Thank you Claire for trying to keep the BC Liberal honest!

In the end over $300 million on computer systems that don't work. Normally, when one buys something that doesn't work, one gets one's money back. Seems this business "friendly" gov't is too friendly with the business that sold them this system on our dime.

Gordon Campbell, Christy Clark and the BC Liberal gov't may know how to spend our money, but they do not understand what real value for your money consists of. They are spendthrifts.

ICM works

...in residential care for elders, at least now, after nearly a dozen years of continuous improvement. Most of the issues in early implementation were due to inadequate training. Blame whoever you like there, but many of the issues have been worked out as now most nurses, LPNs and even care aides are inputting into the system in a relatively standardized way. I'm not sure costs are falling, but care decisions are now being made according to much more rigorous criteria than before.

As a result, I hear fewer stories of "My mother is wayyy sicker than Mrs. So-and-so, but Mrs. So-and-so gets 6 more hours of care a day than my mother!" The health authority tried to use ICM to push down per-diems paid for residiential care, but the organizations pushed right back with additional supporting documentation. It's a two-way street.

Heaven only knows how it'll work out in child and family care, but lord knows the existing system is rife with inappropriate decisions, inequitable resources and assignments, and clients and workers who game the system. I'd still be willing to take a flyer on ICM, given the alternative seems to be to do nothing....

Further more, maybe someone

Further more, maybe someone should dig a little bit into the contract that the BC Government signed with IBM about 10 years ago. I've been told that if that info started to get out, bodies would suddenly appear.

CAVEAT EMPTOR

At least when you buy a new car it comes with a warranty. Perhaps I should not question these anti-union managers running our government who know so much about business. They, after all, have been bright enough to purchase, on our behalf, a lemon, that comes without warranty.

One wonders what our pillars of capitalism will buy next, perhaps the Brooklyn Bridge. New Yorkers may not like foreign ownership of their bridge, but if the right palms are greased, who knows.

BCESIS

Another expensive computer mistake by the government has been BCESIS.

It is slow, poorly designed and and popularly referred to as BCFECES by the teachers who have to use it to do report cards and keep school records. A first year computer programming class could design a much better interface.

Once again, millions have been spent on a product that didn't work in places where it was previously used and rejected.

One computer disaster after another

The BC government is notorious amongst the BC high-tech community for blowing millions on failed computer systems. These relatively simple systems end up costing a fortune when they are implemented by the 'efficient' private sector IT consulting firms, such as IBM, who make their unseemly profits from these naive bureaucrats.

When I was in the systems development business, I always gave my clients a fixed-price contract upfront - if I went over, it was my problem; that's how I hire plumbers etc, don't you?

try to remember

the ones most heavily and negatively impacted are children. Little kids. Vulnerable kids. A couple of dozen of whom have died while in the care of the provincial government...with NO in-depth investigation as to why or how.

If parents treated their children the way the BC Government treats children-in-care, the kids would be apprehended for their protection. Unfortunately, there's nobody and no system to apprehend the foster kids being neglected by the provincial government.

Almost as poorly treated are the foster parents.

This is a good article, as far as it goes, but it is much too soft spoken, much too polite, and nowhere near passionate enough.

For chrissakes, they are children! At risk children who, through no fault of their own, are in the care of a government which all too obviously couldn't find its arse with both hands, let alone wipe it clean.

But, boy, do they have jammy pensions!!

wasted $200 million could have provided so much for children

I don't think the NDP is anymore competent or any less corrupt than the Liberals. I have no confidence that the NDP would do any better on this file. I remember the NDP slashing welfare rates in the 1990s.

from wikipedia:

Whereas Harcourt's first two years in government were characterized by a notably social democratic policy agenda, the government took a dramatic turn to the right in 1993 with Harcourt's famous province-wide televised address in which he lashed out against "welfare cheats, deadbeats and varmints". This speech inaugurated a set of draconian welfare reforms enacted between 1993 and 1995 similar to those adopted by new Progressive Conservative provincial governments elected in Alberta and Ontario in the same time period. These cutbacks were, in part, a reaction to a dramatic reduction in federal transfer payments by the federal Liberal government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and concommitant repeal of the Canada Assistance Plan bill of rights which included a right to food and a right to shelter. Unlike the reforms of the Harris and Klein governments, the BC Benefits package of cutbacks and restrictions in social assistance eligibility was bundled with a childcare bonus paid to low- and medium-income families, similar to that recently enacted by the Harper government. While unpopular with the province's anti-poverty movement and the then-marginal BC Green Party, Harcourt's reforms were well received by the vast majority of British Columbians.

