Information Research Weblog

For those few remaining who believe that governments learn from the past, the current Private Eye has a fascinating account of the IT disaster (currently costing £12.4 billion!) in the National Health Service. Unfortunately, you'll have to buy the magazine to read it - but it is a good £1.50 worth!

In 1997 Tony Collins published "Crash: ten easy ways to avoid a computer disaster", which was republished a year later with a different subtitle and a 'year 2000 update'. In this book, Collins itemised the causes of computer disasters and it seems that pretty well every cause is found the the current debacle over the National Health Service. Overweaning ambition on the part of a health minister, personal pride on the part of the project manager, credulity of practically everyone in believing what the consultancies and software houses told them, etc., etc.

The only conclusion one can reach, given that Collins's record of computer disasters has been around for the past 10 years is that ministers and their adivising civil servants can't read.