Comment by that_guy_iain

Comment by that_guy_iain 2 days ago

> Edit: Why does rebuilding take a decade or more? This is not a complex system. It doesn't need to solve any novel engineering challenges to operate efficiently. Article does not give much insight into why this particular task couldn't be fixed in 3 months.

You do know the UK government has been cutting all their budgets to the bone for about 10 years? That means everywhere is pretty much understaffed.

And how do you know it's not a complex system? I would think that a system like that would be somewhat complex. It's not just driving licenses but a whole bunch of other things that are handled by the DVLA.

skippyboxedhero a day ago

Public-sector employment in the UK is at record highs. Despite apparently cutting inputs, productivity has collapsed to the same level as 1997 in the public sector. It is wildly overstaffed/overfunded by any estimation (and to be clear, there have been no cuts...the cuts in the early 2010s were not particularly significant, around 2-3% of GDP, public spending is as high as it has ever been in the UK, it was significantly lower under Blair...the only time it has reached this level is WW2 and 1975, the financial year the UK govt was bankrupted).

DVLA isn't complex. We live in a world of regulation, rules, and standards. Almost every large business does stuff like this at a global scale. It isn't complex, it just has to be complex so the budget is filled (and Fujitsu can get their contract).

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that_guy_iain a day ago

This is what we call cherry-picking stats. You pick a single stat but ignore everything else. Your comment seems to imply that the UK government has been lying about austerity for 10 years. While I don't trust the tory party and think they're corrupt with their deals-for-buddies approach, I don't think they outright lie for 10 years.
The policing budget is so bare-bones that the police have literally admitted they will not attend all 999 calls. To make that clear, they have admitted if you call them in an emergency they may not show up. NHS waiting times are sky-high. The number of NHS hospitals and beds are rock bottom. We can dig and dig into various public sectors and see them being terrible because of austerity. Which Labour is kinda being forced to continue due to the effects of covid on the finincals of the UK (and Brexit)

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youngtaff a day ago

Public sector employment is at a high because we had to hire thousands of staff due to Brexit… probably the most stupid productivity destroying own goal a country has ever committed (so far)

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abigail95 2 days ago

The system may or may not be complex but the data is has to store and transform is not. Because it handles drivers licenses. A function that has been done on pen and paper and filing cabinets.

Study the data, study the operations, reduce complexity.

Since you imply you know more about UK budgets than I do - how much is the DVLA budgeted for IT operations like this and how much more would you give them to expect this problem solved?

I can argue real numbers but vibes about bone dry budgets I cannot.

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ellen364 2 days ago

Are you suggesting that a process once done using pen and paper can't possibly be complicated?
I have no insight into the DVLA, but the idea that no paper process could ever be complicated is really funny. The UK enjoyed/loathed centuries of bureaucracy before computers were invented. At one point getting a divorce required an Act of Parliament specifically naming the unhappy couple! Being restricted to pen and paper hardly inhibited the human ability to create complex systems.

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that_guy_iain 2 days ago

> The system may or may not be complex but the data is has to store and transform is not. Because it handles drivers licenses. A function that has been done on pen and paper and filing cabinets.
It handles more than just driving licenses... The DVLA do more than just driving licenses.
> Since you imply you know more about UK budgets than I do - how much is the DVLA budgeted for IT operations like this and how much more would you give them to expect this problem solved?
It's not budgeted anything for this as far as I know. I believe it's handled by Government Digital Services which handles lots of the digital services for various departments. The budget for all of GDS is about 90 million most of which isn't for .gov.uk. A rewrite of that size I would expect to cost about 50-60 million in total but take several years.

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- skippyboxedhero a day ago
  
  Any business which took 50-60m to rewrite something that simple wouldn't exist.
  
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  kalleboo a day ago
  
  I know of a large international retailer everyone here has heard of that had at least 3 aborted attempts to rewrite their 70's VAX-based warehouse management software stack (an internal attempt, an Indian outsource attempt and an SAP attempt) they spent that much at least with zero to show for it. They had all the issues with "too many sales in one day causing batches to not finish" and "but this warehouse wants to open 24/7..." and still couldn't get it rewritten
  
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  gunian a day ago
  
  couldn't get it rewritten as in the logic was impossible or more like with a specific budget, random set of KPIs etc?
  idk for some reason I feel like projects like this should be allowed more flexibility by shareholders
  
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  that_guy_iain a day ago
  
  That simple? You probably couldn't even list all the things the DVLA is responsible for. I also doubt you could list all the laws and policies relating to driver licenses.
  And you would be shocked at how expensive big rewrites actually are.
  
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  nsteel a day ago
  
  What? Like Fujitsu? Still going strong bidding on gov contracts and providing garbage.
  
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nxobject a day ago

I think it's "local councils, yes cut to the bone; Whitehall and its satellites, no". Similarly, Whitehall ended out the Thatcher and Major ministries with more regulators for privatized industries, more centralized decision-making, and a larger bureaucracy than ever.

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youngtaff a day ago

Central government departments have been cut too… the staff needed for the Brexit disaster disguise this

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