Finished my 13th working paper and off to Italy with 99,500 words pre-written and 1,000 pages of interview transcripts to write the damn report for my sins.
Today’s working paper reimagines parliamentary processes for major software programmes, drawing heavily on Universal Credit at Westminster and the Scottish Social Security System.
We know that rogue IT programmes can runaway to the tune of billions of pounds (Hi NHS Spine 1, ya old rogue) and catch and kill is an imperative.
We also know that the parliamentary process of the Scottish Parliament births major IT and was not designed to do so. Pals wrote the process in the 90s and I asked ‘em so you don’t have to.
Major digital programmes take up a tiny part of our legislative space - finger in the air 1 out of 20 to 22 every session, but the cost/benefits of them make them disproportionally important.
To really get the most out of this working paper you might need to bone up on some previous ones. It draws on my analysis of the entire Scottish Social Security programme (3 Acts and 76 Ministerial orders) and on my working paper on new parliamentary and governmental institutions.
Enjoy! and off to write.
this post would be improved by attaching the actual bloody working paper
Really interested to see this — Universal Credit is a significant case study of what's gone wrong with "digital government": the costly (economic, human, political, etc) schism between policy and technology, breaches of the rule of law, profound human consequences often for the most vulnerable, an 18 year (at least) timescale between when the programme started and when it will be delivered.
There's so much to learn from what's gone wrong. Last year's Disability Rights UK summary of some of these issues is sobering: https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/news/digital-universal-credit-system-breaches-principles-law-and-stops-claimants-accessing-support
Which reminds me, I really ought to do an update to my post from 2021 as background to what a future administration can do better! https://ntouk.wordpress.com/2021/10/14/what-can-politicians-learn-from-universal-credit/
But only after I've had a chance to read your paper to learn about improved approaches :)