Over the past five weeks, Computing's Agenda Setters initiative has launched a series of discussions led by senior academics, covering five critical industry issues.

We now plan to work with the Agenda Setters - a select group of chief information officers, academics and related experts - to produce a report providing best practice advice around each of these themes.

The issues cover a range of challenges that business and IT leaders are currently facing:

• Does IT matter?
• Can we ever trust IT?
• How do we attract the brightest and best into IT - and keep them?
• What role should the government play in supporting IT?
• How can organisations bridge the gap between IT and the enterprise?

The report will be a guide for business and IT leaders in both the public and private sectors.

In the coming months, Computing will host a series of executive events with the members of our Agenda Setters committee, which will be used to discuss and formulate the recommendations we aim to deliver.

The initiative that has been widely welcomed by technology industry bodies and business groups.

'We welcome Computing's Agenda Setters report, and its focus on the critical areas of trust, skills, IT on the boardroom agenda and governments support of IT,' said John Higgins, director general of industry trade association Intellect.

'If the UK is to maintain competitiveness within the knowledge driven economy then it is critical that we actively cultivate a culture of technology understanding, trust, innovation and exploitation.

'We hope this report will go a long way to addressing these key areas, to highlighting where we are leading and where improvements can be made, and ultimately to helping to create a vision of where we want to be in the future,' he said.

The Institute of Directors (IoD) also believes the initiative will help the IT industry.

'The IoD welcomes Computing's Agenda Setters initiative,' said Professor Jim Norton, a senior policy advisor at the IoD.

'Progress on these key issues will be accelerated by considered and constructive criticisms from these IT leaders,' he said.

Best practice group BuyIT says Computing's work will add to the guidelines that it provides.

'We publish best practice guidelines for various different aspects of IT, so anything that helps to bring best practice to the UK we fully support and try to work with,' said BuyIT director of professional services David Eakin.

'This is the right thing to try and do, and we'd be very happy to support and contribute to help take Computing's initiative forward,' he said.

The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) says the issue of trust in IT has direct implications for its members.

'At the bottom end of the market, the systems used by the smallest companies can be less than totally reliable and can cost a business dearly if and when they fail,' said FSB national IT chairman Peter Scargill.

IT is fundamental to nearly every aspect of professional life, says Scargill.

'The way we run modern organisations, the size of today's projects, the number of people involved - without IT in one form or another we would have great difficulty in handling many areas of professional life,' he said.

'Imagine anti-terrorism without IT, for example, without digital satellite communication.'