Bootstrap Bill

I’ve been thinking for a while about how one would go about rebuilding our technological culture from scratch if for some reason it suddenly disappeared – how to ‘bootstrap‘ it, if you like.  The standard scenario for this kind of thought experiment is some kind of Armageddon – think Mad Max or Waterworld – but remembering both Dougal and Douglas Robertson’s books about the wreck of the Lucette, combined with hearing about my favourite ship‘s rather exciting time in mid-Atlantic last week, brought to mind a nearer term, more manageable version…

Lost but not in immediate danger

Here’s the scenario:  Imagine you are on a boat or ship somewhere in the middle of the ocean – let’s say the Atlantic, somewhere near the Azores, but not so near you can reach them in less than a few days sail.  Then imagine for some reason you lose all your navigation gear – GPS, sextant, log, compass, charts, tables, the lot.  Maybe you have to abandon ship to a lifeboat, or you have complete electrical failure on a yacht, and lose the other stuff overboard due to a freak wave.  Either way, you end up reasonably safe in a vessel that can still be sailed, or adapted for sail.  You have enough water (or means to make water) and enough food for this not to be a pressing concern, or you can get someone else to worry about that part!

Only the basics

The questions are going to be “Where are we?” and “Which way should we go?”.  Remember you have no GPS, no compass, no electronic log, no charts, no sextant, no astro tables or calculator and no means of communication (definitely no Internet!).  Let’s be somewhat generous and assume you have a basic toolkit, some wood, nails and plenty of paper and pencils.  I’ll be even more generous and throw in a small but assumedly accurate steel ruler and a working digital watch.  Extra points if you can get by without either or both of those things, though.  Oh, and it’s sunny and relatively calm.

The challenge

So how should you proceed?  Let’s assume you want to head towards the Azores and you happen to remember these are roughly 38° N, 28°W.  Answers on a postcard please, or failing that in comments below or trackback!  As you may guess I think I have a possible plan, but I’ll leave that for another post in a week or so, to let you have a go first.  This is not a trick question;  the answer is going to be detailed, practical and involve some GCSE-level maths and geography…

Over to you!

Paul

The UK regulation of small companies is on the whole “light touch”, and it’s a whole lot easier to start and run a micro-business here than in many other countries, and indeed than it was when I started my first consultancy business 20-odd years ago.  The move to towards universal electronic filing is undoubtedly the Right Thing for efficiency at both ends.  Some IT people in HMRC & Companies House obviously do see the big picture, and more power to their executive elbows.

But you may have guessed that this paean of praise is not going to last for the whole posting.  You’d be right.

On the third day of Christmas, the taxman gave to me…

The problem is that however magnificent the Government’s Grand Plan for back-end integration and efficient online processes, the public-facing user interface (UI) is almost uniformly abominable.  The most egregious example which I have suffered recently is undoubtedly HMRC’s online Company Tax Return filing system.  I had to file two simple returns (CT600 Short Version) over the Christmas/New Year break (known in our household as “the Accounting Period”), but what should have taken an hour each took about two days, and I’m still not entirely sure that they were submitted correctly.

How dost thou fail me?  Let me count the ways…

1. The interface is a downloadable “application” in a PDF.  To use it you have to go through an arcane ten-step process to grant additional privileges to the document.  Ordinary users should never be made to do this kind of thing routinely, because it makes them too blasé about randomly changing security settings they have no understanding of.
2. The response time to every single click and field entry is at least 5 seconds, sometimes 30.
3. The saving process is slow and unreliable – in one case crashing and losing both the open document and the saved file.  After that I backed up the file before saving each time.
4. The form validation rules are not up to date with even two-year old changes in legislation.  At least up until October 2010 the form did not allow Small Pool Allowance, which was introduced in April 2008!  It took me a dozen phone calls to establish that my only option was to do the computations manually and attach them as a PDF – which is what I would have done in half an hour absent the online service in any case!  It’s possible that the October release fixed this, but I didn’t realise this until it was too late – and of course, because it’s a fixed download it didn’t just update itself as a Web-based service would – I would have had to re-enter all the data.
5. Some figures such as turnover have to be entered identically three times.
6. There is no ‘memory’ of previous year’s values, but these still have to be entered, meaning dredging up figures that HMRC already know!
7. The tax due has to be entered in the first accounts section, but isn’t calculated until the third, CT600 section.  So you have to do your calculatons manually beforehand (not that I wouldn’t do it as a check in any case)
8. After submission it refuses to print out a copy of the submitted CT600 form.  It does generate the accounts, but in badly formatted HTML which it opens Internet Explorer to display (as you may guess, IE is not my default browser).
9. … I could go on, but I’m sure you get the idea.

