[Am-info] Benefits system hit by IT chaos

[Erick Andrews]

You gotta laugh at this.  Maybe it should have been titled
"The (not so) Hidden Cost of Windows", or "Putting All Your
Eggs in One Basket".

http://society.guardian.co.uk/internet/story/0,8150,1360162,00.html

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80,000 staff affected in latest computer failure

Kevin Maguire Friday November 26, 2004

The Guardian

Pension and benefit payments face disruption after what is being
described as the biggest computer crash in government history left
as many as 80,000 civil servants staring at blank screens and
reverting to writing out giro cheques by hand in the latest blow
to a hi-tech Whitehall revolution.

  [A giro is a note telling a financial institution to transfer money 
   from one account to another.  -- EA]

A week-long crisis in the giant Department for Work and Pensions
created a backlog of unprocessed claims with up to 80% of the
ministry's 100,000 desk machines disrupted or knocked out by a
blunder during maintenance.

Engineers battling to fix the problem last night claimed 95% were
functioning fully again as they prepared to reboot the entire
network after offices closed to the public.

Alan Johnson, the work and pensions secretary, has ordered an
internal inquiry into the role of Microsoft and the American
contractors EDS, who run the ministry's network as part of a œ2bn
information technology deal.

The disruption is the latest in a line of government technology
failures and follows last week's resignation of the head of the
Child Support Agency, part of Mr Johnson's empire, after the
disastrous introduction of an EDS system contributed to only one
in eight parents receiving the correct amount.

The DWP said some new and amended benefit claims this week would
be delayed but it sought to play down the impact of the technology
problems, pointing out that the department's mainframe computers
were not affected.

But internal DWP correspondence seen by the Guardian, backed up by
interviews with staff, appears to contradict public assertions
that the disruption was minimal and most of the system continued
operating normally.

A "major incident report" distributed on Monday warned of "major
problems", with hourly updates issued to senior managers by fax or
telephone because email on the department's intranet was blocked.

The DWP established a "crisis management centre" to resolve the
problems, with Microsoft troubleshooters flown in from mainland
Europe to join a high-level team including EDS technicians.

A memo circulated yesterday within jobcentres said 30% of problems
could be eased by today with "a full solution potentially taking
another 24-48 hours", and the difficulties running into the
weekend.

"At this point there is no known solution or ETA," said the memo.
"We are hopeful that some interim measures that are being
considered may release some users from their current deadlock."

A routine software upgrade on a small number of PCs last weekend
is believed to have gone disastrously wrong when an incompatible
system was downloaded on to the whole network.

The DWP said last night that progress had been swifter than
expected, insisting contingency plans had worked.

"Pens came back out and in many cases hot desking was used," said
a senior official.  "The problem was quite random so you could
potentially be sitting down at one desk and your mate next door
couldn't access the system."

Trade union leaders called on ministers to drop plans to cut
40,000 jobs in the DWP and a total of 104,000 civil servants
across the government following the computer crisis.

Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial
Services Union, said:  "Just when you thought it couldn't get any
worse after the experiences of the CSA we have what can only
described as near-meltdown with IT across the whole of the DWP.

"Yet again we are seeing thousands of hardworking staff, many of
whom face the axe, trying to deliver essential services with one
hand tied behind their back.

"The department and the government are hellbent on axing thousands
of civil and public servants, saying IT will enable them to do so,
but yet again we are seeing IT systems come to a grinding halt and
fail.

"For the government and the department to contemplate axing
thousands of jobs when the IT clearly isn't delivering is not only
irresponsible and foolhardy, but some would argue pure madness."

Texas-based EDS has already seen œ12.1m withheld by the government
from an ill-fated œ450m CSA project.  Mr Johnson is said to be
considering scrapping the contract.

Labour has spent some œ1.5bn on over-budget or scrapped computer
projects, many inherited from the Conservatives, prompting
National Audit Office reports.

The Swanwick air traffic control centre, due to open in 1996 at a
cost of œ475m, started six years late and œ180m over-budget, while
œ300m was spent on a scheme, later scrapped, to use plastic cards
to pay benefits via post offices.

EDS failed to get an Inland Revenue contract renewed after
complaints about its work.

Keith Wylie, a PCS national officer, said:  "I cannot remember a
crash this big."

He added:  "It's a massive failure and unless it's fixed quickly
it's going to result in significant delays in benefits being paid
out.  If it was two years down the line and those 40,000 staff had
been lost, there would have been no one to write out the giros."

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-- 
Erick Andrews