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*DO NOT USE CONSULTANTS*

Let me say that again in case you missed it:

*DO NOT USE CONSULTANTS*

Go out and spend some money on a qualified team of professionals. Have them specify, design and build the system in-house and then maintain it from then on.

Consultants are like a black hole for money... Although you get lots of advice and pretty reports (that look great in the political internals of the government) they actually only work to guarantee more consultancy fees in the future.

In effect consultants have NOTHING to loose by feeding you complete bull.

I have nothing against consultants, really, they do have their uses, but if you are hiring one that often then clearly it would be more cost effective to hire an equally qualified individual.

You are missing the point entirely. Even if they did exactly as you describe, the whole project is immoral and should be abandoned on principle. Its like saying that the planning of the Final Solution should have not been done by consultants - no matter who planned it, it was an idea that is fundamentally wrong. We must be careful not to be distracted by the details of how they are planning to excute this diabolical nonsense, and how those plans are botched. Stay focused on the central idea that it is undoable, unbritish and must be refused by everyone.

Having had experiences with consultants in the past the first commentor is right. Using consultants is the most expensive way to run an IT project.

You're right that consultants have nothing to lose if the project isn't successful. They're like vultures following the financial thermals.

"Even if they did exactly as you describe, the whole project is immoral and should be abandoned on principle'

This is correct, it's something I've brought up before too. If people fight this too much on the basis of cost, logistics and who the consultants are then we've already lost. You can't fight it just like that at the end of the day. You have to stand up and say it is an intolerable and humiliating burden our lives.

that should be:

'..burden on our lives'.

Consultants - Oh how I laughed when I heard who the Home Office had engaged to provide them with initial advice, or whatever, on the ID card scheme: PA Consulting! Yes, the very same PA Consulting that was hired by my company to advice on an ERP s/w upgrade. The upgrade had already been approved by the Board, but for some reason the IT dept. felt obliged to get some "impartial" advice. So how did PA Consulting perform? Well, amongst other things they had the project team attend sessions where we all had to wear different coloured hats, so that we felt like different people; you know, red hat - customer, blue hat - supplier, white hat -management (dunce's hat - consultant!). Then they had us drawing something called "Rich Pictures". Sessions were conducted by snotty-nosed nappy-wearing 21 year-olds straight out of university with largely irrelevant degrees. The upshot of it all was a 500 page "report" of absolutely diabolical quality, and a £1.5 million bill! In fact they didn't tell us anything that we didn't already know. PA Consulting - as incompetent as it's possible to get! Then low and behold, they get a £30 million contract with the HO. No wonder the ID card scheme is going down the pan. With PA Consulting on your side you've not got a chance. Bloody Brilliant - Long live the relationship betwen PA Consulting and the Home Office.

Once they have well and truly mangled the project they will outsource it somewhere else i.e EDS - and sweep it under the rug as "not our problem".

It may be worth investigating what exactly the contracted consultancies actually did for the (vast amounts of) money. Did they engage all the stakeholders? No privacy aware group has been asked to assists (evidence: the severe trashing the project got from the LSE). Did they structure their project appropriately, thus enabling good progress monitoring? Was everyone appropriately tasked and kept 100% busy (if they're that expensive this would not be an unreasonable expectation). I have a very strong feeling that true answers to those questions should have been flagged up by the National Audit Office, but I have heard nothing from them on this.

Oh, I know why. Taking a hint from the published emails it's not unreasonable to assume that they may be busy finding "face saving" excuses..

Surely a consultancy doesn't gain by not delivering? Well, not so fast. Let's look at what any consultancy gains by being less than diligent. They get more fees as the project takes longer. That's not just profit in direct receivables, it also lowers the costs as no sale is required and staff (if low loaded) could potentially also work on other projects, or spend their time selling themselves into more Government projects (it's easier once you're 'inside'). Quite an incentive, wouldn't you say?

But surely such a company has an ethics policy to comply with?

