Ministers dodge Lynne Jones’ ID cards cost questions

I like Liam Byrne, and he’s smart. But this Parliamentary answer is a shameless D’oH dodge:

We cannot release the detailed estimated costs for integrating IT systems and the on-going operation of the ID cards scheme within the Department and the services which it oversees at this stage as these elements may be acquired from the market. The estimates are therefore commercially sensitive and to release them may prejudice the procurement process and the Department’s ability to obtain value for money from potential suppliers.

This is a lame, tired argument. Government gets good value from IT suppliers through openness and competition, not by being secretive about its half-baked plans.

Ditto this lame answer from FCO Minister Douglas Alexander

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has kept in close touch with the Home Office over the ID card scheme. It is not possible to estimate the potential cost to the FCO until legislation has been completed and policy issues relating to use of or access to ID cards overseas have been clarified.

And this from DTI’s Alan Johnson

The Department has not finalised current best estimates of the cost of using the ID Cards Scheme to support the services which it oversees.

And this from Harriet Harman:

This information is commercially sensitive and to release it may prejudice the procurement process and the Department’s ability to obtain value for money from potential suppliers...We believe that operational benefits will be realised through the use of ID cards particularly in areas where the identity of individuals will assist in the delivery of front line services. As improvements in our business processes are identified we will consider changes to our IT systems to derive the maximum benefit.

And this lame effort from someone called James Plaskitt who seems to have slipped onto the payroll at DWP

We cannot release the detailed estimated costs for integrating IT systems and the ongoing operation of the Identity Cards Scheme within the Department and the services which it oversees at this stage as these elements may be acquired from the market. The estimates are therefore commercially sensitive and to release them may prejudice the procurement process and the Department’s ability to obtain value for money from potential suppliers.

and Karen Buck at Transport. Even Andy Burnham at the Home Office wont say how much it’ll cost the Home Office to implement it into its other activities. This on the other hand is much more to the point:

This information is politically sensitive and to release it would be prejudicial to the acceptability of the ID card system. It’s already criticised as unfeasible by IT experts at IEEE, LSE, and global identity specialists in suppliers such as Qinetiq, Sun, IBM and Microsoft. The fact is it will cost the department a lot of money - enough for me to play these games on the pretext of commercial sensitivity - but I don’t want to give our estimate of how much. Because if you took our estimate and added it to other departments’ estimates plus the core £6bn cost already admitted by the Home Office, well, you’d be talking serious money and people might start to realise this isn’t such a smart policy

...but I made that one up.

Point 1: Nobody in government is saying what the ID system is going to cost government in total. We took a stab at it months ago. The official figure, were it made public, would now probably be about the same. And the safe rule of thumb in MoD was always to multiply the initial figure by pi (well, 3.14 if you dont have pi on your calculator) to allow for normal cock-ups and escalations in procurement and implementation.

Point 2: Government is aware of the problem of students under continual assessment who plagiarise each others’ answers. But when these Ministers and officials compare notes in advance they don’t even answer the question! Nul points. It’s a rude, cheating charade. It’s all far from ideal.

Published by William Heath on 12/01/06 at 10:15pm

Comments

Surely rather than them plagiarising each other’s answers the system is more akin to the school head handing out the approved answers to all the students before the exams? Or, erm, the central committee handing out the line to the comrades… (-:

Reply by on 01/13/06 at 10:52 am

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