that local communities are determined to preserve their past is a reassuring demonstration of the hunger of local people to know and own the identity of the wider space in which they live.

If you are interested in the campaign to save Great Chalvedon Hall, please contact Gary on greatchalvedonhall@hotmail.co.uk who will be able to let you know how you can help.

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UPDATE: Of snow, roads and hopeless Tory County Council incompetence

They’ve gritted. After two days. And 6″.

On Twitter this would be tagged #toryfail.

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Of snow, roads and hopeless Tory County Council incompetence

I woke yesterday morning to the stunning sight of snow lying on the fields of the Lincolnshire Wolds. It had been barely more than a dusting when I had looked out of the window on the previous evening. The snow was thick on the road, too. The A16 snakes viciously past the village of Swaby, racing past the small row of houses where Em’s family live and on towards Louth. 4″ of snow is quite a sight:

Snow on the A16, Dec 19 2009

But hang on a minute. The A16 is the main road between Boston and Grimsby. It is the sort of rural A-road that wannabe Colin McRaes careen around in lunatic fashion, dodging the articulated lorries that stream steadily from end to end. It is the sort of rural A-road that Lincolnshire County Council have quite sensibly designated as a “Red Route”. What is a Red Route? It’s a road where there is a higher than average chance that you might get to answer some of life’s more profound questions should you be behind the wheel of a car. Particularly if your latest X-Box 360° or iPhone fix is Need for Speed™ SHIFT.

You can read more about Red Routes here on a page of the Lincolnshire County Council’s website reassuringly subtitled “A survival guide to Lincolnshire’s roads”. Apparently, car users represent a far higher proportion of those casualties recorded as KSI (Killed and Seriously Injured)  in Lincolnshire – a frightening  64%, compared to the national average of 46%.  If you are interested, you can read more about it here.

So. Red Routes. Dangerous. Particularly at speed.

Here – for the benefit of Lincolnshire’s Tory County Councillors – are some elementary facts about snow and its effects. It is usually forecast by the Met Office. It makes roads slippery. Slippery roads are dangerous roads. Red Route roads are dangerous roads that get a whole lot more dangerous.

So why is it that the cretins at County Hall (Lincolnshire) have yet to chuck a single piece of grit on sections of the A16 marked out as accident hot spots?

After last year and “The Great Grit Crisis” of 2008, you might expect a County Council that is looking out for the welfare of local residents, and which has access to the BBC Weather like the rest of us, to be a little quicker off the mark with the gritters than never. However, it was only after frustrated police demanded a snow plough be sent out that the A16 became vaguely usable.

As I am writing, with temperatures well below freezing, I hear the occasional rumble of wary drivers trundling past on the snow-covered unlit A16. I have yet to hear the reassuring rattle of a gritter. The prospect of the complacent uselessness of Lincolnshire County Council writ large if Cameron’s Tories win power at Westminster is truly frightening.

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