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 19:28 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Which part of "Microsoft product" did they not understand?
2. Re:Is this news? by 91degrees · 2014-10-01 19:28 · Score: 2
  
  They've had online renewal for years now. That worked really well the last few times I tried it.
3. 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.
4. Re:Is this news? by sjwest · 2014-10-01 21:14 · Score: 2
  
  It probably depends on how you use it, if you have a issued renewal reference number then its easy.
  Never done the hm gov prove your a 'human' registration route and if all the non car taxed cars applying for it on one day that might be the reason the system is overloaded as all the not taxed cars are being taxed all of a sudden.
  I lost my photo id/paper license from the dvla an that took a couple of weeks with a paper from a post office to fix, although the online version of it looked hard work so i opted for the paper form. That's when scheduled complexity bites governments
5. Re:Is this news? by tehcyder · 2014-10-01 22:25 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  The anti-government extreme right wingers on slashdot have taken over the asylum.
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
6. 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.
7. Re:Is this news? by jeremyp · 2014-10-02 00:31 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  This is a Government Digital Service initiative. It will have been built using open source products almost exclusively.
  
  --
  All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
8. Re:Is this news? by tibit · 2014-10-02 01:20 · Score: 2
  
  I've just realized that they have a fucking unicorn in their coat of arms. Probably one of the very few governments in the world that does that :)
  
  --
  A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
9. Re:Is this news? by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · 2014-10-02 01:29 · Score: 2
  
  To follow up: I just spotted a note at the end of one of the articles suggesting that it wasn't actually the government's own systems that fell over, but rather something provided by Vodafone. I suppose that raises questions about why a system like this would need the services of a company like Vodafone for its implementation, but presumably this at least puts the outage in the "more subtlety in the real world implementation" group, which is reassuring in some ways.
  
  --
  If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
10. Re:Is this news? by davester666 · 2014-10-02 05:43 · Score: 2
  
  obviously the gov't went over their 10Gb/month cap.
  
  --
  Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
No alternative system is available ? by cardpuncher · 2014-10-01 19:21 · Score: 4, Informative

How about using the telephone, or calling in at your local Post Office? Both alternative systems and both available.
1. 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
2. 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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  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
3. 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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4. Re: No alternative system is available ? by Xest · 2014-10-02 00:26 · Score: 2
  
  The authorities are actually pretty good on this, a friend completely forgot to renew his altogether and drove around for 6 months before realising, he phoned the DVLA to admit his mistake and they just told him not to worry, that people forget and as long as he's happy to pay it there and then that they wouldn't see any reason to pursue it as the fact he'd called them to explain was evidence enough in their eyes that it was nothing more than an honest mistake and I know my father forgot to display his new disc once, got pulled, but they took no action after checking he had renewed online (and this was back in 2004, so the ability to check online by the police has been in place at least a decade).
  But most people don't know that, and even those that do generally want to avoid the hassle of being pulled over even if it would've meant no action would be taken against you so make the effort to avoid driving around without a valid tax disc anyway.
  FWIW you most certainly can renew earlier than 2 weeks from expiration, that used to be the case when you could only renew from the 15th of the month, but you've been able to renew from the 5th for quite a while now just fine (at least 5 years), so you get the best part of a month to renew.
Australia can get it right by mjwx · 2014-10-01 19:23 · Score: 2, Interesting

Why cant the UK or US?

We've had online registration and health care services for years. I haven't had to fill out a medicare form or go into a medicare office... ever. Not once in my adult life.

As for online vehicle registration. Thats state based instead of national (well we only have 7 states and 2 territories) my state, Western Australia did away with registration stickers that you would affix to your windscreen years ago... Before I got my drivers license in fact. Apart from a the tired whines of a few dullards who ignore the reminder the government sends them about their expiring vehicle registration six weeks in advance it's been a fantastic success.

If I need to know when my registration is up, I just look it up. If I want to know if the car I'm buying is registered (and for how long) I can just look up the number plate. About the only thing a malicious person can do on this website is pay my rego for me.

