Business Link is dead – error riddled Gov.uk site takes over

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

I've had this from "the Government" ...

@gdsteam: @cheapaccounting @ukbizforums the one factual inaccuracy you have identified is being corrected. Thank you for your feedback @GOVUK

They cannot even get the number of factual inaccuracies correct.

Oh goodness - this web site is doomed

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

Yippee - one error corrected.

The dividend example now reads ...

Example
You want to pay a dividend of £900. Divide £900 by 9, which gives you a dividend tax credit of £100. Pay £900 to the shareholder - but add the £100 tax credit and record a total of £1,000 on the dividend voucher.

​

They seem to think that there is only one error to correct - oh well. They will be busy when they realise there is more

 

[maxine]

oh dear.

oh dear.

Well done Elaine for spotting this stuff and escalating it.

 

[carachapman]

I cannot believe that this website has been allowed to go live in this state! I haven't looked it, just reading the comments above is enough.

Making information like this available to the general public and so dangerous and could lead to all sorts of tax/accounts issues.

Typically, people will use these websites in order to "save the cost of consulting an accountant" and try to understand their accounts and tax obligations. If it's wrong, how are they supposed to know? Then they'll end up appointing an accountant anyway to fix the errors further down the line.

I can just imagine the clients/prospects turning up saying "well I read on the govuk website that......"

I'll join the campaign to have it taken down until accurate information is published.

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

oh dear.

oh dear.

Well done Elaine for spotting this stuff and escalating it.

I do expect to be thrown in The Tower very soon

They make it worse when they say you have to report things via their on line feedback form.

If I was in charge of the project I would be reading this thread with interest and would have put the whole thing back in testing by now.

However of course it is not real world stuff - is it

But I fear for anyone reading that site and relying on the information contained. I am sure there is some really good stuff but how do you know what is right and what is wrong.



And some of it looks like it was written by Noddy – does anyone (except me and David) remember Noddy?

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

For those of you on tweet please cut and paste this into your Twitter account and post ....

Pls RT "Take the @GOVUK gov.uk site down until the inaccurate information is sorted out" Read about it http://ow.ly/eC9LO

 

[carachapman]

Done and I've also put it on my business and personal Facebook pages.

Good work Elaine - someone needs to get this sorted.

 

[InPrintImaging]

The bit on copyright isn't even properly researched.

https://www.gov.uk/intellectual-property-an-overview/copyright

For reference, it actually lasts for 70 years after death of the creator, including in photographs.

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/copy/c-duration/c-types.htm

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

I'm sure it's not just the tax bits that are wrong

There really have chucked the baby out with the bath water with this one

 

[talkinpeace]

I've notified two national papers with whom I already have contact ....
This needs to be escalated and FAST

People will be muddling through their tax returns and small company accounts at the moment using that site ....

 

[InPrintImaging]

Given that the old business link site was already up and running, you wonder what the idea behind removing it was.

 

[Scalloway]

This is a BBC report on the reasoning behind the new website.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19949177

 

[Tom McClelland]

Given that the old business link site was already up and running, you wonder what the idea behind removing it was.

This kind of thing is a common indicator of large and innefficient organisations. Observed amongst others by Parkinson. Legions of unproductive people are employed whose only function is to justify their employment by doing things like "rebranding". Always safer and easier to commission the design a new corporate logo, rename the organisation, rework its website, write a new Mission Statement, etc, than it is to do any actual work that needs doing or to solve any actual problems that might upset the applecart or even render the departmental function redundant. Costs associated with such rebrandings and reorganisations are eye-watering.

Some small companies seek to ape corporations in such behaviour; usually a sign that executives have read books about management and customer relations. It is rarely a success regardless of the size of the organisation since the tacit purpose of the behaviour is not truly focused on the benefit of either the customers or owners of the organisation, but to the benefit of its management.

And government is the largest and most self-justifying employer of all.

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

I am banging the drum again on this today on my blog ....

Gov.uk - is it value for money?
http://www.cheapaccounting.co.uk/blog/index.php/gov-uk-–-is-it-value-for-money/

Yes I have a right bee in my bonnet about it.

Is this really a good use of Govt founds?

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

And a great mention for this thread in this article ....

http://www.prowess.org.uk/business-link-website

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

What do you think of the Gov.uk site - vote in the UK Business Forums poll:

http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=275134

 

[alanb]

The old Business Link website cost £40M per annum to run let alone build.

Why are we surprised at the poor quality of the Gov.UK website it’s been set up by people who have never run a business in the commercial world who think they know better. That’s why they have not asked anyone from the commercial world, they are coming at this from a regulators approach.

