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UK Government’s ‘AI Skills Hub’ was delivered by PwC for £4.1M

mahadk.com

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Re: UK Government’s ‘AI Skills Hub’ was delivered by PwC for £4.1M

#131

Post by duckmysick »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #117
hluska wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m reading the original tender and there is zero mention of ISO 9000. In fact, the tendering authority even specifically stated this opportunity was a good fit for SMEs. Where does all this talk of standards come from?

In the tender there's one line: > IV.1.8) Information about the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) The procurement is covered by the Government Procurement Agreement: Yes Googling the UK Government Procurement Agreement got me to: > https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/government-standar... which was when I realised this was a rabbit hole and while I am positive that somewhere deep in that rabbit hole would…

It's there in the The Model Services Contract, under Core Terms:

> Quality Plans

> 6.1 The Supplier shall develop, within [insert number] Working Days of the Effective Date, quality plans that ensure that all aspects of the Services are the subject of quality management systems and are consistent with BS EN ISO 9001 or any equivalent standard which is generally recognised as having replaced it ("Quality Plans").

The Short Form Contract also have optional ISO 27001 or Cyber Essentials (which is, uh, an adventure on its own). But there's also an option for no certification required. It depends on the contract.

But yes, you're right. Dealing with requirements takes time and experience and you likely need a dedicated person (or team) to deal with it.

Re: UK Government’s ‘AI Skills Hub’ was delivered by PwC for £4.1M

#132

Post by rikroots »

wasmainiac wrote: post #116
marcus_holmes wrote: post #27

This is pretty normal for government procurement, though. and in fact, most large organisation procurement. There's a whole wall of standards that the supplier must meet, e.g. ISO9000 that your little web-dev shop almost certainly doesn't. They won't buy from a supplier that is likely to go out of business. There's a ton of other criteria that you've got to meet to get the business. If there's any , even the slightes…

> This is pretty normal for government procurement, though Why accept the status que? How many working lives of tax revenue did this bs consume?

Because corruption is a thing. Also: any government contract can be audited at any time by the National Audit Office, who have criminal prosecution powers if they find malfeasance in the procurement process. Also: being hauled in front of a Select Committee to answer questions about a given procurement is not fun. Also: politicians are always looking to ask questions that get their names in the paper.

Follow the processes. Document everything. Make certain the winning bidder has all the relevant certificates and insurance covers in place before agreeing to anything.

Leaving the Civil Service was one of the best work decisions I ever took.

Re: UK Government’s ‘AI Skills Hub’ was delivered by PwC for £4.1M

#133

Post by derangedHorse »

clort wrote: post #103
wongarsu wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And even if doesn't, writing five online shops to send you a written offer takes a couple minutes and results in the same or lower prices Procurement for such small items can be quick and sane. It's the larger items where rules tighten and procurement portals or bidding become mandated that are problematic

Nothing takes 'a couple minutes' when you have to sit down and research the five online shops, find if they are approachable, if they will deal with the restrictions of your purchasing department, find out how to submit a query. Many online shops just have a purchasing portal. Find the product, buy it here, pay for it and wait. So loosely I purchase items at my work from a budget that I am allocated in an organisatio…

> I need to justify that the items I am ordering are reasonably priced

Unfortunately it sounds like the process is misaligned with the intention. I doubt this mechanism actually works for efficient budgeting and even when it appears to work, it’s probably at the cost of standard quality.

Re: UK Government’s ‘AI Skills Hub’ was delivered by PwC for £4.1M

#134

Post by subscribed »

gerdesj wrote: post #11

This effort is utterly dreadful. I started off from the press release on GOV.UK (as linked in OP and which is a paragon of virtue in web design) and followed the "Free AI foundations training" link and it all went south rather rapidly. Its bold, brash and horrible. It does look like a set of links and its not immediately obvious where you start or what to do with it. There are a few things that might be hyperlinks bu…

Just log in and see the courses. There are many, and some really good ones.

Re: UK Government’s ‘AI Skills Hub’ was delivered by PwC for £4.1M

#135

Post by AliClarkDevyce »

tengwar2 wrote: post #20
edoceo wrote: post #3

Damn, I'd have done it for £4.0 There is this thing that happens in USA where RFPs are issued in such a way only one vendor could pass the mark - does that happen in UK? Reckon PwC has connections to make that happen

Probably depends on the department. I do grant and loan assessments for Innovate UK, and they have a rigorous and largely (+) transparent method for assessment which I would be happy to explain in detail. If we award money, it's accompanied by a monitoring officer (I do that as well) who is subject area expert with project management business experience. The MO meets the project every one or three months to review pr…

We (Devyce) just submitted our Innovate UK application - would be cool if a fellow HN user ended up working with us!

