Government Computing - A Sorry Tale

There's lots of talk on Facebook regarding another recent weekend update to the N-delius computer system leading to massive problems. In addition, these comments came in recently on the blog:-

At this present moment in time I really don't give a flying toss who goes into Parliament as long as someone in government whether male or female sorts out this shitty IT system within the CRCs before I really loose it! Talk about crap where do they buy the licenses and equipment, from Poundland?!

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It system's that are not fit for purpose, being unable to put entries on the systems will lead to mistakes.

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You're closer to the truth than you think! I'm ex-probation IT, so I have the answer to this - you were (and most probably still are!) using Lotus for email as NOMS would buy massive amounts of licences at knock-down prices because they were buying the obsolete version that wasn't even being supported anymore, you were using Internet Explorer 6 (donkeys years old) for a browser as they couldn't figure a way of making their software work with never version, CRAMS because they sunk so much money into it they are probably still paying the bill, and OASys because it was compatible with the (as previously mentioned obsolete) Lotus Notes. I bet you're all still using Windows XP too (which Microsoft don't support anymore).

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No Lotus notes has gone and been replaced with something far worse.

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Still got Lotus notes in NPS!

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My colleague was unable to log on all day because the portal had reached maximum warp speed! Told him you have to get to work for 8am to guarantee getting logged in! Not great if you have kids to drop off at school! Meanwhile we are fighting over the one private interview room...' my service user has social phobia and paranoia...well, mine wants to talk about assaulting his partner...mine tends to shout and tap loudly on the table due to ADHD'. Who is more worthy? We all make a dash for it and the rest sit in the open plan area with the general public! Welcome to the modern age, this is TR, inclusive style!

--oo00oo--

Those with long memories will remember the vast amount of money that was wasted on the failed C-Nomis computer system that was supposed to connect the prison and probation service IT systems. The sad fact is that the government always says it wants savings in public services and then blows the lot, and more, on computer systems that fail. Here's details of the latest (ok I know it's Scotland, but it's the same story down here) on a very informative blog site called Campaign4Change:-

Another public sector IT project disaster – but a useful failure if lessons are disseminated

Government Computing reported on 1 July 2016 that the Scottish Police Authority has agreed with Accenture to end their “i6” programme. It’s a classic public sector IT project disaster. It failed for the usual reasons (see below). What marks it out is the unusual post-failure approach: a limited openness. Police in Scotland and the Scottish Government plan a review of what went wrong, which is likely to be published.

Usually senior civil and public servants in Whitehall, local government in England and Wales and the NHS rush to shut the blinds when an IT-enabled change project goes awry, which is what has happened recently after failures of the GP Support Services contract with Capita. [GP magazine Pulse reports that NHS England is to withhold report on primary care support problems until 2017.]

The police in Scotland and the Scottish Parliament are being open but not completely. Their settlement with Accenture remains confidential, but the Scottish Police Authority has published the full business case for i6 and – under FOI – early “Gateway” reviews and “Healthcheck” reports, though with quite a few redactions.

Despite FOI, it’s almost unknown for Whitehall, the NHS or local government in England and Wales, to publish Gateway reviews of big IT projects. All this means there may be a genuine attempt in Scotland to learn lessons from the failure of the i6 project, and perhaps even let the public sector as a whole benefit from them (if it’s interested),

Due originally to go live last December, and then in the autumn this year, i6 hit problems within months of the start of the contract with Accenture. The contract was signed in June 2013, work started in July and the two sides were reported as being in mediation by August 2013.

Exemplar?

But the programme had followed well-established preparatory routines. One internal report described the procurement approach as an exemplar for the rest of the public sector. Yet it still ended in failure.

In fact i6 followed the classic script of a traditional public sector IT-based project disaster:

1. An over-ambitious plan for widespread “integration” – which is one of the most dangerous words in the history of public sector IT-enabled change projects. It seemed a great idea at the time: to save vast sums by bringing together in a single system similar things done in different ways by formerly separate organisations.
2. A variety of early independent reports that highlighted risks and strengths of the programme but didn’t ask the biggest question of all: could a single national system ever work satisfactorily given the amount of organisational change required – changes that would impose on the system design constant modification as end-users discovered new things they wanted and didn’t want that were in the original design – and changes that would require a large team on the police side to have the time to understand the detail and convey it accurately to Accenture.
3. An assumption that the supplier would be able to deliver an acceptable system within tight deadlines in a fast-changing environment.
4. Milestones that were missed amid official denials that the project was in disarray.
5. An agreement to end the contract that was on the basis of a secret settlement, which brought little or no accountability for the failure. Nobody knows how much has been spent on the project in staff and managerial time, hiring of various consultancies, the commissioning of various reports, and money paid over to the supplier.

