

Social assistance computer error sees millions paid out by mistake in Ontario - unfocused
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/social-assistance-computer-error-sees-millions-paid-out-by-mistake-1.2854050

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mkramlich
$240M cost over 4 years

thats $60M/year

assume that all went to cover cost of programmers or equiv profs

lets say fully loaded annual cost of said staff indiv is $150K each

$60M gets you 400 of those $150K programmers FT for a year

now do that for 4 years

for something that is essentially just a database-backed CRUD webapp with
simple workflow and the hardest bits actually done by a pre-existing separate
service anyway (messaging to banks to issue the DD; printing checks and
envelopes then handing off to PO for delivery); and could have been orders-of-
magnitude simpler (and cheaper overhead) if all replaced with a totally
automated Basic Universal Income payout to every citizen

gov software: massively lucrative if weren't so massively inane

~~~
iwwr
I suspect it was done in the usual manner with wiggling requirements and re-
writes several times over. Plus the people you may be replacing with software
may be the only ones knowing the ins and outs of the system, thus dragging
their feet at every opportunity.

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dmix
$240 million for a software project to do case by case management?

Basic income is sounding better and better each day now.

~~~
fchollet
To play the devil's advocate, that amounts to a bit under $7 per Canadian
citizen. UBI won't be going very with far that.

~~~
andrewfong
This only a single example. The more relevant issue is to what extent this is
representative of other, similar bureaucratic costs imposed by means-testing
and other targeting.

Also, you need to consider how many Canadian citizens are already receiving
benefits and how much under the current system. If a very large percentage of
Canadians are already receiving benefits, then the cost-savings of any system
that prevents the remainder from claiming benefits is accordingly diminished.

~~~
superuser2
Means-testing is not a difficult problem to solve with software. This project
was grossly overprovisioned and mismanaged to a degree that probably indicates
corruption, yes, but that happens in all kinds of software that has nothing to
do with means-testing.

~~~
dmix
I know someone in Ontario who actually works with this software and I had her
explain the requirements. Yes it is extremely hard problem to solve with
software.

They are trying to quantify qualitative data, but each case is so varied that
the software had thousands of options and checkboxes.

They needed the checkboxes to track metrics for specific trends in cases and
detecting problem areas. So the state can detect say a rise in poverty in x
neighbourhood do to y circumstances etc.

Data tracking at this level is incredibly complex. And I'm sure IBM, or any
gov enterprise software team doesnt have many good designers leading the
projects. Designed in comitee rooms.

UBI takes these people out of the equation and the software is simply, here is
everyones address/bank -> pay them.

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damian2000
Reminds me of this Australian (Qld) Govt project that cost $1.2bn - for a
health payroll system, which failed ... [http://www.govtechreview.com.au/qld-
health-payroll-report-sl...](http://www.govtechreview.com.au/qld-health-
payroll-report-slams-worst-ever-it-project/)

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damian2000
Its sounds from the limited info in the article that they didn't run the old
and new systems side by side for a period of time ... which I thought would
have been standard practice with this sort of thing?

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randlet
A quarter billion dollars on a provincial software project. This is absolutely
mind boggling. Between this and the Presto boondoggle[1] we are probably
closing in on a billion dollars being lit on fire in Ontario alone.

[1] [http://www.thepost.on.ca/2012/12/13/presto-yet-another-
liber...](http://www.thepost.on.ca/2012/12/13/presto-yet-another-liberal-
boondoggle-gone-wild)

------
unfocused
I would love to hear the details of this project. Perhaps it can made into a
lessons learned (yet another one) for high up government officials. There has
to be something to learn here. Anyone have any info on this?

~~~
hawkice
> Perhaps it can made into a lessons learned (yet another one) for high up
> government officials.

I'd be much more interested in comparatively low level people, maybe a team
lead or something? I feel the exact same way -- how could someone not be
genuinely curious about this type of thing? But I'm a little weary of getting
a 'series of tubes' style answer from someone (see the White House response to
Healthcare.gov as perhaps a best-reasonably-likely-case scenario -- it didn't
foul up the explanation completely but also didn't really speak to the details
in any way that you or I would like).

~~~
unfocused
I'm thinking more and more about this and other questions have come up. The
population of Ontario is about 13 million. This isn't even a national service.
It's provincial only.

Besides what appears to be terrible software, you have to wonder about the
procurement methods? i.e. How the contracts were awarded, measures to ensure
that money is properly spent, protection clauses that ensure that the
government gets value for dollar, etc.

To spend that much money on something that small is mind boggling.

~~~
pakled_engineer
This happens all the time, massive overpriced contracts to gov cronies of what
is essentially just a glorified database
[http://www.vancouversun.com/touch/story.html?id=9840193](http://www.vancouversun.com/touch/story.html?id=9840193)

[http://www.techvibes.com/blog/bc-government-scraps-
scrap-89-...](http://www.techvibes.com/blog/bc-government-scraps-
scrap-89-million-in-school-software-2011-09-19)

------
cfdsfa
Not surprised. The Ontario government is probably one of the most inefficient
government bodies in the world. Province debt size is twice the size of
California, living there is like being in a communist state, can't really
expect much from them.

~~~
Iburinoc
If you actually think that and aren't just trolling, would you care to back up
your statements?

While the Ontario debt is larger than the California debt, it's not really a
fair comparison.[1][2]

And on the communist state bit, uh what?

[1]:
[http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2014/03/21/ontario...](http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2014/03/21/ontario_is_no_california_when_it_comes_to_debt.html)
[2]: [http://blogs.wsj.com/canadarealtime/2014/03/18/ontario-
debt-...](http://blogs.wsj.com/canadarealtime/2014/03/18/ontario-debt-looks-
much-worse-than-californias-at-first-glance/)