Clearly, the most fundamental problem here is the choice of a locally-resident PDF ‘app’ rather than a conventional Web-based form.  Then on top of this there is just poor implementation and lack of testing, combined with an appalling lack of user support.  You have to pinch yourself here and remember that this isn’t some bespoke internal application knocked out on the cheap by some back-bedroom programmer; as of FY10/11 this is the only open-access way to submit Corporation Tax returns.  The only other option is (often ludicrously expensive) commercial software.

What’s behind the green curtain?

So let’s step back a little, calm down and wonder why this came about.  Clearly someone thought a downloadable PDF was the right thing to do;  I can think of two possible reasons for this:

1. Out of some (misplaced) feeling that people would not want to enter all these details into an online service.  I say misplaced because the whole purpose of the system is to file these details either to the public record or to HMRC.  Storing it locally as well arguably makes the security of the whole solution worse, not better, especially when it requires granting unlimited local privileges.
2. To align the HMRC’s free offering with conventional commercial software which submits “iXBRL” format data directly to the back end.  Of course, a front end could be (and should be) created in Web forms just as easily, but this does at least indicate some strategic architectural thought is going on, even if the tactical execution is currently dire.

So let’s give them the benefit of the doubt, and assume someone has a Grand Vision of a three-tier architecture, with HMRC sitting at the business logic and data storage tiers, and leaving the presentation layer (UI) to someone else.  Not a bad concept, really…

Why Government UI fails

So why do the Government’s attempts at user interface fail so badly?  I think it mainly comes down to that inevitable creator of poor goods and services:  monopoly.  In the majority of cases the ‘official’ interface is the only one, and hence the consumer’s choice is simply (a) put up with it or (b) fail to comply with legislation, with resulting fines, hassle and business risk.  There is no commercial incentive to solicit feedback, offer support or timely fixes – things even some companies in competitive markets fail to get right, but not for long!

The other issue is the way that Government services are ‘siloed’, each creating their own (poor) user interfaces, with no consistency of design or usability, shared platforms or data.  It also means a lack of common code base and hence all those good old fashioned software engineering ideas of code re-use go out of the window.

Is there a solution?

Although the online Corporation Tax system’s user interface is as classic an example of poor UI you could (not) wish for, the underlying multi-tier architecture may point towards a solution.  The current systems are not ideal, though, because they are effectively write-only – you can submit, but cannot read back previous year’s data – hence the need to re-enter so much.  So the ideal solution would be something like:

• A consistent set of standard Web services for all Government interactions
• A single authentication mechanism (the Government Gateway is approaching this)
• A competitive market for both free and paid-for user interfaces – both standalone ‘thick client’ and Web-based ‘thin client’.

Keeping it free (at the point of use)

So this offers the possibility of the UI being opened up to competition, and possibly, given their dodgy record in the area, the Government agencies concerned should stand aside from the race.  Clearly paid-for software or online services have an immediate business model but how could we stimulate people to create free software to replace the Government’s current (poor) offerings?

• Firstly, the Free Software movement has already created the most amazing generic software such as Linux, Firefox and OpenOffice.org.  It does less well with relatively niche products such as tax filing user interfaces for one particular nation’s companies or individuals.  Perhaps the community could build a platform for creating them which could be of international use?
• Secondly, for online services there’s a conventional revenue stream in advertising – but again some of these systems have a relatively small user base.  A sufficiently broad offering could capture a large market, though.
• Perhaps most radically, the Government could pay the user interface provider for every successful submission.  This might sound unlikely in the present climate, but obviously they had to pay for creation of their existing systems, however bad, and presumably every online filing saves a measurable amount of time for a civil servant re-entering data from a printed form.  So a small payment (a few £?) to the software company or service provider should not be out of the question.  Think of it as a kind of affiliate scheme for Government transactions…

Wishful thinking?