What are the lessons?

The 10-year programme, which was said to cost between £40m and £60m, was ambitious. It was supposed to replace 135 IT-and paper-based systems across Scotland with a single national integrated system that would be rolled out to all Police Scotland divisions.

A “Gateway review” of the project in March 2013 said the project involved the “largest organisagtional change in the history of Scottish policing”. The released documents have much praise for the police’s preparatory work on the contract with Accenture. Private consultants were involved as the technical design authority. Deloitte was hired for additional support. There were regular “healthcheck” and Gateway reviews.

Too ambitious?

Bringing together dozens of systems and paper-based processes into a new standardised system that’s supposed to work across a variety of business units, requires – before a single new server is installed – agreement over non-IT changes that are difficult in practice to achieve. It’s mainly a business-change project rather than an IT one. The business case promised “Full interoperability, of processes and technology, at local and national level.” Was that ever really possible?

The disastrous Raytheon/Home Office e-borders project was a similar classic public sector project failure based on “integration”. Although it was a much bigger project and far more complex than i6, it followed similar principles: a new national system that would replace a patchwork of different systems and business processes.

Raytheon could not force change on end-users who did not want change in the way Raytheon envisaged. The Home Office wasted hundreds of millions on the project, according to the National Audit Office which said,

“During the period of the e-borders programme the Department made unrealistic assumptions about programme delivery without recognising the importance of managing a diverse range of stakeholders.

“Delivering the e-borders vision requires that more than 600 air, ferry and rail carriers supply data on people they are bringing in and out of the country, while around 30 government agencies supply data on persons of interest.

“During the e-borders period, the contract made Raytheon responsible for connecting e-borders to these stakeholders’ systems, under the Department’s strategic direction. But carriers and agencies expressed general concerns about the costs and other implications of revising their systems to connect to e-borders, including the interfaces they were expected to use.

“The contract strongly incentivised Raytheon to deliver the roll-out to the agreed schedules but provided less incentive for Raytheon to offer a wider choice of interfaces…Lack of clarity on what was legal under European law further exacerbated the difficult relationships with carriers. These difficulties affected progress in rolling out e-borders from the outset…

“Following the cancellation of the e-borders contract in 2010, the Department [Home Office] took more direct ownership of external relationships instead of working through Raytheon. Transport carriers told us there is now a better understanding of needs and requirements between themselves and the Department.”

The NHS National Programme for IT [NPfIT] was another similar failure, in part because of overly ambitious plans for “integration” – on a scale that could never be imposed on a diverse range of largely autonomous NHS organisations. Some hospitals and GPs did not want a national system that did less than their existing systems. Why would they want to replace their own proven IT with cruder standardised systems for the sake of the common good?

More recently the GP support services contract with Capita has run into serious problems largely because of an overly ambitious objective of replacing fragmented ways of working with a national “common good” system. A Capita spokesperson said of the new system: ‘NHS England asked Capita to transform what was a locally agreed, fragmented primary care support service, to a national standardised system.”

It’s naïve for politicians and senior public servants to view integration as a public benefit without questioning its necessity in the light of the huge risks. [Mao Tsedong saw the Great Leap Forward as a public benefit. It was a costly catastrophe, in human and financial terms.]

Disputes over whether proposals would meet actual needs?

It appears that i6 officials found Accenture’s solutions unconvincing; but it’s likely Accenture found that requirements were growing and shifting, leading to disagreements over varying interpretations of different parts of the contract. Accenture could not compel cooperation by various forces even it wanted to.

It may work elsewhere – but that doesn’t mean it’ll work for you. This is one of the oldest lessons from countless disaster in the history of the IT industry. It was listed as a key factor in some of the world’s biggest IT disasters in “Crash”.

The business case for i6 says:

“The [Accenture] solution is based on a system delivered to 80,000 officers in the Guardia Civil, Spain’s national police force.

“The procured solution includes software components, software licences, specialist hardware, integration tools and services, business change activities, implementation services, reporting capabilities, data management activities, ongoing support, optional managed service arrangements, additional integration services and other relevant services necessary for the successful implementation of the solution.”

Is it wise to promise huge savings many times greater than projected costs?

Clearly i6 is a political scheme. It’s easy in the public sector to declare at the outset any amount of anticipated savings when it’s clear to everyone that the actual audited savings – or losses – will probably never be announced.

Initial costs were put at £12m, but later revisions put the cost nearer to £46m. More recently costs of £60m have been reported. In 2013, cashable savings to be made by developing i6 were said to be over £61m, with the total cashable and non-cashable savings estimated to be £218m over ten years. That said, the police appear to have paid over relatively small sums to Accenture, not tens of millions of pounds.

