ICL couldn't beat IBM, but the government were committed to "buying British". That left the government with shit computers and systems. It still didn't help ICL, so in 1981 they faced bankruptcy. Since the government was the biggest user of ICL systems, civil servants persuaded Thatcher that "if ICL went bust, the government would grind to a halt". So ICL was rescued, with the aid of trusted Japanese tech firm Fujitsu. ICL lost its monopoly status, but was deeply embedded in the British state. You know the phrase "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM"? Well in the British Government, replace "IBM" with "ICL".
In 1995 the British government decided to automate their social welfare system. "Project Pathway" was a disaster. It got dumped 4 years later, but the Post Office still went ahead and used it, this time calling it "Project Horizon". According to insiders, everybody knew it was a "bag of shit". By now, ICL was fully owned by Fujitsu, who told the Blair government that if they didn’t sign the deal, ICL would collapse. So the deal was signed. And what a mess for all involved.
This isn't an isolated case though. ICL/Fujitsu built another system for the Cabinet Office in No. 10, for highly classified material. It was absolute trash, taking half an our to boot, and Ministers refused to use it. They dumped the system, prompting Fujitsu to sue for breach of contract. But, even as the Cabinet Office was decommissioning it, another branch of government was buying it.
Why? Partly because of EU rules, departments couldn't share their experiences with a given supplier or system. If a department knew that ICL/Fujitsu sucked, it might influence future contracts "and everyone would be sued".
Instead we have suicides, lives and reputations ruined.
Oh I absolutely agree that they should have had a citation for that. I'm just summarising the article. It was a common political tactic: blame the EU for unpopular policies, but don't give them credit for the popular ones. It's may be part of the reason why UK voters were so easily convinced to vote for Brexit. I've seen the same tactics here in Ireland.
I have no doubt that you could find some EU legislation from the '90s that could have been a tiny factor in this debacle, but it's fairly obvious that the biggest factor was panic that ICL would collapse if they didn't continue propping them up with fresh money, leaving many government IT systems out of support.
Paywalled: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-villain-at-the-heart-...
Unpaywalled: https://archive.is/aaJyc
Summary: In the 1960s, the government merged a bunch of companies "at gunpoint", creating behemoths like British Leyland (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Leyland) and ICL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Computers_Limite...) that were to compete with international giants.
ICL couldn't beat IBM, but the government were committed to "buying British". That left the government with shit computers and systems. It still didn't help ICL, so in 1981 they faced bankruptcy. Since the government was the biggest user of ICL systems, civil servants persuaded Thatcher that "if ICL went bust, the government would grind to a halt". So ICL was rescued, with the aid of trusted Japanese tech firm Fujitsu. ICL lost its monopoly status, but was deeply embedded in the British state. You know the phrase "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM"? Well in the British Government, replace "IBM" with "ICL".
In 1995 the British government decided to automate their social welfare system. "Project Pathway" was a disaster. It got dumped 4 years later, but the Post Office still went ahead and used it, this time calling it "Project Horizon". According to insiders, everybody knew it was a "bag of shit". By now, ICL was fully owned by Fujitsu, who told the Blair government that if they didn’t sign the deal, ICL would collapse. So the deal was signed. And what a mess for all involved.
This isn't an isolated case though. ICL/Fujitsu built another system for the Cabinet Office in No. 10, for highly classified material. It was absolute trash, taking half an our to boot, and Ministers refused to use it. They dumped the system, prompting Fujitsu to sue for breach of contract. But, even as the Cabinet Office was decommissioning it, another branch of government was buying it.
Why? Partly because of EU rules, departments couldn't share their experiences with a given supplier or system. If a department knew that ICL/Fujitsu sucked, it might influence future contracts "and everyone would be sued".
Instead we have suicides, lives and reputations ruined.