So is this just an impossible dream?  Perhaps not:  there are clearly strategic moves in the right direction within Government, it’s just the tactical delivery – particularly for front end user interface – which is failing.  As in all systems engineering, the key point is to properly define an open interface, and then let the market do the rest.  Oh, and if you work in Government and are thinking of writing a new consumer-facing user interface, either Just Say No or get some professional user interface designers on the case, please!

Wishing you Happy and Competitive New Year

Paul

To any amateur sailor or professional seafarer navigating the Cornish coast – or indeed much of the North Altantic – the phrase “Falmouth Coastguard” has an immediate comforting recognition.  Yet, in new proposals to modernise and streamline the Coastguard service, Falmouth would be reduced to daytime-only working, and it’s pretty clear that the current long-range cover would be moved out of Cornwall to a new facility in the Solent area, with the loss of a significant number of high-value jobs.

The consultation document gives some very good reasons why the Coastguard service needs to be modernised and make use of new technology to be more efficient and resilient.  I’m all for public sector efficiency savings!  The issue for Cornwall should be why the new “South Maritime Operations Centre” (MOC) should be built in new premises in the Solent area rather than expanding the Falmouth facility.  If we can change that one aspect, this could be a win for Cornwall – and for maritime safety – rather than a loss.

Proven capability

Falmouth Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre (MRCC) already handles the largest Search and Rescue region in Western Europe – 660,000 square miles of the North Atlantic. They have the proven skills to handle major incidents at all hours of day and night. They have the local knowledge of the Cornish coast, the first, but most treacherous, landfall for most traffic coming into Europe.

If you look into the ‘loading’ figures on pages 16-17 of the consultation document, you can see direct evidence of the critical service Falmouth provides for 24hr, all-year cover:

• Demand by Month: Falmouth is already one of the most highly loaded stations and retains this load throughout the year, unlike Solent which is highly skewed towards the summer.
• Demand by Time: Falmouth is by far the most highly loaded station at night and at 4am appears to take about 20% of the total load. Solent, on the other hand, although it’s slightly busier during the day (probably only the summer, if you cross-reference to the other graph), it’s practically unused at night.

It’s pretty clear why this is: Falmouth is handling long-range, largely merchant traffic, year round, 24/7, whereas Solent is mostly handling the summer yachties.

Moving the long-range North Atlantic cover?

The proposal is to downgrade Falmouth to daytime-only working, and build a new Maritime Operation Centre (MOC) in Southampton, one of two in the country (Aberdeen is being expanded as the other). Given it would be daytime only, Falmouth would be basically handling only local leisure traffic; professional shipping works at all hours! This must mean it that its offshore and ocean North Atlantic responsibilities would be moved to Southampton – it’s hard to imagine them handing over a rescue situation just because the sun has gone down, or come up!

I don’t know whether the MRCC Falmouth staff with long-range experience would be prepared to move to the Solent area;  my guess is probably not – Cornwall is a very sticky place.  But it’s abundantly clear that the high value jobs will be in the MOCs, and the ‘sub-centres’ will have reduced staff numbers, and possibly lower gradings as well.  Put another way: this is ‘exporting’ significant numbers of high-value marine sector jobs across the Tamar.  This is something the Cornish MPs should be making a song-and-dance about, even if they follow the party line on the overall efficiency drive.

Why build new?

But read the document – the proposal isn’t to expand MRCC Solent, it is to build a brand new centre in the Southampton area, probably at RNAS Lee-on-Solent (HMS Daedalus). But why build new in Southampton? Why not expand MRCC Falmouth into MOC South and retain the superb local knowledge and skills there already are in place? Why take away skilled jobs from a deprived area and move them to a relatively affluent one?

The apparent reasoning is given on page 22:

There is no existing Coastguard facility on the south coast suitable for conversion into a MOC, and alternative options would need to be considered. The MCA has land at the Daedalus site at Lee on Solent which would be suitable for a new-build centre. The Portsmouth/Southampton area in any case provides an ideal location for such a centre having good travel links to the rest of the country and a large maritime sector. We therefore propose to look further at both a new build at Lee on Solent but also at other government buildings in the area which might offer a suitable alternative home for a Maritime Operations Centre.

