The technology strategy for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) faces some unique challenges.

With 250 posts in 153 countries, the department has a global reach rivaled by only the very largest private sector organisations.

And the security considerations for transmitting highly classified information around the world add another level of complexity to an already significant task.

The core of the department's IT provision is the Firecrest programme, which provides a single system for all 11,000 desktops across the world, running on the Foreign Office Telecommunications Network (FTN).

Last year saw the completion of the roll out of Confidential Firecrest and the department is now at the shortlist stage of the procurement for a next-generation system. Future Firecrest will underpin the move to a more mobile, flexible and rapid-response working environment, says FCO head of IT strategy Nick Westcott.

'A major challenge for FCO for the future is the need for more mobile working,' he told Computing.

'This is because in a resource-constrained environment and in a world where you never know what will happen next, we need to be able to have teams that can go to work wherever necessary and still be connected to our systems,' he said.

Iraq is a good example.

'Immediately after the liberation of Baghdad we needed to have a mission in place, and with the help of our FTN partner Global Crossing we installed "fly-away dishes" enabling us to link, via satellite, straight into our main network,' said Westcott.

'It took a while longer to set up a classified network but we had a clear connect into the main network straight away.'

And it's not just about far-flung, ad hoc consulates, there is also growing demand for UK-based staff to be able to work from home.

'Because FCO systems have to be so secure, it is more difficult for us to do remote access systems than for a lot of the private sector or other government departments.

'One of our major priorities is to provide remote access to the Firecrest system, as part of the next generation system we are now procuring,' said Westcott.

The Future Firecrest deal is due to be signed in October and the department is working hard to build the right kind of partnership to develop the new system. In the wake of the string of high-profile government IT failures, the relationship between Whitehall and its suppliers is coming under increasing scrutiny.

'I think we are moving to a new place in terms of the relationship with private sector suppliers with the understanding on both sides that unless we work effectively together it increases the risks of the whole thing going awry,' said Westcott.

'Bringing that understanding into the procurement process is what is critical, and that is the basis on which we are procuring Future Firecrest, which is different from the way procurements tended to be run in the past.

'It is very important the strategic partner really understands the FCO business - the more they understand our business, the better the service will be and the more effective the systems we will get,' he said.

Alongside the on-going Firecrest infrastructure programme the department is rolling out Prism - enterprise resource planning software - to manage its human resources (HR) and finance systems.

'Prism has been two years in preparation and will bring together over a dozen different applications into a single system providing all the management information we need,' said Westcott.

Keen to avoid some of the more obvious problems besetting ill-thought-out technology investment, the FCO has put business process re-engineering at the heart of the project.

'The thing we have learned over the last five or so years, like all organisations, is the critical importance of letting the business processes and the IT develop together,' said Westcott.

While government IT pundits at home focus on the need for joined-up departmental systems to either shave civil service costs or improve delivery of services to citizens, the FCO needs joined up systems so it can fulfil its job representing the whole UK government from its embassies abroad.

The aim is, ultimately, for a single converged system accessible by all home departments and government staff working overseas.

'There is still joining up to be done - some posts have two or three different IT systems because other departments like the Department of International Development (DFID) have different requirements from FCO and therefore have evolved systems that meet their own needs,' said Westcott.

'Over the next 10 years we are looking to try to converge those systems because increasingly a wide range of issues, such as immigration, trade, environmental and transport issues, are led by a home department but have an important international dimension,' he said.

The third key area of development is information management. Departmental business processes are being reviewed so the necessary changes can be made to allow the IT investments to deliver the flexible and streamlined organisation the department is aiming to be.

'My twin objectives are to make sure people are making the best use of our existing technology and also evolving the IT in a direction to enable them to use it even more efficiently. The Smarter Working initiative is part of that,' said Westcott.

In technology terms electronic document and records management (EDRM) will be a crucial element of the information management agenda. The FCO doesn't yet have as efficient a system as it needs and it is one of Westcott's top priorities, and biggest challenges, to set one up.

'This involves both the way we record electronic documents and making them as accessible as possible,' he said.

'Most other Whitehall departments are also puzzling over this issue, not least because government departments have a public record requirement that is fairly demanding and they need to be able to find information when required, follow the trail of decision-making, and so on.

'There is huge cross-government interchange of documents but departments' requirements differ more on EDRM than on, say, finance or HR. So it is less easy to join up than some of the other back office functions.'

Ian Watmore, the newly-appointed head of egovernment will have a clear role facilitating these discussions, says Westcott.

'At the moment we are just starting Whitehall-wide discussions on EDRM issues and we are looking to the head of egovernemnt to co-ordinate that,' he said.

'The Office of the eEnvoy has done great work getting a lot of these discussions off the ground, as have the Office of Government Commerce, but I think with Ian Watmore's appointment the government recognises we need to do more in this area and debate overall policy issues.'

An overview of FCO IT

• Firecrest: a single integrated system providing 11,000 desktops in 250 posts in 153 countries. Roll out of the second generation was completed last year

• Foreign Office Telecommunications Network (FTN): the global network on which Firecrest runs, outsourced to strategic partner Global Crossing in 2000

• Prism: enterprise resource planning software to replace the department's multiple finance and human resources systems. Roll out is to be completed next year

• Future Firecrest: the procurement is currently at the shortlist stage and the deal is due to be signed in October. The third generation desktop system is crucial to FCO plans for a more mobile workforce and a greater flexibility in setting up missions abroad.