Lessons from past failures have been learned – really?

The Scottish Police Authority gave an unequivocal assurance to its members in June 2013 that i6 will “not suffer the same fate as other high profile large scale IT projects”. This is what the Authority said to its members,

“Delivery Assurance – SPA [Scottish Police Authority] members have sought and been provided with significant assurance that the i6 programme will deliver the intended outcomes and not suffer the same fate as other high profile large scale IT projects.

“The robustness and diligent detail that has gone into the full business case itself provides much of that assurance. Further delivery confidence around i6 comes from a number of sources including:

1. Rigorous Programme Governance.
2. Widespread User Engagement and Robust Requirements Gathering.
3. The creation of a ‘live’ multi-sector i6 Learning Network.
4. The formation of strategic partnership groups.
5. Alignment to the wider Scottish Government Digital Strategy.
6. Active learning from the Audit Scotland Review of Public Sector IT Projects and the Common Performance Management Project (‘Platform’).
7. Significant time and investment in the use of Competitive Dialogue.
8. The formation of a strong and consistent programme team with integrated professional advice & support.
9. Exposure to the full independent OGC Gateway Review Process.
10. An independent Scottish Government Technical Assurance Review.

A growing list of changes.

In February 2016 Accenture said, “This is a very complex project. The complexity of the solution, which has been driven by the client, has increased significantly over the last two years.” This suggests the scope and specification grew as the many different stakeholders gradually formed a view of what they wanted.

Criticism of the supplier, as if it were the only party responsible or delivering the system.

Police Scotland told members of the Scottish Parliament in February 2016 that Accenture has let the police down. One question auditors may ask is whether it would have been better for local policing divisions to keep control of their own IT.

Internal reviews too soft, too reassuring?

A technical assurance review in June 2013 gave the i6 project an “amber/green” status. A secret settlement leaves taxpayers having no clue of how much money has gone down the drain. The Scottish Police Authority says the settlement is confidential. “The terms of the agreement are commercially confidential. However we can confirm that the settlement results in no financial detriment to the police budget.”

The current police budget may not be affected but how much has already been paid and how much of this is wasted? If no figures are ever given, how can there be proper accountability that could deter a new set of officials making similar mistakes in a future project?

Doomsday Register?

If the public sector kept a published “Doomsday” register of failed projects and programmes and the mistakes made in them, as identified by auditors, the same mistakes would be less likely to be repeated. Perhaps i6 could be the first entry into a new Doomsday register.

The future’s looking bright (?).

When a project is cancelled, it’s almost inevitable that the consequences will be declared to be minimal; and we’re all left wondering why the project was needed in the first place if the future is so rosy.

Half the story

As things stand, when a council, police, NHS, or Whitehall project fails and millions of pounds, sometimes tens of millions, even billions, are lost, there’s no incentive for anyone but taxpayers to care – and even then they don’t know half the story.

In the case of i6, once the settlement with Accenture is finalised – with hardly anyone knowing the details – officialdom is free to embark on a similar project in a few years time, with different people involved, and describing it in a different way. Who cares when the public sector has another IT disaster that follows an age-old script?

Project summary

The i6 project was introduced to merge more than 130 different computer and paper systems left in place after eight regional forces were merged to form Police Scotland. Police Scotland told MSPs in February that they were looking at contingency options because they could not solve scores of faults that had emerged during testing.

Officers involved in the tests said at one point they had found 12 critical errors that made it unusable, and a total of 76 defects that required further work. Accenture said in February that i6 passed its internal testing but flaws emerged when Police Scotland tested the programme.

The Guardian reports on another IT-enabled project problems in Scotland.

“Scottish ministers have already been forced to seek an extension from the European commission after its new £178m farming payments system had to be dramatically scaled back and failed to meet an EU deadline. There have been significant delays and cost rises too in a new call-handling and IT system for NHS Scotland’s telephone advice service, NHS 24, which has not yet become operational. Its budget has risen by 55% to nearly £118m, and it is four years late.”

Scottish Police Authority and Accenture terminate i6 contract – Government Computing

Post Sentence Assessment - Trojan Horse?

Yet again this blog throws up a fascinating discussion, this time on the West Yorkshire initiative called 'Post Sentence Assessment'. I first heard about this in 2012 and started to write about it, but it ended up languishing in a long-forgotten corner of the laptop, until today that is. This is what I was going to say about it back then:-

I was recently alerted to some discussion on the NAPO forum pages concerning an interesting sentencing initiative 'Post Sentence Assessment' up there in West Yorkshire. I'm told that the recent NAPO conference in York was treated to a workshop by their Director of Operations Mark Siddall who made a fleeting appearance at the tail end and thus was sadly unable to take a more active part in proceedings.

