The inefficient public sector (HMRC)

One of the biggest problems for vendors supplying the construction industry is the sheer complexity of the messaging system (this is a topic all of its own). In short, it involves connecting to, and messaging with the Government Gateway, waiting for responses, checking for errors, polling, and reading back the information, checking for errors again and continuing with the business rules. It’s complicated, let’s leave it at that.

Over the weekend, I was playing with exactly the same technology (XML and SOAP) - but this time instead of the Government Gateway server, it was the YouTube video server. I would imagine the YouTube video server to be servicing hundreds of thousands of queries per minute - far more than the Government Gateway (which crashed from demand in the opening days of new CIS). It took me two days to write an entire query engine (with base classes for videos and collections). It’s taken almost two years to get a product to market (at least six months of which was the messaging facility, including attending or receiving notes from developer meetings in Euston Tower, London) to do the same thing with a UK Government Project.

The documentation for the YouTube web service is a couple of pages long. Explanation of the classes, properties and the methods. It isn’t signed by anyone, and you don’t need to go through a long process to register with them, just give them your email will do.

The documentation for the Government Gateway service is huge. You will need to download all the Government Gateway messaging documentation, filter out the dull 1980’s EDI bits and then go and get the New CIS schemas and business rules. Printed out, on 120gsm paper (posh paper), the stack of reading (including the bits on learning the scheme) would literally kill someone if it lands on them. This documentation, going on for miles, signed off by almost everyone in the public sector, serves only to confuse and keep everyone but the most tenacious developer from understanding it.

It also doesn’t help that the way in which HM Revenue & Customs have their data designed isn’t normalised or intuitive.

To be fair: HM Revenue & Customs themselves are very helpful. They have a software developer support team who supremely helpful and are always available for geeky technical conversation. However, they cannot answer any questions on the Government Gateway or assist on the live service (did I mention there was no black box test service??). It’s not their fault, on the contrary, power to those with technical ability - put them in charge please!

So the question needs to be asked. Why does the public sector go the long way around to do something so simple? Why does it take millions of pounds of tax-payer money in the public sector to accomplish something a 15 year old script kiddie can do - before dinner - on their PC in a bedroom?

As a former consultant to the public sector, I can tell you:

• Lots of people

• Lots of arse-covering

Every man, woman, child and dog needs to sign off and see every specification. Everyone needs to debate every last bit of the implementation, and common standards and practices are not used, because there are so many parties involved. There is no engineer-manager at these places. With regards to HM Revenue & Customs, this is expecially true, as even when their servers blow up - they have to call in third party (very expensive) consultants to fix up their own systems.

This is why I love being in charge of my own Micro ISV.

I turn up at work, greet whoever is working with me that day (we subcontract), and put on some music and get to it. If a design decision needs to be made with a client, we call or email that client and put it to them directly. If it’s a technical decision - we get to it and get it done.

If we need to procure something. A product, a set of new controls, a new spikey office plant - we go and do it. No rubber stamps, no conferences.

I have worked myself on behalf of customers, in a shed on a lake in freezing tewkesbury for a week. I have delivered whilst on a plane. In a restaurant (god bless mobile devices). At 6am outside a train station. At 4am, chugging coffee at a neighbours house. At 3pm after landing at a small airfield in Dorset, as a passenger in a friend’s light aircraft.

As countless innovators in California have shown us; Small, agile and focussed beats big, corporate and slow - every single day.

Construction - CIS Online Services

As you might know, my company is a supplier to the UK Construction Industry.

On 6th April 2007, the “New Construction Industry Scheme” was launched. This aptly titled “new scheme” entirely replaced the old one, bringing with it a new set of rules and regulations by which all construction contractors must abide.

One of the main key points is that construction workers will no longer be issued with a “CIS card” (a special card for the self-employed), but instead have to provide identification information which needs to be checked online (using our software, for example), or over the phone. HM Revenue & Customs will then tell the contractor how much to deduct from the subcontractor’s payment, either nothing, 20% or 30%. One of the reasons for this is to clamp down on benefit fraud and immigrant workers avoiding tax. Apparantly.

The requirement for a contractor to provide a statement of deduction (formerly known as a CIS 25) has been removed. As has the yearly return, replaced instead by a monthly return.

Contractors also have to ensure that they have carefully considered the employment status of every single worker that works for them. Oh yes, every single worker. Get it wrong, go to jail, do not collect £200. Instead, a £3,000 fine per worker, per month can be levied.

Our company has two new products which have full HM Revenue & Customs recognition to perform those mandatory verifications and monthly returns, and we have been involved in creating a third product to handle employment status (provides advice and evidence of the working arrangements).

So that’s my background, at least.

New CIS is a Government IT project. Originally set for April 2006 (even that date was after having been put back before), it was put back to April 2007 after a campaign by The Construction News (Countdown to Crisis) highlighted some severe concerns for implementation of IT systems.

The new scheme is mostly in place, but there were a lot of issues amongst which - downtime, data not going out to contractors, confusion as to the new rules, difficulty in accepting use of software, conflicts between online services and offline services, potential for online systems hiccups getting people’s tax treatment status wrong (so some workers get 30% unexpectedly deducted from their pay)… but I am pleased to report that most of the technical issues have been resolved. That is, at least, good (by Government Standards), for a Government IT project and new tax regime.

HM Revenue & Customs have said that they wouldn’t fine anyone until October. How nice of them. (note: non compliance prior to October may still affect your compliance record).

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