Socitm welcomes new emphasis in Government ICT Strategy on IT-enabled business change, service efficiency and technology consolidation

Socitm has welcomed the new emphasis on IT-enabled business change, service efficiency and technology consolidation in the Government ICT strategy published yesterday.

However, the Strategy remains too focused on central government. Although there is less focus on 'departments' the Strategy still falls short of embracing the sort of pan-public services approach that Socitm would like to see.

This is the approach that will be exemplified in the forthcoming Routemap for ICT enabled Local Public Services reform that is being developed by the Local CIO Council - at the request of the Government CIO Council - as a local perspective on the Government ICT Strategy.

The Routemap, which is now out for public consultation and will be launched at the Socitm Spring conference on May 11, provide a practical, 'pan-local' approach to ICT-enabled public service reform covering all local public services - including local arms of central government delivery organisations.

The Strategy's fourfold focus on reducing waste and project failure, common infrastructure and services, business change and governance, is welcomed by Socitm, as is its recognition of a number of interconnected challenges. These chime with what Socitm has been saying for some time, based on its research evidence. Particularly helpful is the focus on:

• open standards
• standard architectures
• development of a standard, secure, cloud desktop
• re-use of technologies
• ICT for collaborative and mobile working
• the use of agile and adaptive approaches
• and a risk based approach to secure information sharing.
  

Unfortunately, the prescriptions advocated in the Strategy (as in previous Government ICT Strategies) continue to be mainly about technology, with limited recognition of the role of information and very little about specific public service outcomes and business transformation. The top-down, provider-driven and technology-led approach being taken to Universal Credit suggests that old approaches to ICT-facilitated change will continue.

The Strategy talks of the failures arising from doing things "big", yet perpetuates this scale of thinking in its proposed governance arrangements - reinforcing them with an exclusively central government populated, top-down Delivery Board. Some other prescriptions to address project failure, eg Senior Responsible Officers staying in post until a suitable break in the life of a project/programme, may be difficult to enforce in practice.

The need for professionalism in running Government IT is rightly recognised, and the Strategy points out the need to build internal capability and capacity and reduce reliance on contractors. It is light on detail about how the relevant professional capability in leadership, governance, business change, shared services and strategic commissioning will be built, when the Civil Service has no professional framework or accreditation in place for IT professionals.
Socitm is sceptical that agile approaches to systems development - an aspiration set out the the Strategy - will happen unless facilitated by agile procurement, and there is little in the Strategy to suggest that current procurement regimes will change.

Equally, Socitm questions why a Government Apps Store is needed to supplement what the private sector and small scale SME innovators are already developing, and wonders why, when discussing 'new' plans for the Public Sector Network, the Strategy overlooks existing Public Sector Networks in Kent, London, Hampshire, Wales and elsewhere.

Generally, the Strategy does not recognise the sort of economies of scale and scope that are possible at the 'pan-local' level for many ICT requirements and why these arrangements deliver better value for money than big framework contracts. Linked to this, Socitm would like to have seen some suggestion that local arms of government departments should optimise the way they deliver services locally, synchronising and even being led by other local public services to suit the needs of citizens and businesses in different localities.

Devolved administrations and local public services, including local government, are treated as an afterthought in the governance arrangements and in the approach towards implementation of the ICT Strategy. Socitm would like to see a direct line of accountability from the Local CIO Council to the proposed Delivery Board and to Government Ministers if Government's aspirations for the 'Big Society' and 'Localism' are to be realised. Pan-public sector approaches to deploying ICT - as set out in the Local CIO Council's forthcoming Routemap for ICT enabled Local Public Services reform - will be essential to achieving these aspirations.

 'Although we very much welcome the emphasis in the Government ICT strategy on IT-enabled business change, service efficiency and technology consolidation' says Socitm President Jos Creese, 'a close reading of the Strategy suggests that that these aspirations may be compromised by continuation of the old top-down, big-IT, technology-led culture that has long characterised Government IT. There is much that central government can learn from local government about agile, low-cost and citizen-focussed ICT'