It seems that during a somewhat pedestrian powerpoint presentation he was nevertheless able to offer some fascinating insights into how he took on both the senior judges of Leeds and Bradford in a 'he who dares wins' encounter over dinner. Referring to 'eye watering' exchanges with the judges, he apparently quoted 'chapter and verse' when they suggested that what was being proposed might not be legal. If true, a particularly risky strategy at the best of times I would have thought. He reported that both the Ministry of Justice and NOMS had concerns also, but the scheme has been running since January and of course if it delivers as promised, shall we say it does nicely accord with government policy, whether it's strictly legal or not. 

Well of course things have moved on considerably and clearly West Yorkshire felt they'd struck gold because I'm told they tried to sell their brilliant idea to other bemused Trusts, but with no success. By the way, even though Mark Siddall seems to be very happy taking all the credit for the wheeze, I'm also told that it wasn't his brainwave at all, but rather that of Sarah Jarvis who left for pastures new over the Pennines shortly afterwards.

Interestingly, another source tells me that when Jeremy Wright paid a visit to West Yorkshire he latched onto PSA straight away and could immediately see how it could be a key part of the TR omnishambles. So, well done West Yorks!

Anyway, I'm not going to say much more on a subject I know little about and will let the comment thread from yesterday take up the story:-

I'd just like to make a mention of what someone put as a comment on yesterday's blog. It is regarding West Yorkshire's Post Sentence Assessment. What I understand there is that instead of having a year's Supervision Requirement, say, they are proposing something like a 20 day Specified Activity Requirement and expecting offenders to attend 20 times within the 12 months of the Community Order. 

The problem I have heard, loud and clear, is that most of these Orders are ended without the Days actually being completed. Indeed many Orders have very few 'Days' completed because people don't get on programmes or groups and aren't seen when they are on waiting lists, or just aren't suitable for working in groups, or don't turn up. An FOI request would be interesting to help clarify the evidence, but I hear that senior managers have as much as admitted this and blamed front line staff. 

The problem for any privateers if working this way would be if they then tried to close the case on NDelius at the 12 month mark and took payment, they would be open to claims of fraud in the same way that Serco are now on tagging contracts. In fact, I think the way that PSA is structured makes this almost inevitable. If West Yorkshire's way becomes a cornerstone of TR through the creation of Rehabilitation Activity Requirements the future is perilous for private companies. Much better for them to have Supervision and Programme Requirements.

In my mind, any such contracted PSA system in private hands would lead to high levels of media scrutiny, reputational damage and possible criminal investigation. Let's face it, we can't currently end 200 hours of UPW when only 130 had been completed. To claim the 200 hours would be fraud, so the future of contracts looks very troubled indeed if government and companies go down this route.

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But if WY aren't completing Orders, shouldn't we know how much or how many are being completed? This would give a baseline of what existing staff can provide and give contractors an idea of how much performance they would need to add to meet their contracts? Am I missing something here? Sounds like an FOI request to me.

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You need to read up on the Rehabilitation Activity Requirement in the Offender Rehabilitation Bill. In effect this signals the end of court imposed specified activities, giving all the discretion to the CRC provider to determine the programme of supervision. 

A successful completion will be getting to the end of the order, not completing the actual number of days which are simply set as a maximum. This does not affect unpaid work or treatment requirements. This is supposed to free up the new providers to do what works for rehabilitation.

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The WY PSA model, was I think, an early attempt to shape CRC work. Community Orders for whatever period may have 15 activity days, 30, 50 or 60. Nothing in between. It is true that Supervision as a Requirement, is not actively sought in the majority of cases, generally reserved for Sexual Offenders and DV cases; who continue to get fairly long periods on a Community Order, coupled with interventions such as NSOG (60) or Building Better Relationships (50) both High Activity Requirements, or Safer Relationships (30).

The low/med risk cases complete their activity days, based on Post Sentence Assessment and may include; 8 x OB groupwork sessions (Action for Change) 2 x Victim Awareness Module, 6 x ETE sessions, 10 x sessions with a drug/alcohol support group/intervention, or Hate Crime Module, Drink Driving Group etc etc. I'm sure you get the idea. Once the sessions/activity days are complete you can terminate the case - it is done, as there is no supervision activity to continue for the full 12 months. SSSO, Curfews, AC's and UPW can stand alone.

There are however serious administration issues associated with the PSA which WY are trying to get sorted. The original idea was to reduce the number of 1-1 supervision orders, that is for sure. However, to monitor the system, you need to record, contacts etc under the right line in NDelius and this is easier said than done. You need a procedure, that everyone buys into and fully understands; and it assumes other partner organisations etc will give you information re: attendance etc. 

