Quick and dirty numbers for you, but the Department of Work and Pension has, in the past five years, spent a staggering £2,141,410,000 on all IT projects (failed, binned, or successful). That figure doesn't however include "some projects" as it would "not be reasonable" to get the information apparently.
That's what the DWP minister Anne McGuire said anyway. The good news is that 24% of the known money was spent on consultant fees - sorry not fees, it's called "investment spending on consultants" these days.
6 comments:
That is staggering, no wonder we can't afford to give patients the medicines they need.
Just think what excellent work this government is doing for third world poverty. Most of these ‘consultants’ were begging on the streets of Bangalore only weeks before coming to the UK. Also, the contributions to party funds to allow the dodgy work permits for them have come in useful.
Well how are we poor consultants going to be able to afford our MontBlanc cufflinks if you keep running green-eyed stories like this... ;-)
Seriously though the curse of the consulting firm is as much a private as public sector disease. They get into a company then apply the rabbit theory of seeking to multiply their numbers as soon as possible to pump up the fees.
I've seen many a banking project almost killed by this disease too as tens and sometimes hundreds of millions of spending result in absolutely no delivery.
So this time, I'm afraid the Government is being stitched up, but no more than many corps are too.
Now let me get back to the DomP Bucks Fizz breakfast... ;-)
green-eyed? Hardly. Annoyed more like. Most consultants in my experience tend to be twats who read Computer Weekly and don't actually have a clue about the inner-working of IT accept in the most rudimentary way. hence you end up with abortions of systems being created, or even worse, you end up rooted because security and non-functional requirements are never considered.
Actually, even worse than that, some IT consultants who claim all sorts of experience and knowledge turn out to actually be total liar when you put them in front of a keyboard. I know of one prominent IT cosultant who tried to become the leader of a national political party that managed to totally screw a system of mine over with one command.
Green-eyed.. you know I was kidding!
But you are right, and I do sympathise with some of the consultants themselves personally, as they are keen but underskilled (and often underpaid) bodies thrown in by their company that keeps by far most of the fat fee.
That's why we need the heroes (tongue in cheek here too), us one-man band contractors to sweep up the mess when the consulting firms have been kicked out and real delivery is needed.
I know permies hate us, but consulting firms hate us even more for robbing them of roles, so we can't bee toooooooo bad.
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