The boom in IT recruitment in local authorities is over, as budgets stabilise following five years of investment in egovernment, according to new research.
The study by user group Socitm, IT Trends in Local Government 2006/7, is based on a survey of 475 UK authorities and examines how the move to delivering online public services has affected council's abilities to sustain a state of change and modernisation.
The report says IT recruitment, which had been growing steadily in the local authority sector, has now stabilised due to shrinking budgets.
'For the last five years the IT functions in local authorities have been taking on more staff. Several thousand new jobs have been created through this period. However, this year’s results suggest that this growth has come to an abrupt end,' it says.
'Overall only small changes in directly employed staff numbers are predicted for 2006. The position could be described as a standstill.'
One of the main reasons for the halt in job growth is a projected fall in IT budgets, which have been increasing over the past five years, but which look like they will move back to 2004 levels, says the Socitm report.
'Local government will spend almost £2.7bn in 2006, £600m less than it did in 2005,' it says.
But the reports also suggests that local government IT departments have developed greater capacity to deal with modernisation thanks to the UK's egovernment programme.
What do you think? Email us at feedback@computing.co.uk
Further Reading:
reader comments