The Problem

All governments need to have software written for them. Regardless of whether this is for the NHS, The Prison Service, The Security Agencies or even Local Government.

The Problem is that most people - including politicians and civil servants are genuinely under the impression that software that can be used by millions - or even tens of million of people, must cost a correspondingly huge amount of money to produce, test, debug and release.

This is a myth.

It is true that software, capable of being used by millions of people daily (remember "track and trace"?) needs a robust server system, but the software is rarely more complicated than that required to offer the same system to a hundred people.

Around 99.9% of the code remains the same. It just does. A tiny amount DOES change, that which allocates lots of extra space, the ability for the code to run on multiple servers at once.

But this is simple stuff.

Software that works well for 100 people can be made to work well for 100 million people with VERY little extra work.

So why do we pay *millions* (let alone *billions*) for grotesquely overpriced software from Third Parties?

The answer is disturbingly simple - it is because very few people in Politics (in any party) have ever written software - and are easily taken in by the rhetoric of "experts".|

Those of us that have written software, know the difference between software that is free and software that costs thousands - or millions, is basically down to marketing. Marketing and greed.

But there is a solution, that is not that difficult to implement.

The Government of the day, should have access to "Coding House" - essentially any spare 100-desk office. At the risk of inducing shock, it doesn't even need to be in London, let alone Central London.

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