Labor in South Australia. Is the Labor Government of South Australia controlled by the Catholic Right? That was the rather provocative theme of a speech delivered by Mr Gary Lockwood — President of the Australian Society for the Studies of Labour History Adelaide Branch — at a meeting of the Florey Sub Branch of the ALP on Monday 21st February 2011. It certainly provides an interesting insight into the way power is shared in the state and the full text of the speech is on Crikey’s The Stump website.
Some wisdom from the Trujillo era. As I read this week about the problems the Victorian police force is having with its attempt to set up a new database to guide its work I was reminded of one piece of wisdom that Sol Trujillo brought to Telstra those few years ago.
One of his American amigos — the name escapes me — surveying the mess that was the company’s billing systems declared that there would be no attempt to design a solution internally. Any IT bureaucrats who even suggested such a thing would be given their marching orders. Telstra would look for a system that someone else somewhere else had made work.
Wise words indeed as the Victorian police episode shows where there has been a $100 million cost blowout for a new police computer system. As AAP reports this morning, plans to replace the trouble-prone LEAP database with a new system called LINK have been scrapped, while the police department develops a fresh business plan to present to the government before next year’s state budget.
They say the new system will cost a further $100 million, in addition to the original $61 million budget, and take two years to implement.
This means the LEAP system, which has been plagued by problems, including the mistaken release of confidential files of up to 1000 Victorians, will continue for at least the next three years.
Hopefully the new approach will not involve trying to re-invent the police computer equivalent of the wheel. A sensible government would just purchase a system that actually works at some other force somewhere in the world.
It would surely be a frightening thing to add up all the hundreds of millions of dollars that governments state, federal and local, have wasted on attempts to develop their own technological solutions.
First the good news from Europe. Spain has escaped, at least temporarily, from the clutches of the money men by successfully borrowing 3.4 billion euros on bonds maturing in 2021 and 2024. Average yields on the 10-year bond rose to 5.472 percent from 5.162 percent in the last auction, but demand was solid, outstripping what was on offer by 2.1 times.
And so to Greece and the continuing bad news. A Reuters poll showed an overwhelming majority of economists believe Greece will eventually have to restructure its 325 billion euro ($468 billion) debt mountain, although most said it would not happen for at least a year.
Rising expectations that Greece will have to restructure a debt load that is one-and-a-half times its annual output — similar to that of Zimbabwe — have shaken the nervous calm that had descended on euro markets in early 2011 and raised doubts about whether leaders can restore confidence in their bold 12-year-old currency experiment.
You can have any colour as long as it is vanilla
I agree with your comment about information systems. I’m like Henry Ford when it comes to introducing new information systems: you can have any colour as long as it is vanilla. That is, the best approach is to implement a proprietary system with only those modifications needed to accommodate unchangeable local idiosyncrasies. The Victorian Government should have insisted on the same policy for its electronic public transport ticketing system, called myki, which is still causing problems costing big sums to fix 9 months after implementation.
Top operators in Victoria. Only $100 million. The Queensland Health payroll system is $350million and rising! Give me the money and I will pay them manually for that and get it right. I have a family member working for Queensland Health who has not received one correct payroll payment since the new system was started and all attempts to have it corrected have met with rude insults and disinterest. Funny thing the old one never made a mistake and while the providers had decided to abandon it maybe QH should have just bought it lock stock and barrel.
Oh forgot to add with SAP and IBM in the process right up to their ears. So next time someone comments on how smart the private sector is compared to the public sector remember this one.
I agree that computer application stuff ups don’t seem to be divided on public and private sector lines. Serious problems with Virgin’s and the National Australia Bank’s computer systems have been publicised recently and presumably there are several others that haven’t been published.