A major problem of PSA, from my perspective is that there are not enough activities running in order to get clients through their court orders, quickly, whilst motivation remains high and if there is no supervision, you lose people. Long, very long waiting lists for Sex Offender Treatment, for instance means that more of what would be group work or interventions work, is having to be done by OM's and in my view being put onto 'pathways' to treatment, which are driven by numbers, as opposed to the appropriateness of the clients passage into treatment. For example, rather than do a core programme, OM's do the initial 4 sessions and the men, as they are men, are fast tracked into Better Lives, or Relapse Prevention, whatever you want to call it. 

It is/was a brave attempt to focus attention, provide a wide variety of interventions and to retain the respect of the judiciary, but just because they have done away with National Standards in favour of professional judgement and desistence, the staff resources to run programmes, groups etc are just not there. 

WYT are getting tough on staff, printing off charts to demonstrate failings in recording etc which may reflect badly on PSA, but in reality, the performance charts are artificial, as the monitoring system makes no allowances for things we cannot actually achieve, with the best will in the world and so all it does is demoralise staff.

Now if you fling all this into the mix of Crams to delius, new templates for everything, r-oasys, all of which are still throwing up all kinds of glitches, and TR on top....I am surprised WY staff have battled on, or maybe we are just ahead of the game, and things can hardly get any worse.

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You put in a lot of detail in there, and I kind of followed it (some of it), and thanks for trying to explain it. But doesn't all the evidence suggest that it is one to one work and relationships that makes the difference? Not groups, activities and blunt interventions? That is my experience and I think it's the message of desistance research. Sounds like you are trying to get square pegs in round holes...that surely is a very expensive route to failure. Maybe a Freedom of Information request might prove or disprove that?.

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Sounds reminiscent of a work fare type scenario whereby a schedule of tasks was presented to the claimant by the PbR agency to facilitate eligibility for benefits. The catch? It was never achievable. Not meeting the criteria led to sanction, whereas anyone claiming to have completed all the tasks was sanctioned (& in some cases referred for prosecution) for fraud. The financial benefit to the agency was its success in detecting fraudulent claims, a prized criteria worth more than being successful with the client.

The wiles of the cash hungry are beyond our wildest imaginations. And even holier-than-thou MPs like Blunkett take the shilling.

Maybe we pay a retainer to our most innovative clients in return for ideas as to how to maximise profit in the shark infested world of dodgy business?

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I started the thread re WYPT and 'PSA'. I am guessing that anon at 20:57 is currently employed by the same Trust . .too much inside information to be an outsider. My aim was not to educate re 'Activity Requirements' . . you'll all get that soon enough! but more to highlight the extent to which senior management has colluded with MOJ in the whole process of TR.

Vast resources, both staff and finance, have been pumped into making sure PSA is up and running. Alongside this similar resources have been used to make a 'Mutual' bid for the CRC. 'PSA' had been in the planning for months before roll out and needed the authority from Judges in the WY area. Similarly specialist 'low risk' teams were created and PSO's were recruited on temporary contracts specifically to manage low risk service - users.
 
I sat in a briefing with Mark Siddall (ops director) as far back as Jan 2012 when he was actively promoting PSA / Activity Req's as the future . . .we would be experts in delivery....we should be careful as to whom we shared our knowledge . . .we would be needed to deliver the model to other areas . . .and yes . . .we would be able to sell our expertise.
 
I'm now getting to my point! How did he know all this so long ago? Given that this whole thing was his baby, recognition at Buck Palace etc; why, just when he could bathe in all its glory, does he decide to take early retirement? Why did Sue Hall accept a senior position with CRC only to pull out days later ?

Something doesn't add up. People know more than they are telling. Please will at least one CEO or the like, spill the beans. It will inevitably "come out in the wash" but timing could be crucial.

Just to finish . . .all this gratis TR preparation work in W. Yorks was done with the full knowledge of both NAPO and Unison. I was sat next to my Union rep in the very briefing I refer to above!

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I read about WYPT with interest but can't help feeling you should be looking to Durham and Teesside Trust for the forerunner for the CRC model. All offenders complete the 10 session (but could take up to 16 with reviews) Citizenship Programme with the OM either PO or PSO grade dependent on ROH. They then pass onto a CSS officer (not Tier 4, MAPPA, CP or DV cases) who is a PSO grade and can hold 100 cases, there are examples of this. Supervision can then include using bulk reporting centres staffed by volunteers (yes truly).

I bet the MOJ have watched this model with interest. I hear practitioners were very concerned about the Citizenship Programme but it was imposed with a very tight fist by the exec team. No-one gets to know their offenders they are simply processed and then move on. When their Chief Exec also became Cumbria's Chief he tried to impose this model on them but as he was less influential there - not having appointed the exec team himself - it did not happen. This model has been running in Durham for three years so there is a lot of data on it available.