The new website was also supposed to replace what Business Link did in the field as well as being an information resource. Patently they have failed on all counts.

The field advice function seems to have been replaced with volunteer mentors. Most of these are either bank small business 'advisers' or anyone who has worked in / run a business. Who is to say what experience, qualification or relevant knowledge they have. But so long as its free that does not seem to matter.

Those of us who provide qualified business advice, mentoring and training on a professional and chargeable basis are now expected to compete against this group who of course don't even carry any professional indemnity insurance.

The other problem is that if it's free then advice and help is not valued.

My warning to any business owner is that at the end of the day you get what you pay for and ultimately ignorance is very expensive!

 

[businessfunding]

The old Business Link website cost £40M per annum to run let alone build.

I'm struggling to see how it costs that amount to run an already-build website. Am I missing something?

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

I'm struggling to see how it costs that amount to run an already-build website. Am I missing something?

Yes - we are talking about Public Sector costs, not real world stuff

 

[Scalloway]

According to the BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2010/07/the_105m_website.html

The site is the work of a major outsourcing company called Serco, which has sub-contracted the technology to a little business called BT. So how do the costs break down?
The COI report has some detail - £6.2m on strategy and planning, £4.4m on design and build, £4.7m on hosting and infrastructure, £15.3m on content provision and £4.5m on testing and evaluation. What I can't work out is why that cost is repeated for three years.
But I freely admit my knowledge of website development is sketchy so I consulted a couple of experts. One had helped build a customer support website for a major retailer, to cope with similar traffic to that experienced on the Business Link site. That had been built in-house but a supplier had quoted roughly £1.5m to build it, plus £150,000 in annual running costs.

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

According to the BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2010/07/the_105m_website.html

£15.3m on content provision

I would have done it for 10% of that fee

 

[EmerColeman]

Elaine
I am Deputy Director for Digital Engagement with Government Digital service. Have noted your comments on this forum and of course on Twitter and thank you for your feedback. Sarah Prag our Product Manager for GOV.UK has written a blog post on the Government Digital Service blog which describes the processes used in the production and fact checking of our content. This will give you some additional background. Unfortunately I cannot post the URL on this forum so will send to you via Twitter.

With regard to your particular examples. We have reviewed and amended one factual error. We have also looked again at the wording of the other examples that you point out. In some cases we have suggested amendments which are now being reviewed by the relevants experts in HMRC and Companies House. Once they revert to us we will publish updated versions of the guides in question.
Kind regards
Emer

 

[David Griffiths]

It seems that this forum is being used as unpaid proof readers for the site. I wonder what the budget would have been if they paid people to do that.

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

Elaine
I am Deputy Director for Digital Engagement with Government Digital service. Have noted your comments on this forum and of course on Twitter and thank you for your feedback. Sarah Prag our Product Manager for GOV.UK has written a blog post on the Government Digital Service blog which describes the processes used in the production and fact checking of our content. This will give you some additional background. Unfortunately I cannot post the URL on this forum so will send to you via Twitter.

With regard to your particular examples. We have reviewed and amended one factual error. We have also looked again at the wording of the other examples that you point out. In some cases we have suggested amendments which are now being reviewed by the relevants experts in HMRC and Companies House. Once they revert to us we will publish updated versions of the guides in question.
Kind regards
Emer

Thank you Emer for taking the time to join the forum and post.
I’ve added the link to the blog you mention so that everyone here can see it:
http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/2012/10/22/needs-to-content/

Thanks for telling us about that process.

I guess for me at least I am rather distressed at the thought that the process you mention results in content like ...

Where to send your form [a limited company formation form]
The address you need is on the form.
​

And

When not to charge VAT
You can’t charge VAT on exempt or ‘out of scope’ items.
Exempt
Exempt goods or services are supplies that you:
· can’t charge VAT on
​

I think the issue here is that the Business Link site has disappeared to be replaced by such nonsense that has obviously cost much more than a few quid to delivery.

IMO, regardless of the process used to publish, such content is insulting to business owners and users of the site and a massive step backwards in the support that the Government made available to small businesses.

Whilst recognising this is a new site it really has not got off to the best of starts and that view is shared by not only me.

Good luck with your project and welcome to the forum

 

[alanb]

I worked in a very senior level post at a Business Link for five years before they became Regional. I took an exit because I could not hack the 5 restructures in five years. Having come from the commercial world I was seen as a maverick because I challenged projects and costs like the website and many other time and money wasting ideas that were more about collecting statistics than helping the businesses that really needed it. Hence I ended up back in the commercial world as a business adviser, mentor, trainer and consultant working for myself again!