OK, so let’s pick this apart. Firstly, it states without qualification that no existing site – including Falmouth – is suitable to conversion to a MOC. Why not? If the existing Pendennis site is too small, can it be expanded? It’s hard to see there being much local objection.  Or could the core be moved to somewhere else in or near Falmouth (maybe RNAS Culdrose?) leaving the existing site as a local lookout, manned by volunteers?  Where is the documentation on this option being genuinely considered?

Secondly, the MCA has an existing Search and Rescue presence at Lee-on-Solent – but apparently no suitable buildings.  But actually, read on, and they might look at other government buildings instead – so this land issue isn’t that important after all. They are clearly intent on bringing it to the Solent in any case.

So why the Solent? It has a large maritime sector – fair enough, you need to hire experienced staff.  But so does Falmouth, and arguably a more strategic geography – and some of those experienced people already work at MRCC Falmouth!

So what’s left – “good travel links to the rest of the country”. Hang on – isn’t this supposed to be a national Maritime Operations Centre? What have good land travel links (translation: just down the M3 from London) got to do with it?  If you look at what really matters – maritime location and electronic communication links – Cornwall is second to none, and getting better all the time…

How to help

So if you agree with me that Falmouth should retain 24hr long range cover, and even become the new “South MOC”, what can you do about it?

• Firstly, read the consultation document in full. It has some good points, and it’s important to understand the background and the MCA’s point of view.
• Secondly, if you’re professionally involved or a reasonably knowledgeable amateur, respond to it (you have until 24th March 2011), maybe emphasising some of the points I’ve made above.
• Thirdly, if you live in Cornwall – and particularly if you live in Falmouth – write to your MP, and ask why they are rolling over and supporting moving skilled local jobs in our key marine sector out of county, instead of campaigning for Falmouth getting the MOC.

There is also a hint on Sarah Newton’s blog on the subject of local consultation meetings.  I will try to find out where and when these are being held – if anyone else gets this information first, please comment here.

Many thanks

Paul

Update: Falmouth as a nexus of global maritime safety communications

The more I read about MRCC Falmouth’s role, the greater my respect for them and the clearer their existing critical role becomes.  In the MCA’s national SAR Framework document, it lists (p.23) the many areas where Falmouth – alone – handles the UK’s links to the global maritime safety systems (acronym alert!):

1.6.1 In addition to its normal search and rescue co-ordination role, MRCC Falmouth is also the
UK’s Global Maritime Distress & Safety System (GMDSS) Centre. MRCC Falmouth is
linked directly to the Coast Earth Station at Goonhilly whereby distress, urgency or safety
messages received via the Inmarsat satellite systems are routed automatically to MRCC
Falmouth for SAR action. Any distress alerts received from vessels outside the UKSRR,
then MRCC Falmouth will pass details to the appropriate foreign RCC. Where
this is not possible, then MRCC Falmouth will co-ordinate the necessary SAR action
regardless of location worldwide.
1.6.2 MRCC Falmouth also possess an Operational Control Centre for the COSPAS/ SARSAT
satellite distress alerting system which is linked direct to the MCA’s Satellite Local User
Terminals at its Combe Martin Radio Site. The OCC operates in support of the
COSPAS/SARSAT UK Mission Control Centre (MCC) at the Air Rescue Co-ordination
Centre at RAF Kinloss described in Chapter 2.
1.6.3 All NAVTEX broadcasts originate from MRCC Falmouth for both the 518 kHz and
490 kHz services.
1.6.4 The National Maritime Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) Registry
is also located at MRCC Falmouth and provides the necessary identification of vessels
following distress alerts from EPIRBs.

Then, in the section on International Liaison, on p.48, we see that Falmouth handles liaison with foreign search and rescue bodies in France, USA, Canada and world-wide – many more than any other station.  Solent, by comparison, handles none.

So, apart from the loss of valuable skills, imagine the expense and disruption of moving all this capability to Southampton!