Re: UK Government’s ‘AI Skills Hub’ was delivered by PwC for £4.1M

#136

Post by tengwar2 »

AliClarkDevyce wrote: post #135
tengwar2 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably depends on the department. I do grant and loan assessments for Innovate UK, and they have a rigorous and largely (+) transparent method for assessment which I would be happy to explain in detail. If we award money, it's accompanied by a monitoring officer (I do that as well) who is subject area expert with project management business experience. The MO meets the project every one or three months to review pr…

We (Devyce) just submitted our Innovate UK application - would be cool if a fellow HN user ended up working with us!

I'll have to recuse myself if the application comes across my desk, but good luck with the application.

Re: UK Government’s ‘AI Skills Hub’ was delivered by PwC for £4.1M

#137

Post by throwaway19268 »

sbstp wrote: post #79
eranation wrote: post #24

US: I see your £4.1M and raise you $2.1B [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HealthCare.gov#:~:text=estimat...

CGI is a terrible company known for going over budget and under delivering on a ton of projects. Not that many companies bidding on large government contracts unfortunately

I worked there for 3 years as a graduate and I can absolutely agree with this comment, the guilt of knowing my project (which was a failure from start to finish) was funded by taxpayer money drove me away from the company and made me swear to never work at another big consultancy again.

Re: UK Government’s ‘AI Skills Hub’ was delivered by PwC for £4.1M

#138

Post by kingstnap »

canadiantim wrote: post #89
boznz wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In the Past", Now, and in the future.

in every democracy or other system of government, it's the same.

It's because Tribalism and Nepotism are the default, not the exception.

Re: UK Government’s ‘AI Skills Hub’ was delivered by PwC for £4.1M

#139

Post by bmn__ »

To Mahad and people who share the same mindset: If "Do better" the worst you can say at the end of an essay, you made yourself inconsequential. Nothing will change, except everyone in the world starts mocking you for being so weak and agreeable in the face of people who in turn care exactly nothing about you and see you merely as an object to be exploited.

Here's what Asmongold would say. Coercion and incentivisation work. Charge everyone involved at gov.uk and Pwc with fraud, from the decision makers top to the lower decks doing the actual work. Enact immediate severe and drastic punishment, put them in a box for ten years and let them work off their debt to society by turning big rocks into little rocks or something. If the law is a hindrance, just change the law. It's not a real thing, it's made up, a shared idea in people's mind. If the state officials do not want to enact the will of the people, then use the 2nd box of liberty to replace them with those who do want. Anyone thinking about enriching oneself by following example of the offenders should become deathly afraid to do so. Defrauding the taxpayer would stop being a widespread problem over night.

If any of this causes a revulsion of abhorrence in your mind, then discharge yourself of social programming and put this into perspective. This is the reasonable and fair approach. They receive grace and get to keep their life. In other places and times of the world, they would simply beheaded and that would be the end of it.

If anyone reading this just wants to down-vote out of disagreement in the typical fashion of left-extremist knee-jerkers, then be advised that this bad faith acting changes no one's opinion, you're just feeding into making HN an echo chamber for radicals and you put yourself automatically on the wrong side of history for anyone to see. Try your hand not being a dismal coward by actually engaging in discussion.

Re: UK Government’s ‘AI Skills Hub’ was delivered by PwC for £4.1M

#140

Post by maccard »

londons_explore wrote: post #30
maccard wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does to an extent but less so particularly from central government. The tender is here [0], the approval process is usually pretty watertight. The contracts that go through this will have a paper trail. What you’ll likely find is that PWC has written a spec that meets the letter of the contract and they have delivered a site that meets the letter of their wording, which is what they’re good at. The fact that it di…

> The fact that it didn’t actually solve the problem is inconsequential to PwC You are mistaken. The fact it does not solve the problem is good for business , because follow up contracts to resolve any shortcomings will most likely also be awarded to PwC, since they are the only bidder to already have the in house expertise on this bespoke site...

I'm not quite as cynical as that to be honest. I do think it's abundantly clear that PwC and other major consultancies hire people who have experience in writing briefs to get major projects, and that they likely have an implicit preferential treatment becacuse they meet things like insurance requirements already without any overhead. It's also clear, allowed (and provable) that they will start with senior people who can make a good point and sell a good story, but will swap them out as soon as possible.

I think at that point, they just don't care.

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