The reason for 3 years costs, contracts for each area Business Link was effectively a license/franchise renewed by the Government Department every 3 years. Therefore everyone and everything was geared to bidding for a new contract/license at all levels every 3 years. So every 3 years a massive bidding process went on and the run up was a hiatus every time.

 

[EmerColeman]

Elaine
If our team are not already looking at the items you have raised in your last post I have flagged to them now.

Re your points on costs.

The estimated annual saving of GOV.UK over Directgov and Businesslink is £36m. To this you need to add the cost of converging departmental websites onto GOV.UK which, over time, will realise savings from departmental costs of between £50 – £70m. This can be set against the cost of launching gov.uk which was £18.7m.

Emer

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

Elaine
If our team are not already looking at the items you have raised in your last post I have flagged to them now.

Re your points on costs.

The estimated annual saving of GOV.UK over Directgov and Businesslink is £36m. To this you need to add the cost of converging departmental websites onto GOV.UK which, over time, will realise savings from departmental costs of between £50 – £70m. This can be set against the cost of launching gov.uk which was £18.7m.

Emer

Great - so we (the tax payer) have spent £18.7m on this new site Gov.uk

That is extraordinary.

I just cannot see how this amount could have been spent on such content.

I accept cost savings need to be made but not as the expense of replacing good content with such dribble!

 

[Walkol]

Elaine
If our team are not already looking at the items you have raised in your last post I have flagged to them now.

Re your points on costs.

The estimated annual saving of GOV.UK over Directgov and Businesslink is £36m. To this you need to add the cost of converging departmental websites onto GOV.UK which, over time, will realise savings from departmental costs of between £50 – £70m. This can be set against the cost of launching gov.uk which was £18.7m.

Emer

And how much millions could it cost businesses, who trust this nonsense advise you have posted?

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

Can we get a detailed break down of the £18.7m as I am sure that I am not the only person who thinks that this is a VERY high figure for what has been done.

 

[businessfunding]

Elaine


The estimated annual saving of GOV.UK over Directgov and Businesslink is £36m. To this you need to add the cost of converging departmental websites onto GOV.UK which, over time, will realise savings from departmental costs of between £50 – £70m. This can be set against the cost of launching gov.uk which was £18.7m.

Emer

Just to clarify costs on business Link, this was latterly a web based service - over a period of years they had actually become very good at this facet. Can you explain how maintaining that service would cost the sort of money that you are alluding to. And why the content could not be transferred to this platform?

 

[papverpoppies]

Diabolical when you think of the cuts being inflicted ie welfare, loss of local Gov jobs, all to save money (as Dave maintains we are over spending) obviously not, if this is the case.

18 million pounds for the wrong information - unbelievable.

 

[EmerColeman]

The proposal to move to a single domain was outlined by Martha Lane Fox in her report Revolution not Evolution. The concept behind the site is to make it simpler, clearer and faster for users to access the content that they need. And an additional concern was significantly lowering costs for government.

As I already posted, the cost of maintaining the existing contracts for Directgov and Businesslink would have been £36 million. This does not include the costs of individual departmental websites estimated at a further £50 - £70 million a year. It's impossible to support that level of costs in times of austerity. So the single domain represents a significant saving as you will see when the costs of GOV.UK are set against these costs.

As I have also said previously. I appreciate your feedback and we will continue to iterate and improve content so don't regard this as the finished item. We will always continue to improve and to respond to user need.

 

[Walkol]

so don't regard this as the finished item.

And I don't think anyone expected it to be. But, it should not have been published while it shows incorrect information - large quantities of it as you can see from this thread alone - that can do serious damage to peoples businesses/lives should they treat it as factually correct.

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

The proposal to move to a single domain was outlined by Martha Lane Fox in her report Revolution not Evolution. The concept behind the site is to make it simpler, clearer and faster for users to access the content that they need. And an additional concern was significantly lowering costs for government.

As I already posted, the cost of maintaining the existing contracts for Directgov and Businesslink would have been £36 million. This does not include the costs of individual departmental websites estimated at a further £50 - £70 million a year. It's impossible to support that level of costs in times of austerity. So the single domain represents a significant saving as you will see when the costs of GOV.UK are set against these costs.

As I have also said previously. I appreciate your feedback and we will continue to iterate and improve content so don't regard this as the finished item. We will always continue to improve and to respond to user need.

