The Tony Collins Blog
Tony Collins
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Tony Collins is an investigative and campaigning journalist and former Executive Editor at Computer Weekly. With his friend and colleague David Bicknell he wrote "Crash", which found common factors in the world's largest public and private sector IT-related failures. He wrote "Open Verdict", a book on the strange deaths of defence scientists. He writes, and gives talks, on the tensions and disputes between suppliers and users.
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HMRC - the Gradgrind approach to numbers?
HMRC claims it has a "Grandgrind" approach to numbers - but does its culture encourage self-deception?
by Tony Collins
Thomas Gradgrind, in Dickens's novel Hard Times, is obsessed with unambiguous facts and numbers. When I asked a press officer at HMRC for an estimate of how many "open cases" it plans to write off, the spokesman replied: “We don’t do rough...
February 1, 2011 11:47 AM Read Full Post
Cabinet Office confirms Joe Harley as new Government CIO
DWP's CIO Joe Harley is Government CIO from tomorrow - and a new Director of ICT Futures will be appointed
by Tony Collins
The Cabinet Office announced today that Joe Harley will become the Government CIO from tomorrow, in addition to his job as CIO and Director General at the Department for Work and Pensions.The announcement confirms the disclosure on this blog on...
January 31, 2011 3:51 PM Read Full Post
E-records may be no more secure than paper ones, say nurses
Two Royal Colleges question the security of electronic health records.
by Tony Collins
Nurses surveyed by the Royal College of Nursing have questioned whether electronic records are more secure than paper ones. Will their concerns undermine the national roll-out of a national Summary Care Record database?The views of nurses on electronic records are...
January 31, 2011 11:38 AM Read Full Post
The future of Government IT?
At its meeting today the Government's CIO Council is due to ratify an interim ICT Strategy. What does it say about the future of Government IT?
by Tony Collins
The Cabinet Office has prepared an interim Government ICT strategy which is due to go before the CIO Council for ratification at its meeting today. It’s an interim strategy to give the next Government CIO a chance to make changes before...
January 31, 2011 8:07 AM Read Full Post
How spending by NHS Connecting for Health compares
NAO statistics show how the CfH spend in 2009/10 compared with other DH spending in that year.
by Tony Collins
A report of the National Audit Office on the NHS includes a diagram that explains, in general, how the Department distributed its year's revenue allocation of £99.8bn in 2009/10.Most of the money - £88.5bn - was handed to NHS organisations....
January 27, 2011 6:00 AM Read Full Post
Does the DH have faulty genes when it comes to running big IT schemes?
The NHS Confederation says vast resources have been spent on DH IT strategies that were based on questionable assumptions. Is anything set to change?
by Tony Collins
Comment:Before David Nicholson was formally appointed Chief Executive of the NHS in 2006 he was warned that the NPfIT would be an important part of his brief. He accepted the challenge and was later appointed the NPfIT’s Senior Responsible Owner, To his...
January 26, 2011 8:30 AM Read Full Post
Councils find FOI a pain - but they have the cure
The Freedom of Information Act has led to better record-keeping - but councils find it difficult to cope with number and complexity of requests.
by Tony Collins
An annual study of compliance with the FOI Act and the Environmental Information Regulations by University College London found that the number of FOI requests made to local authorities in England in 2009 increased by 39%.The survey's results are reported in...
January 24, 2011 12:18 PM Read Full Post
Joe Harley expected to be new Government CIO
A successful reformer, Joe Harley, CIO at the Department for Work and Pensions, is expected to take over as Government CIO.
by Tony Collins
Joe Harley, Director General of Corporate IT and CIO at the Department for Work and Pensions, is expected to become the new Government CIO after the departure of John Suffolk, ComputerworldUK has learned.Although no announcement has been made, I understand...
January 20, 2011 9:49 AM Read Full Post
MP's letter to Health CIO Christine Connelly in full
MP's letter to Health CIO suggests that DH officials are shutting out SME competition while throwing money at the NPfIT
by Tony Collins
Richard Bacon, a member of the Public Accounts Committee, suggests that SMEs trying to compete with NPfIT local service providers BT and CSC are being shut out of fair competition by onerous requirements and untenable terms and conditions Indeed Bacon's...
January 18, 2011 2:03 PM Read Full Post
MP warns Health CIO: don't sign NHS IT deals with CSC or BT for now
A 2.7bn NHS deal with CSC is imminent – but an MP on the Public Accounts Committee says that signing a deal now could breach civil service responsibilities.
by Tony Collins
Richard Bacon MP, a long-standing member of the Public Accounts Committee, says in his letter, dated 13 January 2011, to Christine Connelly, the CIO at the Department of Health,“As you know, the National Audit Office is now beginning a further...
January 17, 2011 1:40 PM Read Full Post
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