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6 Oct, 4 tweets, 1 min read
So it appears the problem lay with a consolidation process, whereby CSV data was auto-manipulated by Excel templates to create rolled up stats. The architectural flaw in this is that the raw data wasn't condolidated first in an RDBMS.
bbc.co.uk/news/technolog…
If it had been, Excel (even an antique version) would have been perfectly fine for producing the aggregate analysis & dashboard presentation. Hancock's comments about a "legacy system" are partly blame-shifting, but they also suggest PHE hadn't envisaged a pandemic of this scale.
That will be held up as yet more evidence why PHE needed replacing, & the non-involvement of Serco & other 3rd parties will probably now increase the demand for reporting to be outsourced (my assumption yesterday was that it already had been).
If there's a moral here, it is that the state doesn't take IT architecture seriously enough, partly due to dept turf-wars, partly inconsistent govt direction, but largely due to fragmentation across multiple internal & external suppliers. It's a consolidation problem.

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More from @fromarsetoelbow

David Timoney Profile picture
7 Oct
Paul advocates a NATO socialism that no longer has a base in Labour, even if it appeals to the red wall. His bet is that Starmer will push the socialism once he's got the patriotism nailed, but that would require support not just by the left but by a pro-socialist right & centre.
Starmer has provided plenty of evidence that he is sincere about the patriotism & social conservativism, but the left are right to be sceptical that the socialism train is about to come round the corner, given the largely anti-socialist PLP & new party apparat.
The spycops legislation is an attack on the labour movement & civil campaigns (i.e. the traditional targets), not just on a human rights principle. Abstention is not a tactical misjudgement by Starmer but a red line that shouldn't have been crossed (like benefit cuts in 2015).
Read 4 tweets
David Timoney Profile picture
5 Oct
Lawks a mercy. Actually, there's no reason why they shouldn't use Excel for T&T given that: a) it is meant to be localised (so multiple instances, rather than a central DB, may be fine); b) Excel has built-in DB tools & can operate as a DB front-end (common in ERP & fin-tech);
& c) this may simply be a prototype prior to a port to a back-end RDBMS. What the use of Excel suggests is that Serco had no prior capability, so the real issue is why they were awarded the contract rather than why they're using a particular technology.
The suspicion is that the tender simply didn't bother setting out IT criteria. That may not necessarily be wrong in the circumstances, but it does highlight how outsourcing is sold on tech capabilities that are often fictitious & turn out to depend on low-tech manual data entry.
Read 4 tweets
David Timoney Profile picture
30 Sep
We've had 40 years (50 if you start the clock running in South America) in which democracy has been undermined by managerialism & technocracy. The justification was variously order (anti-communism), efficiency (the freedom to manage) & choice (the demotion of public goods).
This marked a notable turn against the historic arguments against democracy, which dated from Plato, that the mob were unskilled, biddable & lacking in virtue. Trump & Brexit have have allowed this older tradition to be revived in the liberal critique of "populism".
But what is offered as an alternative is simply the post-democracy of recent decades: the extension of the market, soft authoritarianism branded as progressivism, & the refusal to consider systemic change while virtue-signalling about the system's many contradictions.
Read 4 tweets
David Timoney Profile picture
29 Sep
The BBC has a global role, but it's over-inflated in the domestic imagination by WW2 films. The Nazi hegemony in Europe meant that local radio was collaborationist, so the BBC secured a continental near-monopoly on "truth" in 1940. After 1945, that largely evaporated.
The Cold War allowed the BBC to maintain its role in Eastern Europe, but it increasingly played 2nd fiddle to the US (VoA & RFE/RL). Most of the BBC World Service in the postwar era was directed to the Empire & was intended to facilitate anti-communist decolonisation.
Though the BBC World Service remains the largest national-to-international broadcaster by audience, this reflects its history. It was directly funded by the FCO till 2014, since when it has been largely a cost to the BBC. It is likely to shrink, even if the BBC is protected.
Read 5 tweets
David Timoney Profile picture
26 Sep
The problem with autonomous vehicles is the transition cost. When automobiles first appeared, the transition cost was trivial (the famous "man with red flag" law actually related to traction engines & was repealed in 1896), plus the reduction in horse shit was an immediate boon.
In contrast, using an AV in a mixed environment requires a lot more tech, essentially to deal with unpredictable humans: not just drivers, but cyclists & pedestrians too. Motorways are arguably the ideal environment for AVs, but you don't have one running to your front door.
One possible approach is to limit AVs to city centres (fully mapped & congestion coordinated), with a max speed of 20mph (so accidents are less likely to be fatal), & make them shared (less parking). But then they have only a marginal advantage over buses & taxis.
Read 4 tweets
David Timoney Profile picture
25 Sep
Simon Schama's on the telly talking about Romanticism. Says nationalism's power derives from music, so a piece on C18th Scotland is naturally introduced by an Irish air, proving to my satisfaction, at least, that it's largely artifice.
You want to talk about German nationalism? Let's start with a map of the Holy Roman Empire. That won't confuse anyone. Napoleon? An affront to German nationalism, not a catalyst. Herder? The David Goodhart of his day.
Arminius (Herman the German) & the Teutoberger Wald finally make an appearance. This episode is largely a rehash of Schama's 'Landscape and Memory'.
Read 6 tweets

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