Delius Road-tested

In amongst the astounding news that Home Secretary Theresa May is going to abolish the lamentable United Kingdom Border Agency due to woefully poor performance, I spotted this interesting revelation:- 

In other changes, Home Office permanent secretary Mark Sedwill has been asked to revamp its "inadequate" IT systems

So that makes another government department with a crap IT system! There have been some monumental IT failures in recent years both at the Home Office and Ministry of Justice, including our very own aborted C-NOMIS intended as a universal case recording system. It didn't work, cost a fortune and each probation service opted for differing systems such as CRAMS, ICMS or Delius. 

With impending privatisation of probation, clearly someone at the MoJ thought a standard case recording system would be a good idea and it's intended to roll out nDelius (n for national) to all service's shortly. Clearly a reliable, universal and efficient IT system is crucial to the success of privatisation, so how's it doing? The following is one person's experience, and it doesn't look promising:-  

In a word `chaos.' No one knows what they are doing. For example, to add a contact you run a national search then when you have found the person you must not click on `add contact', No you have to click on `view' then contact log, then scroll right down to the bottom of the page and then you can click on the other `add contact' button and click click click again.

To make it more complicated the Delius page is designed for a wider screen so it does not fit on a square computer screen so you have to keep moving the page around to see what is in the corners. 

When making a contact you can only see 4 lines of what you are typing. Then when you have made a contact there is no button to add the next appointment, Oh no, you have to do the whole search again and programme the next appointment in, around 20 clicks of the mouse, it gives you repetitive strain injury.

If you want to send a letter, god help you, you might as well write it by hand as that would be quicker, I have been shown how to build a letter 4 times but still loose the letter every time. And if you dare to want to see a letter that has migrated over that is nearly impossible as all migrated documents are named, wait for it as `migrated documents', so unless you know the date you sent it you cannot find it. 

Then if you want to breach some one it is such a complicated process that only those with a PHD in computing science are able to do it. The OGRS score is hidden deep in the recess of events, and the actual order is not clearly shown. 

Flags are not clear and some DV perpetrators migrated over as DV victims! Caseloads are not accurate ie I had 40 cases pre Delius, but now appear to have 22, the 18 others have just migrated to random people who have had something to do with them at some time in the past. 

Delerius -  it is not fit for purpose and feels like we have been given a case record system from the eighties, Remember when you had to press all the function buttons? Beaumont Colson have a lot of work to do to get it more user-friendly. Lets hope they are paid lots for all their effort. 

The problems will be highlighted when there is an SFO and then the managers will have to try and decipher what has been going on with the case. Can't wait until you get it and see what you have to say.

Beaumont Colson are the designers of nDelius and this is what they say about it:-

In 2009 a new, national Delius system, was commissioned by the MoJ and BCL's development of this system was completed in late 2012.

The National Delius application is a browser based, national probation service case management system, designed to include the required probation business logic and appropriate security, and will be rolled-out across England and Wales during 2013.

A large part of the work in delivering National Delius has involved the preparation of migration tools - required to move existing legacy data from a number of different types of case management system. Current migration successes demonstrate our capacity to manage this activity through a standard, repeatable process. There is clear potential for these techniques to be applied in any project concerned with the mapping and movement of data between systems. 

No hint of any problems there. In the end history tells us that it's crap IT systems that often frustrate the aspirations of government, so it's as well all those prospective bidders for our work know what they are in for. Yes you guessed it guys, the IT really is crap. The system often 'crashes.' The servers can't cope. It's regularly on a 'go slow' and you regularly lose your work.

Sign the No10 petition here..  

A Moment's Reflection

Every now and then something happens to make you stop and reflect. I found myself walking through the big city recently on my way home. As with most cities, there are people begging and I was vaguely aware of a bundle sat on the pavement. As a strode past I momentarily caught his eye as he peered from beneath a baseball cap. By now several yards beyond him I suddenly realised he looked vaguely familiar. Could it really be the young man I'd supervised some 25 or more years previously as a very new Probation Officer?

He'd been one of my first cases when still living at home with his mother and truanting regularly. He wasn't getting into serious trouble but in those days we took on all sorts if the courts were worried about someone. He'd suffered years of abuse from a violent step-father and would often run away from home. He'd spent some time in childrens homes and run away from them too because of the bullying. I got to know him well over the following years as his contact with more criminally intent lads inevitably meant his offending increased.

I found him bright, pleasant and engaging, but hardly ever smiled. He's the only client to have ever given me a Christmas present, several pairs of socks in a gift basket I recall. During his first spell in YOI I remember his artistic flair really came to the fore and his reputation for pencil sketching meant he was in demand by inmates and prison staff alike eager to have their likenesses immortalised for friends and family. If I think about it now, this was the only time I saw this lad happy and content. He had real artistic ability which I remember envying enormously. 