--
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
1. Re:Australia can get it right by Richard_at_work · 2014-10-01 19:36 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  The sole reason the website broke is because there was a massive upsurge in people accessing it, well beyond the normal rate for tax renewals as people were for some reason waiting for it.
  I've done my previous 8 vehicle tax renewals online via the DVLA website just fine (yes, this isn't the first time you could buy your vehicle tax online, they've had it for years, all they are doing now is not sending you a physical tax disc) and the website has been fine - in this case I wouldn't lay all the blame on the service provider as they were working to previous usage levels that have been long established.
  As for health care services, well I've never had to fill out a form relating to health care in the UK, I just receive the care that I need. Oh, and I can book appointments, order prescription renewals and even choose a specific doctor to have an operation with online. Have done for years :)
  In summary, the system isn't as broken as the story makes out.
2. Re:Australia can get it right by Richard_at_work · 2014-10-01 22:14 · Score: 2
  
  Depends how much spare capacity you want to keep around - by some accounts, the upsurge in visitors peaked around 400% over the same day the previous year, so do we really think keeping that amount of spare capacity in reserve, or building on a public cloud system for extremely rare occasions is worth it?
3. Re:Australia can get it right by Puff_Of_Hot_Air · 2014-10-02 00:07 · Score: 2
  
  I just receive the care that I need.
  Rubbish. Living here now in the UK (from Australia) for the past couple of years, I can categorically attest that the NHS is both tragically underfunded and conversely, moronically inefficient. Yes I can see a GP for free, but quotas and waiting lists are ridiculous and it simply means that you don't get referred and you don't get treated unless bits are literally dropping off you. Turns out my son has Autism; pity the UK hasn't grasped the concept of "early intervention". The Australian system of a good mix of public and private and actually looking at preventative healthcare (skin cancer checks, early intervention for Autism), is light years ahead of the hopelessly outdated and underperforming NHS.
I put it down to this by Chrisq · 2014-10-01 19:42 · Score: 4, Interesting

This is the dumbest thing. You've been able to renew your tax disc online for years now and the site's always been fine. You don't have to replace you're existing paper disc until it expires so I don't understand how they've taken a functional site, added barely any additional load and made it fall over.
I put it down to many sites saying that anyone can check any cars status on the government's vehicle inquiry service (currently down). Loads of people want to check whether their friends and neighbours cars are legal.
1. Re:I put it down to this by tehcyder · 2014-10-01 23:33 · Score: 2
  
  Loads of people want to check whether their friends and neighbours cars are legal.
  Is this a cultural thing? Around here we definitely wouldn't be doing that to our "friends" and we would only do that to neighbors we actively hate to the point of almost being willing to frame them for crimes.
  Can you explain this from a cultural perspective?
  I can explain our cultural perspective: we generally dislike the government, so we would have to hate someone pretty badly in order to find it attractive to harm them by helping the government. Furthermore, this also seems offensive culturally because it represents meddling in others' affairs. Certainly not something one would do to a friend.
  In general, Britain has an anti-sneak culture, so I doubt many people would literally report their neighbour. It's more likely to be general nosiness.
  In any case, the police have been able to do a live check on tax/insurance for ages now, so they don't really need members of the public helping them out.
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Why is this news by LordWabbit2 · 2014-10-01 19:53 · Score: 2

Any site will collapse if there is an unusually high volume of traffic. Why spend millions in hardware that is going to idle just to cater for the odd spike or /. effect. I don't even know why this is news? Are they going to post an article each time /. or twitter et al accidently drops someone's website because of a post?

--
There are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third is statistics.
1. Re:Why is this news by gripfin · 2014-10-01 20:17 · Score: 2
  
  Why spend millions in hardware that is going to idle just to cater for the odd spike This is not the "odd spike" though. It's what they can expect every month end from now on. People will leave it to the last minute (knowing they can, and saving the cash flow) . If they want to smooth the traffic they should offer "renew any time in the month but we'll only take payment right at the end".
2. Re:Why is this news by oneandoneis2 · 2014-10-01 20:22 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  > It's what they can expect every month end from now on.
  No it isn't. Literally nothing has changed about the system other than it no longer mails you tax discs afterwards - nobody's leaving anything to the last minute now that wouldn't have before, NOTHING has changed. This is an "odd spike" caused by people seeing the story everywhere of "you can look your car up online!" so instead of the usual trickle of people going there to update their tax once a year, they're getting flooded by half the country going "Oo, a website, must click!"
  The summary is BS, all the "before it's ready" is pure fantasy: This is a massive spike in visitors causing an outage, nothing else.
  
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  So.. it has come to this