***
These political parties are basically all the same, but "the vast majority of British Columbians" seem to be idiots who just don't get it.

That wasted $200 million could have provided so much for children in need if it was spent directly on their well fare instead of on systems, processes and incompetent bureaucrat salaries.

It's similar to the medical system where doctors and administrators get regular raises paid by citizens, even though many citizens have no doctor and no access to that system. Or where Health Authorities provide large amounts of money for committees and studies, but not actual health care for those suffering with out. And trust me, there a lot of citizens who have no access to the medical care system at all except through emergency wards, which is not a suitable substitute for the quality health care promised to all citizens by law.

There always seems to be money for programs and the people involved with providing those programs, but never money for the people those programs are supposed to help but fail to.

I think there is something far more sinister than mere incompetence going on here.

Management

The free enterprise hordes bankrupting BC, while at the same time lining the pockets of their friends. Just like BC Hydro, BC Rail, BC Gas, etc., etc.

Accountability

Can't wait for the list of persons fired for this mess. Oh that's right nobody in the bureaucracy is accountable, I forgot. I will have to agree with "Perry" I don't see any indication of accountability in the near future.

How it goes!

Have you ever tried to follow an instruction manual?
Whether assembling lawnfurniture or installling the latest gadget on your computer, you are victim to the geeks, who do not think like anyone else!

Yes Zalm, indeed after years of trying, no doubt staff has learned to cope with interfaces that are more like a mystery than a help!

It is not amart, when the people who order these programs, themselves most likely never worked "on the floor" and only can guess at what to specify.

Same old story: we live in a top-heavy world where overpaid pre-occupied people make decisions based on how to not get in trouble, meaning rely on so-called specialists --- again usually from firms that either contributed to the party, or spend millions on advertising themselves.

Never, ever, would it occur to solicit input from the hired help -- after all they are on a much lower payscale so must be sort of stupid, eh?

Systems Building

The only effective way (based on 30 years experience) when building information systems is to work 100% with the people on the front-line rarely supervisors (unless they were promoted after many years on the front-line) & never managers. Senior managers are the worst sources.

Thanks Claire

Someone is listening ! I sent a heads up months ago to the Tyee and Im sure others have as well. This story has legs and will plague the Liberals through the next election cycle. Claires office has been well aware of constituents issues with social services and has responded. Good on you!

I love gadgets and technology, I'd love to have robots pick up my cloths, do the washing, and clean the house. I'd like a computer to read my mind and fill it up with information, its all possible, and I trust machines to poke around and do their job, if the software works.

Look at what has happened recently, computers landed a freaking car on Mars, it worked. No room for errors, billions were on the line.
In our case lives are on the line, little kids, the poor, and the software is hooped.
BC taxpayers spent 200 million for software, it should work beyond our expectations. Software worth that amount of doe should solve all our whoes, and wash our clothes.

I bet British Columbian's have spent more on critical software than NASA has on their lander's software that may make a paradyme shift in our understanding of life.
For 200 million we should expect the best.

Always Question

It is important to always question your government, and for there always to be accountability, and to press government for accountability.

And yes we must first and fore most remember the children, and those who are vulnerable in our society. But, I would like to add, let's not attack our front line workers, who day after day work to do the best that they can for the children, and families that are in need. Until you have worked a day in their shoes, and take the time to recognize the stingy pay is not worth the twenty-five years of services needed for the handsome pension...I assure you, almost every worker feels that things can be done much better...and change is always needed....These workers do the best they can within government policy, following the legislation that was likely put out by the government they did not vote for...and to remember, it is important to vote, to put a voice to our concerns, to attend meetings, to be involved, whether it be one person at a time, through community, or through a political platform.