House built on sand?

eGov: £10million spent and key part still to do

https://www.bailiwickexpress.com/jsy/news/egov-project-exceed-99million-budget/?t=i#.WjitGXnLjcs


Software projects are difficult and big government type projects harder still.  Just look at the history of UK NHS IT projects for lessons in failure.  However headlines that the one above make me really nervous.  If you know there is a high risk of failure ,or a crucial  element the sensible thing to do is  trial out the key bits and the the most difficult bits first.

If you cannot deliver the key bits best to know early so the project board can close down the project with minimal financial costs,  albeit with a few embarrased faces. You might have the option of taking a different approach or making some compromises on other parts of the project so the whole can be delivered, but again if that's understood early on  it can be accommodated.  If you spend all the time and budget on the relatively simple stuff and worrying about the colour scheme and  type face of the  UI (It happens), you spend a ton of money and then not have time or budget left to tackle the hard crucial key bit.  If that isn't delivered you have wasted everything. At best your project overruns and you will be under immense pressuse for delivery on a crucial bit - and that is where quality shouldn't be compromised, but inevitable will be.  


That healdine, if an accurate representation of the state of play, should be a big red flag  to those overseeing the project.  It would be if they had any experience.  My guess is they will glibly sail on under the assurance we are 90 or 95%  of the way there.  That might be true in terms of code written , or budget spent.  No one ever asks about progress but in terms of risk and quality.  Those matter.  In big IT projects those matter a lot.

That's not employment, its just unpaid work

I've been having an ongoing problem with the new manpower returns since their introduction.  The latest twist was to get an e-mail confirmation of successful submission , despite the error below, and then followed up by a call from someone at the population office telling me in so many word that I hadn't submitted the form.  I also rather resent being called client by them. Do they know in its primary meaning it refers to a dependent, one who is under the protection of another? 

My ongoing problem isn't really about the technology. It is rather more about the lack of analysis or comprehension of  the distinction between work and employment.


I have run my company for over 25 years, and until the recent change never had any problem with the manpower return.  In the previous incarnation the return asked for data to be supplied based on hours worked (to distinguish part time and full time workers), and on a few other residency/5 year qualification etc.  Simple stuff.  It also was quite clear about working principals had to be included. That is the important bit, because a principal (ie an owner) does not have to have a contract  with a company they own, and is not necessarily an employee.  If they don't take a wage/salary or any other emolument and have no contract they cannot be an employee. That is how I have run the company for some years. 


Under the new form however it is not possible to make a return for a trading company without including the details of at least one employee. It uses that terminology, and requires a social security number and the type of employment contract (full/part/zero hours).    The instructions are clear that self employed people should complete the form - no problem if they are taking an income from the business. But what if the only person is the owner, and they are not remunerated or have a contract?

It gets even more bizarre if the company, as mine has, operates more than one business.  In this case it seems the only way to make a submission is to be employed in each company.  Goodness knows how many fake part-time or zero hour employment contracts have had to be entered by non-employed (at least in that business) principals just to get the forms submitted.


I cannot work out if the problem is a serious analysis failure, or a genuine incomprehension at the distinction between work and employment.  Anyone is free to do work gratis. How can it be otherwise?  If there is no pay or emolument and no contract it is not defined as employment (which is strictly the legal form of a master/servant relationship).  If it were not so  all those honorary police would have to appear on the parishes' manpower returns and all those charity shops would have to be filling in details of all their volunteers.


It is true that a Jersey company (not a business!) really ought to have a resident director, so there likely will aways be one person who ought to make a return of working  at the company level.  In fact if you read the new law on housing and employment even this is questionable for 'regulated' entities - since a non-resident director of one of  those can work in the Island for 10 days, sometimes longer, without having to register or do almost any of there things everyone else does under the Control of Housing and Work law 2012.  So a resident director could in fact do no work and hence not be required on the form.

If you are wondering, yes it is possible to have a business where no one is employed.  Many entrepreneurs would consider that a perfect model. You can outsource almost everything.  It costs of course, but it is perfectly legal to do so.   If what you trade is information or documentation it might be quite feasible to do that on a web site that once set up needs  no actual manual intervention.  It is one reason I don't fully subscribe to the view that promoting business will increase employment.  It aint necessarily so!