OK, you're a senior shareholder or partner in such a company. You have the choice between a good slice of, say, 1 to 2 million a week or substantially less for a private sector client who will closely scrutinize what they get for the money. What would you choose?

To quote someone very senior, overheard at a Xmas party: "for that much money, screw the ethics policy".

Another trick is to be less diligent in your first line review. Say, for instance, you're designing a procurement system. This means joining up various payment mechanisms. What if you came across a payment system that was simply not suitable to be scaled up to such a volume? Two choices: you either report it as deficient (thus embarrassing the department who deploys it, and forcing them to either change over or be against the project) or you 'ignore' it. Why would you ignore it? Well, there's the fun concept of 'change control'. It means that anything not in the current scope will require a change of the project. Naturally, as that means changing a lot of things this is very expensive (read: very profitable to the consultancy or supplier), so the trick is to ensure as much as possible gets missed in the original scope. This is the same process exploitation that allows companies to underbid for a project and -amazingly- still end up costing more than the competition to complete. And all of it is blameless: after all, the Government did sign up to the original scope (3rd party reviews are not common).

Knowing all that, why would you still go ahead and use Consultants? Well, for the same reason you outsource and/or privatise everything you can lay your hands on if you're a politician: blame transfer. It doesn't matter if it works or not, you can blame someone else if it goes wrong. It's a personal risk transfer mechanism of the first order.

Can you blame the Consultancy for doing this? Well, only from an ethical point of view. Commercially, they just fit in with the theme of promising lots and delivering nothing, and as long as nobody holds them to account it's easy money. for the shareholders and/or owners. Why work if you don't have to? And, as soon as you're asked about delivery, promise something new.

After all, it worked for Blair..

consultants have nothing to lose if the project isn't successful.

Actually, this isn't true. As a consultant for Pearson a couple of years ago, I was contractually obliged to take out employer's liability insurance. If my screw up cost the business, I'd have been held accountable.

But as Manip rightly says, this is like arguing over the supplier for the Final Solution. (IBM won that contract by the way)

Following the comments, here's a fun question for you: how likely is it that ANY consultancy or other commercial organisation is likely to deliver an objective assessment IF THEY STAND TO GAIN THE WORK THEMSELVES?

Do you really, honestly think for one moment that an organisation is capabe of maintaining proper objectivity if nobody's really watching?

Even better, any sensible organisation will simply jump at the chance to do a really controversial project because 'they just do the work'. Any turbulence is likely to prolong the agony for the tax payer because, once committed, there's no politician in the world who's got the balls to admit that they got it wrong (that's why it's so important to get a group of people to commit to these things - partners in crime).

I think you could accuse the government at a minimum of breathtaking naivity if it wasn't for the niggling feeling that it was rather deliberate. It may be worth checking just how much 'advice' the Government is receiving, and from who.

@ Anon - PA Consulting, as the "Development Partner" are forbidden from bidding on any of the multi-billion pound implementation projects to do with the National Identity Register and ID cards.

However, there is nothing to stop them providing expensive consultancy advice to any consortia who do actually dare to take on such contracts.

Will any of the PA consultants who have worked or are working on the scheme be forbidden , contractually, from joining any such consortia for a year or two after leaving PA Consulting ?

Will their places be filled by Home Office civil servants associated with the project, who will claim not be breaking the Civil Service Code, because a) they will probably have been given permission from on high and b) the "Development partner" is not going to be bidding for the implementation contracts ?

N.B. Given the stupid Identity Cards Act 2005 Clause 29 Tampering with the Register etc. any commercial company or sub-contractor would be insane to put themselves at risk of criminal penalties of up to 10 years in prison and / or unlimited fines, for circumstances beyond their control, which cannot be excluded in the fine print of a commercial contract.

It does sometimes get boring always being right. All of us who have looked into this legislation foresaw this.

Of course only doing half the job will completely defy the point of having the new system which was actually intended to be more secure.

Lets end this now before Blair wastes any more of our money.