Re: RO Index Digitisation project terminated!

On Sat, 16 Aug 2008 10:03:35 +0100, "Don Moody"
<dpmoody@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"Peter Norman" <petrosn@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:48b88806-836c-46f4-bddf-b004fd1a99cd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
See
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/aug/16/genealogy.records

The General Register Office (GRO), which is responsible for the
records, said only 130m had been scanned, and plans to make the
index
public had been shelved. Missing are details of birth records from
1837 to 1934 and death records from 1837 to 1957.

So no computer database and no paper indexes available!

So? If you don't like that decision, do something about it other than
whingeing here in a powerless newsgroup.

I didn't see the OP whinging - I saw his post as informative and the
last line as expressing his disgust/frustration with HMG's
incompetence

It's a political decision about resource allocation. All you need to
do is find out roughly what is 'saved' by not doing the work, identify
something else which costs the same or more which is being done but in
your view needn't be done, and then convince your representative in
Parliament that your view is better for his constituents than the
present Government view.

It would seem that the issue here is not about resource allocation,
but about the inability of HMG to specify and allocate via tender
almost any IT related work - take the latest fiasco wtr to the marking
of SAT's papers

So for example if the number of kids in your constituency having
costly cancer treatment is such that the total costs of digitising and
indexing are the same or smaller, you could campaign to withdraw all
drugs from those kids, let them die, and have your digitising. It's
no good fudging and saying that is inhumane, or saying that savings
could be found 'somewhere', or moaning about the numerous ***-ups and
large sums wasted by Government in the past and currently.

No Government has an infinity of resources. It can only redistribute
what it takes from the productive workers in society, and it has
reached (and gone beyond) the limits of what those productive workers
will bear. There is no more money in the pot. If you want it spent
the way you want, you are saying you don't want it spent on something
else. Specify that something else. And specify who will bear the brunt
of not doing that something else.

The problem is that the government seems intent on redistributing the
maoney it takes in tax to various IT companies, but with the unique
result of never receiving anything in return

For example, I think that all money spent on building, refitting and
running nuclear submarines is wasted. But if I campaigned to dump the
subs and spend the money on data mining, I'd also have to explain what
to do with the tens of thousands of job holders in Plymouth and
elsewhere whose livelihoods and families depend on nuclear subs. If I
were an MP in Plymouth I'd be more than somewhat deaf to arguments
which would imply vast economic distress and ruin in my constituency.
I'd be wanting to keep my snout in the trough by getting re-elected.

How about the money being spent on digitising NHS records? I believe
that the current forecast of cost is around 14 Billion. It doesn't
seem to work

So there's your real problem if you don't like some resource
allocation decision. Whatever other decision you want made will have
complex ramifications and they will include upsetting vested interests
and what other people regard as 'important'. It's called politics.
--
Peter Thomas
Researching: Hone - Oxfordshire & Glamorgan; Samuel(s) - Swansea & Llanelli & Gower;
Thomas - Morriston & Clydach; Harris - Aberdare & Gloucester, Pope - Shropshire; Parker, Shropshire;
Broome - Shropshire.
.