Dh has looked at the reported reason for the failure. Apparently the failure starts when a file size gets too big. He then worked out the file size per person and went 'what the fuck are they transferring?'
I asked what he meant and whether it they were keeping huge amounts of data on everyone. He said not necessarily. It was possibly just an indication of how badly programmed the whole thing is.
The basic issue here is how badly paid staff are and whether theyve got (non accountable) contract staff working on it.
His experience over the years has been that if you have a non technical person heading up important projects like this they tend to not have a fucking clue what they are doing and 'cut costs' all over the place (at greater cost further down the line when how bad the programming comes to light rears its head as it always does). Environments where you have good technical people at the top and you pay for quality staff then you get different results.
The basic problem is the sheer number of programmers who are better at bullshitting and company politics than they are programming. The overall quality is surprising low with key basic principles not drummed into people and instead the majority are lazy and deliberately avoid difficult shit.
He generally ends up being the person who comes in and clears up everyones shit.
My understanding is that this government (in particular more so than previous ones) have never understood the value of good hiring and paying well for IT projects.
Im not even slightly surprised at how catastrophically wrong track and trace has gone. Its why i kept DS off school when he could have gone back in June. I thought they might have sorted out problems with the system by September.
Clearly i was wrong.
The thing is the government has relied far too heavily on restrictions to slow transmission rates. And the public have got the blame for non compliance etc. But without a fully functioning AND fast track and trace then the restrictions are quite honestly, more or less little more than trying to mend a broken leg with sticky plasters.
I do wonder how fast the doubling rate will get too.
And i dont know how we will avoid either another full lockdown (which simply wont work after weeks or even months of local lockdown in the worst affected places) and/or a hospital melt down. Numbers now strike me as simply too high.