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Ethics

Mike Bowern, Information Age

14/02/2006 13:21:16

In the August/September 2005 edition of Information Age, an article by Craig McDonald (Building ethics into quality assurance) related some principles of ethics to ideas about quality and stakeholders. He made the point that a core idea behind both ethics and quality is the effects that systems have on stakeholders. Some of these effects are positive, but some are negative.

McDonald said that systems developers are deeply involved with these issues because their work has significant and widespread impacts on the users, sponsors and other stakeholders. It is both an ethical and a quality stance for developers to be concerned about the effects of their actions, and to take responsibility for them. Today's article uses a case study to consider this point further.

The following is a summary of a story called "Centrelink letter one in a million", reported by Megan Doherty the Canberra Times on July 11, 2003. It is also one of the case studies related to the ACS Code of Ethics on the ACS Web site.

Summary of the case A retired nurse living in Canberra applied for a pension from Centrelink, and was informed, by a telephone call that she would receive a small pension of $8 per fortnight, and a Pension Card. She then received a letter saying that her pension would not be paid because she had assets of value above the allowable limit. The letter stated that her assets were over $18 million, and her annual income was over $770,000.

It took this lady several attempts to get Centrelink to examine her case, and each phone call she made resulted in her contacting a different person, "always in weird places". Presumably she meant remote places, since she mentioned Townsville in the article.

Finally, the cause of the mistake was found to be a "human error" when the lady's asset details were coded into the computer. When the place where "the miscalculation" had happened was finally discovered, she was informed that they "couldn't remove it from the computer". The lady said that no-one seemed apologetic or embarrassed by the mistake, and a second letter she received was only to tell her that her application had been rejected, based on her true income and assets.

Centrelink claimed that this was an "isolated incident". However, at the same time, another man was discussing with Centrelink their claim that he had an income of $6 million, which was not the case.

Discussion. There are three clauses in the ACS Code of Ethics which could apply to this case, particularly to the developers of this system.

1. There is the matter of competence, and clause 4.6.1 states: • I must endeavour to provide products and services which match the operational and financial needs of my clients and employers.

The lady had applied for a pension, presumably using a Centrelink form, and presumably she provided the correct information about her income and assets. The application had been reviewed by someone in Centrelink, who probably decided that the applicant had a case for a pension, based on the information provided, and perhaps using a type of ready-reckoner to estimate the pension. On this basis the lady was told by a telephone call that she would receive a small pension ($8 a fortnight), and a Pension Card.

The pension application probably then went through a coding and data entry process, which is where the mistake, "a human error", was made. One could speculate that the error was related to how the asset and income values were coded, perhaps by entering assets of $18 million instead of $18 thousand. Whatever the mistake was, assets of $18 million and an income of over $770,000 were entered into the lady's computer record.

There are two obvious places where this error could have been detected: first by someone else reviewing the coding; and second, by the data entry software, which could raise an exception report querying the very high value of assets and income. Surely it would be most unusual for a person with such assets and income to apply for a pension in the first place. However, it appears that no checking was done, and a letter was sent to the lady rejecting her application.

A "human error" in coding and data entry, which could easily have been detected and queried in this process, had affected a number of stakeholders. • The applicant for a pension was clearly affected, and the newspaper reported that there was a similar case occurring at the same time. The error was queried by the lady because the dollar amounts involved were so large, but does Centrelink know how many other people could have been wrongly denied, or granted, pensions, through coding errors involving much smaller amounts? • Since the lady made several attempts to raise her problem with Centrelink, it seems that the front desk staff could not immediately help her, nor does the story indicate that it was possible to create a record of her problem to be addressed by someone who could. • The system development and support staff had to investigate and correct a problem which should not have occurred in the way that it did, in the first place. • The taxpayer, a major stakeholder in any public sector system, had to pay for the problem to be resolved and fixed.

2. There is possibly the matter of honesty, with clause 4.7.1 stating: • I must not knowingly mislead a client or potential client as to the suitability of a product or service.

We do not know enough about the development of this particular Centrelink system to be sure that this clause applies. However, an example of when it could apply, to any development project, is when a system is delivered to the client without having been adequately and comprehensively tested.

3. There is the matter of social implications, with clause 4.8.5 stating: • I must attempt to increase the feelings of personal satisfaction, competence, and control of those affected by my work.

The lady tried to contact Centrelink by phone several times, but each time it appears that she spoke to a different person, none of whom seemed to be able to direct her to someone who could help her, or even allocate something like a case number to log her complaint. Only by going to a Canberra Centrelink office did her complaint final get heard and resolved.

Conclusion. The purpose of this article has certainly not been to pick on Centrelink, and there are many similar cases available, both major and minor, in the public and private sectors

It is recognised that there are limits to the things for which each individual systems developer, project manager and support person in any organisation can or should be held responsible. This is especially true in complex technical and organisational settings, such as Centrelink. However, if each person became responsible for the ethical and quality aspects of his or her work, the chances of the type of problem described above occurring should be greatly reduced

Since an important aspect of quality management is process improvement, perhaps someone from Centrelink who reads this article could write a complementary piece describing how this particular problem was corrected.

Mike Bowern is a member of the ACS 's Committee on Computer Ethics.