The first government-wide IT strategy was published last week, slightly more than a year since the appointment of ex-Accenture UK managing director Ian Watmore as head of egovernment at the Cabinet Office’s newly created eGovernment Unit (eGU).

The strategy was developed in conjunction with the Chief Information Officer (CIO) Council of 25 technology leaders from across the public sector, established by Watmore in January.

Its formal title is Strategy for Transformational Government, and it does not pull any punches.

‘Twenty-first century government is enabled by technology – policy is inspired by it, business change is delivered by it, customer and corporate services are dependent on it, and democratic engagement is exploring it,’ says the document.

The strategy is wide-ranging. It covers plans to unlock an annual £1.4bn from spending on maintenance of legacy systems, creation of the organisational infrastructure to establish IT-enabled transformation as a fundamental part of public sector planning, and the development of a sector-wide view of IT programmes, suppliers and skills.

The plan also aims to tread the line between the inflexibility of cental control and the chaos of 1,300 public sector organisations all doing their own thing, Watmore told Computing.

‘Each sector is different, so we are trying to establish unifying themes that, once embedded by everyone, will give the government the results it wants,’ he says.

‘Now the strategy is published we will turn to the details, so that there are action plans that will kick in from the start of the next financial year.’

The strategy covers three broad themes: citizen-centric services, shared services, and professionalism.

The role of IT, in putting the user at the heart of service delivery, is not just concerned with the development of electronic channels, such as the internet and digital TV. It is also about providing public servants with the best tools to do their jobs, and about helping the government to meet social policy aims, such as improving the rehabilitation rate of prisoners.

For example, technology enables the multiple organisations that deal with issues such as joblessness and drug addiction to work together as part of an integrated programme.

‘There are services available in all these areas to help rehabilitate people into the community, but unless there is a well thought-through, joined-up programme that is delivered in practice, there is little result and the person is quickly back inside,’ says Watmore.

Customer Group Directors (CGDs) are to be part of front-line delivery functions to look at citizen-focused interaction across agencies.

Initially three will be appointed: one for a citizen group, such as the elderly; one for a policy group, such as offender management; and one for a business group, such as farmers.

‘We will appoint just a few to start with because we have to see what is possible and we need to be sure we don’t cut across accountabilities and make things worse,’ says Watmore.

A national Transformation Board of senior officials responsible for running major services will co-ordinate the work of CGDs, set overall strategy and focus
on the practicalities of service transformation.

Work on the use of shared back-office systems, such as human resources and finance, to meet the savings targets of the Efficiency Review is already under way.

An eGU team was set up this summer to investigate workable models for different parts of the public sector, establish best practice and work with suppliers on technical issues.

But shared services is not just about administration. There is scope for a similar approach to front-end delivery, infrastructure and policy areas such as IT security and identity management, says Watmore.

‘This is a cultural shift in the way public sector works together,’ he says.‘The stereotype of the public sector is that no one is in charge but that is not true, there is a huge focus on accountability.

‘We need to build on that and say you can be accountable and still share.’
The strategy’s third strand centres on the development of the IT profession, programme management and correcting the bad reputation of government IT.

Watmore says that considerably more technology-enabled schemes are quietly successful than publicly disastrous. This is due, at least in part, to the work of Whitehall’s buying agency, the Office of Government Commerce (OGC). But the bad reputation remains.

Improvements to the status of the government IT profession and more work on the relationship between Whitehall and its suppliers are the key to progress.

‘Professionalism is about building on the success of the OGC, highlighting more successful projects, rebuilding the IT profession, strengthening supplier relationships and introducing portfolio management at government-wide and sector-wide level,’ says Watmore.

Portfolio management means developing a joined-up approach to supplier management, taking a cross-sector view of the £14bn spent annually on IT, and ensuring a government-wide relationship with suppliers.

‘We also need to look at that totality of government-wide technology
programmes and ask if we are spending money in the right places, towards where government priorities lie,’ says Watmore.