Time moved on and I eventually found myself writing reports for Crown Court and visiting him in adult prison. I remember being devastated at hearing he'd tried to hang himself and during a subsequent episode of self harm had severed the tendons in his wrist. I know he's never sketched since. He moved away to the big city and my contact ended, but I admit I used to have a look on CRAMS now and then in order to see how he was doing. Invariably it was not good. Addicted to heroin and alcohol, he had become increasingly violent and time after time couldn't settle in hostels and so was pretty permanently on the streets.

When he eventually recognised me the other day he said he had just come out from an eighteen month stretch and in classic understatement volunteered that 'things aren't good at the moment.' If truth be known, things haven't been 'good' for this person for a very long time indeed. It never proved possible to get the expert psychological assessment and counselling that I always knew he needed. Such facilities where I work are almost non-existent. Now with virtually no teeth and resigned to life on the streets, I'm relieved to see he's still alive, but also reminded of a very uncomfortable fact. Pretty much his adult lifespan has mirrored my professional career, and to what effect? One of the hardest parts of this job is accepting sometimes not being able to make a damned difference no matter how hard you try.  

Oh For a Part B!

Regular readers will already be aware of the unbridled contempt I hold for OASys - the sheer length of the thing; the brain-numbing questions that seem to go on for ever; the resentment that you are wasting valuable time when you have loads of other things to do; the computer system crashing, locking up or just being plain 'unavailable' - you get the gist. But just possibly all this would be worthwhile if the finished article was useful, right? Wrong! I'm pretty confident the thing will never be read completely by anyone ever again, including the manager who will be counter-signing it - unless that is you are very unlucky and one of two events occur:-

Your client murders somebody.

It's the subject of audit or inspection.

In either case, you should check that your membership of NAPO is up-to-date and a sick note from your GP might be useful. Unless you are an extremely diligent officer, ideally blessed with the benefit of hindsight, forensic analysis of the completed OASys will reveal something you've not quite got right, or worse, haven't updated. Oh yes, I forget to mention that one of the real benefits of this system is that it can be updated continuously, omg.

Now, any organisation needs information in order to function efficiently, the Probation Service being no exception and sometimes getting the right information in a timely manner can be critical in making very important decisions that affect peoples lives and safety. Obviously I started out in a pre-computer age when we relied upon card indexes, paper files and personal knowledge. If we needed to know about a client quickly, either current or closed, it was straight to the file to look at the last PSR and Part 'B' assessment. The latter was on pink paper and typically a paragraph or two was completed every quarter outlining the situation - what the risks were, what the problems were and what was happening. Simple. Even 20 years worth of a life sentence amounted to only say 15 sheets. It could be digested quickly, it worked and I naively felt that the advent of the computer would just replicate it, albeit electronically. After all, the Part 'C' on white paper that recorded all client contacts had eventually turned into electronic CRAMS - so why isn't there an equivalent of the Part 'B'? 

Of course there is - all the information is in OASys - you just have to spend an hour or two locating it - perhaps printing it out? - between 60 and 90 pages - not really an option - but it is all stored safely and electronically, including all the myriad updated versions. Unfortunately that's now causing a problem. I remember about three years ago there was a major panic as somebody noticed the servers at Head Office were virtually full and a desperate message came out that we had to throw stuff away urgently, or the whole thing would crash. With no hint of irony we were blamed for storing either too much stuff or the wrong stuff. Currently there is a national project to migrate everything to massive NOMS data stores 'following some selective deleting'. I do hope none of that important OASys stuff disappears.

Oh, and in case you were wondering if there was a Part  'A' - yes, on salmon paper, but I don't think I ever bothered with it as from memory it was supposed to record the antecedents and in my time these have always been supplied direct by the police. 

Probation Records

Now it would not be fair unless I started this piece by being completely up front and saying that I come from a time when record-keeping within the probation service was, well, problematic. There was a long tradition of being well behind with part 'C' entries, (record of all contacts) with an enormous push necessary when an inspection was due. At such a time you had to hope that you had a brilliant memory, decipherable diary entries and some friends amongst the clericals. Of course it fell to them to listen to endless rambling audio recordings, make sense of them and transcribe them into print via a good old-fashioned typewriter. If you were really lucky, and to get you out of a tight spot, a friendly clerical would take dictation from you in shorthand so as to have some evidence in front of the Inspector in time.