I can understand the desire to ensure people don't improperly slip through the system, but the administrative process really should be able to deal with the reality of the legal status of voluntary working principals.  It shouldn't even require that much work on the return forms and database.  The only reason I can see for collecting the data asked for is to check social security payments.  However even that is not quite right since if a director is paying class 1 contributions, there is no class 2 to pay.  Similarly if they over the pension age, self or unemployed there is no contribution to pay.


If my sources are correct this manpower return system was written by an outfit in Southampton.  Just perhaps it would have been wiser to have commissioned  one of the competent local software companies which might actually understand the local law.

FinTech is no silver bullet

I was quite amused by the recent piece I read about the CoM creating a new minister for finance, digital and competition. I have no problem with the Island developing a bigger digital sector. I endorse diversity as a strategy but the conjunction of the item with the timing and other pieces has to be commented upon.

Conversations with former colleagues with whom I worked in the previous tech bubble made me aware a year or so ago we are into bubble territory, rather like the late 1990's. Stories of people pitching non existent projects and others of companies being bought without any technological due diligence abound. Valuations based on irrational projection of almost meaningless metrics. I've seen it all before and it is here again. So it is no surprise some in political circles want to jump on the band wagon. Of course a few will make it and some fortunes will be made, but many others will fail.

Locally the drive has focused very much on FinTech. This is understandable and is likely very sensible for individual companies, but it is probably a big mistake for the Island. I want to differentiate here between the more disruptive startup and the established support business role. There's a need and perfectly good business to be done installing networks, managing hardware and patching servers for local financial organisations. That's not really what we are looking at here. FinTech really is looking at the small disruptive start up software company.

Whenever I have been involved in such companies there has been a common theme to the successful ones. They have had ample access to and understanding of the domain knowledge and problem to be solved. Clearly locally there is specialised domain knowledge in financial services and it makes sense for a startup to utilise that. So what is the problem?

Risk is the answer to that, and specifically that it doesn't really represent an effective diversification of an already over balanced economic base. It does not matter that the skills are different and the business model is different the odds are that a problem in the financial service sector locally would also be a problem for the associated digital companies. It would be better strategically to concentrate the digital sector on the much smaller local industries like tourism and agriculture. There's plenty of opportunity, and some requisite local domain knowledge in both those areas. Just look at airBNB or this list http://modernfarmer.com/2014/02/10-silicon-valley-agriculture-start-ups/ to see just how big the opportunities might be.

I am also a little bemused at the decision to include competition in the responsibilities of the new minister. I can see how you might need to do something about its lack for the finance sector when we have seen so many scandals involving the fixing of Libor, Fx and gold prices. However software development is a highly collaborative, cooperative undertaking. That's one reason why people in the last tech bubble started creating incubators and hubs. We even have on here in Jersey see http://www.digital.je/hub.

 It is a little surprising therefore to see Digital Jersey and some others locally are promoting the Barclays accelerator. Good for a company that gets selected, but again not so good for the Island: “The 10 companies will be guided through the process of growing and developing their businesses with the help of funding of up to $100,000 from Techstars. They will have world-class mentorship from industry experts and will be based at the London Escalator, near London’s Tech City, giving them the optimum environment to thrive “.

Why on earth would we be encouraging the most promising local startups to upsticks to London if we are trying to build a local digital economy? It makes no sense to me. It is the sort of irrational thinking that happens in a bubble – anything that mentions the buzzword is talked up positively even if it is a pile of ordure.

Some relevant links

http://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2014/12/04/digital-jersey-suffers-setback-over-bitcoin-fears/

http://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2014/12/12/new-ministerial-role-will-strengthen-digital-and-finance/

http://www.digital.je/news/jersey-businesses-can-accelerate-with-barclays

http://fortune.com/2014/05/08/yes-were-in-a-tech-bubble-heres-how-i-know-it/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Silver_Bullet