The future of digitalisation at the UWV, the benefits factory that millions of Dutch people depend on, does not bode well. The executive organisation is having great difficulty getting and keeping its IT on track. Without a more mature IT, the functioning of the UWV will come to a standstill within a few years. This is the conclusion reached by a research group led by former IT professor Daan Rijsenbrij.
Rijsenbrij discussed this message on behalf of the group on 29 August in an oral consultation with Marieke van Wallenburg (secretary-general of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment) and Irma van Gaalen (CIO there). Rijsenbrij previously expressed his doubts about whether the management of UWV is capable of making IT future-proof. The organisation has a long history of failed projects. Computable opinion maker René Veldwijk wrote an almost endless series of articles about these fiascos. ‘UWV has been getting away with non-working software for a quarter of a century’, stated the man who, like Rijsenbrij, knows UWV from the inside.
magnifying glass
A year and a half ago, Rijsenbrij decided to take a close look at the situation at UWV from a free role. He did not do this to criticize the management, but to be able to contribute to the necessary changes at what Veldwijk called a ‘failure factory’.
Rijsenbrij and his team also analyzed public reports on IT and had digital sessions with IT experts at UWV. They also received a large number of approving emails of a confidential nature. The opinion that things cannot continue like this also exists on the work floor of the IT department at the implementation organization.
In February of this year, Rijsenbrij submitted a series of Woo requests. More than a year earlier, UWV had asked eight major consultancy firms, including McKinsey, Gartner, KPMG, EY and Deloitte, to provide advice on digitalisation. The former professor wanted to know which assignments these highly paid firms had received, what their advice was and what adjustments they had led to. Result: zero. Although reports on digitalisation plans rarely contain names of people, the Woo lawyers believed that they should mainly withhold publication for privacy reasons. And this while UWV is an executive organisation, has no competition and should have few trade secrets. All of Rijsenbrij’s Woo requests were answered with an avalanche of mostly outdated documents without any relevance. The UWV lawyer explicitly stated that his emails to the board of directors were not appreciated. There was no transparent government, while his efforts were not appreciated at all.
Interference
In short, UWV, like many other government institutions, is allergic to what is perceived as interference from outside. Reports from the Advisory Board for ICT Assessment (AcICT) show that the top civil servants of ministries and executive organisations are often blind to internal reports of problems with IT systems and infrastructure, let alone to external advice. Almost the entire IT department warns that something is going wrong, but the management still wants to continue.
In the spring of 2023, Rijsenbrij had already asked UWV via the Woo for five strategic notes that are crucial for digitalization. He wanted to know how UWV thinks it can escape the straitjacket of outdated IT, oppressive legacy and data chaos. He also asked about the digital strategy and the global high-level roadmaps that go with it, the digital architectures, the data strategy and the cybersecurity policy. The UWV gave meaningless, often dated answers to all these questions.
No digital view
Rijsenbrij is troubled by the ominous thought that UWV has no real strategy at all and is digitalising off the cuff. The internal IT employees he spoke to confidentially are also in the dark about this. ‘A digital vision as a target for all transformations is missing.’ As a former professor of digital architecture, Rijsenbrij notes that this important steering instrument for the transformation of information provision and IT receives little attention. Unjustly so, because such an architecture is sorely needed. According to him, there is also a lack of a sober, business-like attitude towards decision-making and management in the IT field.
Rijsenbrij is wary of criticizing the UWV board of directors. After some insistence, he is willing to say that the majority of UWV responses are primarily legal and procedural in nature, and leave the facts undiscussed. An organization that is so heavily dependent on IT should have much more IT knowledge at the top. ‘The arrival of René Steenvoorden on the board of directors has so far led to few visible improvements,’ he says. And the role, freedom of action and enforcement power of the UWV CIO should be greater.
The former professor also recognizes the criticism of Arre Zuurmond, former commissioner of Information Management of the Dutch government, on the enormous fragmentation within government institutions. Compartmentalized processes and rigid structures limit the space, also for ICT people. If there is no digital strategy and architecture, it becomes difficult for them to operate.
Silovorming
Martijn Kuiper, business consultant IV at UWV, also calls breaking down silos essential in a blog on Humanista. This is certainly true now that these silos are hindering cooperation between different departments and services. Rijsenbrij understands very well how Kuiper arrives at this conclusion. It is no public secret that the power relations at UWV are rather skewed, he says.
‘The division heads who form a bloc against the highest management have great power. In a vertical organization like UWV, these kinds of kingdoms can flourish.’ The fact that UWV consultant Kuiper mentions the so-called Conway principle does not come out of the blue. Silo formation means separate departments that each have their own goals, processes and communication channels. Such an organization will have systems that show the same fragmentation and isolation, Kuiper states.
According to Arre Zuurmond, such a reactive, bureaucratic model has become the norm in executive organizations over the past thirty years. Like Rijsenbrij, he advocates strict, central control from the departments. Because the way in which these institutions have organized themselves, according to Zuurmond, forms a barrier to successful digitalization.
An organization like UWV has no competitors or shareholders and can therefore continue to muddle through with impunity
Daan Rijsenbrij
Management literature also shows that career civil servants like to work in such a structure because it perpetuates their positions of power. Lawyers and economists who rose hierarchically at a time when IT knowledge was not yet a requirement, have an interest in keeping things as they were. In business, shareholders force changes that promote the effectiveness of digital systems.
Rijsenbrij: ‘An organisation like UWV has no competitors and no shareholders and can therefore muddle through with impunity.’ He does not expect that the board of directors wants to and can change to a modern UWV. In other cases that the AcICT has brought out in recent years, it also appears that the management prefers to let things take their course for as long as possible. If the position of a top civil servant becomes untenable, an even higher position at another government institution is usually in the offing.
In mid-February of this year, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment expressed doubts about the ability of the UWV top to stop hopeless projects in time. Then-Minister Karien van Gennip even questioned the quality of decision-making at UWV.
The AcICT reports showed that the highest management of the UWV had been warned from all sides about problems with a large IT project, but refused to pull the plug. Critical voices were ignored. The minister then announced that he would question the UWV management about this. UWV promised to take these kinds of signals seriously. But Rijsenbrij has noticed little of this. Furthermore, UWV pointed out the appointment of René Steenvoorden to the board of directors to the minister who is ultimately politically responsible for this organization. The question is how long the department is willing to give the UWV management the benefit of the doubt. Rijsenbrij believes that the ministry could take a tougher stance and demand more clarity from UWV.
Under guardianship
One option is to place UWV under the guardianship of Irma van Gaalen, CIO of Social Affairs and Employment, for its IT and digitalisation. If she follows Arre Zuurmond’s recipe, breaking down the silos is also required. UWV consultant Kuiper emphasises that a successful transformation of governments is not just about technology or processes, but mainly about culture and structure. In short, there is a lot of work to be done.
Rijsenbrij therefore considers drastic measures to be necessary. ‘It is virtually impossible for the UWV managers who have allowed or tolerated the current situation to put UWV on the right digital track on their own.’ And haste is required, because if UWV gets stuck on a sandbank, the consequences will be incalculable.
Also read the message: UWV: WIA misery not a software problem