According to folklore, there were officers who just didn't do records. There were stories of files mysteriously disappearing, only to be found years later either under carpets or behind filing cabinets. It was even rumoured there was an officer who kept all his records in the boot of his car, for fear of them being required by management for some reason. Another was known as Mr Memory Man due to his legendary ability for near-perfect recall of events months before. All or none of this might have been true, but it has to be said the system was not brilliant and doing the work always seemed to get in the way of record-keeping.

As time passed and in order to save money, we were encouraged to hand write records and for a period things seemed to improve. The problem as always was if you started to get behind the situation just got worse because you couldn't always judge how big a gap to leave in order to be filled in later. Then there was always the small matter of trying to remember what happened and when, several months down the line. In all honesty there was a degree of creative writing, albeit informed from clues from your diary. This is not something I'm particularly proud of, but the practice was endemic and as I said, the system was still not that much better than when I started.  

But then we entered the computer age. Initially the office was equipped with linked word processors and a modem attachment to Head Office. Someone invented a 'word' document form that passed as a running part 'C' and suddenly for the first time we had a workable system for recording events easily and quickly, if you could get to a terminal that is. Information was now available to anyone, anywhere on the system and the old card indexes began to fall into disuse.

Such a simple system couldn't last of course and eventually we were saddled with CRAMS. It could be worse I suppose, but at least it allows entries to be made out of sequence, thus saving us from returning to the nightmare of the original paper system when everything had to be recorded in sequence. The only problem I have with it now is the urge to continually correct other peoples spelling, lack of punctuation and try to resist the urge to re-write 'text message' style entries. But I guess that's an age thing. I wonder if the impending new Delius system will encourage better entries? Somehow I doubt it.
    

It's the Relationship Stupid!

This year the AGM of NAPO returns to the fine Victorian seaside resort of Scarborough on the North Yorkshire coast. It should prove to be a particularly important conference coming as it does on the eve of significant public spending cuts and inevitable privatisation of whole areas of probation work. In amongst the usual programmed contributions from government ministers and NOMS representatives, my eye was drawn to a scheduled fringe meeting about a new project. According to the blurb "the Offender Engagement Programme is a NOM's initiative to improve the quality and effectiveness of one to one work with offenders and reduce reoffending. The central hypothesis is that the relationship between the offender and the probation practitioner can be a powerful vehicle for changing behaviour and reducing reoffending."

My initial reaction was to sigh in disbelief that such a self-evident truth that has been a basic tenet of the Probation Service since it's inception, should be the subject of a 'new' initiative. It's clearly only worthy of derision and typical of an out-of-touch NOMS. Any fool knows the relationship between probation officer and client is the essence and secret of probation and has been confirmed by numerous research projects. But then I began to reflect on what I have witnessed over the last few years in my own office. We have had a steady flow of trainees coming through, many with psychology or sociology degrees and I've watched them struggling with mountains of paper accumulated in the name of 'evidence' as they wrestle with the NVQ agenda and distance learning degree. I admire their patience enormously because I know I couldn't do it. The TPO's represent the new culture within the Service and of course as a group they have been absorbing this new ethos through instruction and learning and I have previously discussed the cultural tensions that have resulted.

I will be honest and say this period has been very difficult for me. Traditionally I've always been actively involved with students around the office and been only too delighted to have them 'shadow' me - but I knew instinctively it wouldn't be fair to do this under the new arrangements as it would only serve to confuse them and exacerbate cultural differences. But like all PO's I was interested to watch their style with clients and compare it to my own. I have been mostly horrified at the formulaic and pejorative approach and in one instance will admit to professional voyeurism. I think the story is worth telling to illustrate my point.

I must have become aware of this client's dissatisfaction with his fairly newly-qualified PO  when I saw him as Duty Officer one day. Now obviously in this job being unhappy with what your officer is saying is an occupational fact of life - but this seemed different and I got into the habit of reading the CRAMS entries when his PO had seen him. It basically painted a picture of a failing relationship and an officer who's hectoring, lectures and threats were clearly having little positive effect on what I felt was a pretty ordinary client. 

By a strange twist, due to the officer being on leave, a few months later I found myself interviewing this young man at the local remand prison in relation to breach of his Probation Order. He had failed to report to his PO, stopped going to Community Service and committed more offences. He explained he couldn't abide his officer and had effectively just 'given up'. Now this was a difficult situation professionally. Although I was in no doubt it was the officers fault primarily - the PO is in control of the relationship - there is no way I would convey this to the client, and yet I had to try and repair this young mans trust in the Service. We talked about the options and I said it depended on him - I could either make a strong case for a fresh community order (but could not promise a different PO) or argue that the best option was a short custodial to 'clear the slate'. Guess what he opted for and what I felt was my moral duty to facilitate?

He got custody and I guess the example explains why regrettably we just might need a new initiative looking at that relationship between officer and client after all.