"It's impossible to support that level of costs in times of austerity."


IMO it is impossible to support a spend of £18.7m of tax payers money on what has been produced in such austere times

Please do not spend any more

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

Did anyone think to look how savings could be made on the £36m and £50 - 70m before re-inventing the wheel, in these austere times.

Have you got the breakdown of the £18.7m spent to date and do you know how much more it will cost to get it up to Business Link and Direct Gov quality?

I am sure us normal people would all like to understand why these figures are so large.

 

[talkinpeace]

simpler, clearer and faster
but incorrect.
therefore money wasted
and sorry but I just do not believe your figures for maintaining the BusinessLink site.

Which team of Management Consultants came up with those figures - as if they are sound, they will have no problem publicly defending them

 

[businessfunding]

Emer

Thank you for coming on here - it is a risky messenger's job!

However, I cannot believe the figures that are being bandied about (at least I cannot believe that they could not have been drastically reduced) - Like others, I think we need far more clarity on this, and how your department can justify the effective disposal of good quality information which had cost so much to accumulate.

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

Emer

If we got a team together who would run the Direct Gov and Business Link web sites (not for profit) at a fraction of the price would someone in the Government have discussion with a view to "giving us" (a consortium) the content?

Who would we need to speak to and when can we speak to them?

 

[Yiuwin Tsang]

Hi all,

Wow, what a thread!! Many thanks to Elaine for driving this and getting a response from Emer - goes to show the value of UKBF and it's members to Govt thinking!!

I've actually just come off the phone to Emer, who I'd like to thank also for coming on site and making themselves available to answer forum user queries.

I understand that GOV.UK has been in the wild for just a few days and Emer explained that they are working through the considerable feedback data from the new traffic generated from the switch off of the Directgov and Businesslink sites.

Without wanting to divert this thread, it would be fantastic, given the interest, if concerns and queries raised by UKBFers are acknowledged by GOV.UK team and where possible addressed - It would be really useful if UKBFers could contribute user concerns & comments (as well as any glaring amends) here and we can organise a direct webchat / G+Hangout / forum session with Emer and team to respond in a week or two.

Perhaps Elaine you would be up for taking part in the chat?

Emer, appreciate you are mega busy given launch but any continuing contribution to Elaine's thread during the next week or so is of course much appreciated.

Thanks,

Yiuwin

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

Hi all,

Wow, what a thread!! Many thanks to Elaine for driving this and getting a response from Emer - goes to show the value of UKBF and it's members to Govt thinking!!

I've actually just come off the phone to Emer, who I'd like to thank also for coming on site and making themselves available to answer forum user queries.

I understand that GOV.UK has been in the wild for just a few days and Emer explained that they are working through the considerable feedback data from the new traffic generated from the switch off of the Directgov and Businesslink sites.

Without wanting to divert this thread, it would be fantastic, given the interest, if concerns and queries raised by UKBFers are acknowledged by GOV.UK team and where possible addressed - It would be really useful if UKBFers could contribute user concerns & comments (as well as any glaring amends) here and we can organise a direct webchat / G+Hangout / forum session with Emer and team to respond in a week or two.

Perhaps Elaine you would be up for taking part in the chat?

Emer, appreciate you are mega busy given launch but any continuing contribution to Elaine's thread during the next week or so is of course much appreciated.

Thanks,

Yiuwin

Hi Yiuwin

Yes of course – more than happy to be involved in this.

As an accountant supporting small businesses I am very passionate about making sure they get good quality advice.

I am also very concerned about the continuing spend on this project and think this needs to be reviewed NOW – not in two weeks, two months or whenever.

As well as the commentary on content for correction I do think that there must be some immediate debate on value for money on this project.

Whilst accepting cost savings have to be made on the previous sites (Direct Gov and Business Link) this project has thrown the baby out with the bathwater with the loss of great content on both of those sites.

The figures being brandished around are extraordinary and not ones that I can relate to for the delivery of such content.

I think we all need to understand more about the breakdown of the ongoing running costs of the previous sites and where the amounts were spent.

I also would like to see a breakdown of costs to date on the gov.uk project, projected costs to completion and annual running costs for the site including various updates that obviously need to occur.

Surely no one at the moment is celebrating the successful delivery of this project?

But before it continues and more money is spent I for one call for an URGENT post live review of it.

Having spent many years in IT delivery I know how busy post live can be but I do think the project sponsor (who is that by the way?) needs to call an emergency project steering committee review and take a serious look at this delivery against original objectives and projected spend.