'Brown took charge of policy formation some time ago. The departmental budgets and the public service agreements are both a forward programme for the rest of the Brown government term and an election manifesto.'

- Whitehall insider

'Brown’s first challenge is getting to grips with genuinely delivering better services and lower costs through using IT. If there is not enough money then the government should just do a quarter of the projects, but do them properly and budget for them properly.'

- Jim Norton, senior policy adviser at the Institute of Directors

'Brown will want to show a genuine improvement in public services, and a realisation on the investment – a lot of which is in IT – before the next election. The Varney report and the departmental budgets are a litmus test on how much weight Brown will put behind it.'

- Eric Woods government practice director, Ovum

'The big change will be in the level and nature of political attention given to ensuring that the Transformational Government objectives are indeed achieved – including a momentum of growing success during the run-up to the next election.'

- Philip Virgo, strategic adviser to skills group the Institute for the Management of Information Systems

'Eco-communities are not just about housing or green issues – sustainable communities need infrastructure. There are also the issues of the ageing population,security and jobs that need to be addressed.'

- Rebecca George, partner corporate finance, Deloitte

'IT is hugely affected by globalisation, both as an opportunity and a threat, so the open market we have here is absolutely fundamental to the viability of the IT sector. We hope that the emphasis on continued UK competitiveness will focus on the need to improve our skills. