Computer trouble

A Freudian slip revealed a speaker’s fears last week about the new IT system that will deliver the government’s universal credit.

Speaking at the Chartered Institute of Housing’s Other Housing Event, in Torquay last week, housing benefit consultant and trainer Maggie Fitzsimons introduced a section of her presentation entitled ‘A large-scale computer programme’.

But, to titters from the audience, Ms Fitzsimons mistakenly said: ‘A large-scale computer problem’. After a pause she added: ‘Yes that’s what we all think, isn’t it?’

Here begins a lesson in government timetabling - any readers who fancy a career in the civil service take note.

Law firm TLT was at pains to find out when the government plans to release its green deal consultation paper last week.

The firm held a conference on the deal and its speakers initially struggled to pinpoint a date. The first said the document was due ‘in a few weeks’. A second speaker ventured that it would be published ‘soon’.

Determined to find a more precise answer TLT phoned the Department of Energy and Climate change during a break in proceedings to ask for a clearer indication. Its response? ‘Shortly.’

Closed Circuit hopes this clears things up.

In sublimely silly science fiction flick Gattaca, the premise goes that everyone’s profession - as well as more or less the entire course of their life - is decided at birth.

Not that Closed Circuit would like to compare the liberal idyll that is modern-day Holland to Gattaca’s dystopian vision of society, but there would appear to be some level of determinism at work in the low countries. At the International Housing Summit in Rotterdam last week, not one but two speakers had names that translate as ‘new houses’. Step forward Joost Nieuwenhuijzen and Bert Wijbenga van Nieuwenhuizen. They never even had a choice.

Send your juicy housing gossip to closedcircuit@insidehousing.co.uk