UK Government Tax Disc Renewal Website Buckles Under Pressure

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UK Government Tax Disc Renewal Website Buckles Under Pressure

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday October 1, 2014 @07:03PM from the under-pressure dept.

An anonymous reader writes When you pay the tax on a road vehicle in the UK, you used to get a paper "tax disk" to affix to the inside of your car windshield. However the relevant records are documented electronically anyway, inspiring the government to replace the paper system with a purely online one. Unfortunately said system was still in beta when it launched today and predictably, it has broken under user demand. No alternative system is available. (The licensing agency actually ran out of the paper disks more than a month ago, and has been printing them out on normal office paper and asking vehicle owners to cut out the circle themselves.) The initiative is part of a larger "digital-first", restructuring of how the government provides services aimed at "meeting user needs".

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Is this news? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-01 19:10 · Score: 3, Insightful

Another goverment project fails?
They all do.
If one would actually work perfectly from day 0, taht would be news!
1. Re:Is this news? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-01 20:35 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Survivorship bias. You only read about them if they fail. You don't read about the ones that work because it's kind of a boring headline: "Computer system works properly; nobody complains"
  Also I can count a large number of non-government systems that have folded under the zero-day load.
2. Re:Is this news? by randomhacks · 2014-10-01 22:40 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  This is bullshit. The website didn't fail on the 1st day. The website has been working for years. The problem is that it didn't scale perfectly when the load dramatically increased.
Re: No alternative system is available ? by jaseuk · 2014-10-01 19:30 · Score: 3, Insightful

Yesterday the phone service was offline too.
I know because I renewed yesterday.
The website was fineby the afternoon.
Why the service had trouble is a mystery to me, the only apparent difference is instead of saying your disc is in the post it now explains this is not required. Nothing new about anything else.
Jason
Re:No alternative system is available ? by AmiMoJo · 2014-10-01 19:35 · Score: 3, Insightful

Their telephone system doesn't have enough capacity either. The Post Office is the only option really.
It's just incredible that they find this level of traffic surprising. They know exactly how many tax discs are due for renewal.

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Re:No alternative system is available ? by stealth_finger · 2014-10-01 20:32 · Score: 3, Insightful

Their telephone system doesn't have enough capacity either. The Post Office is the only option really.
What's the betting that the post office and folks on the phone are just using the website anyway.

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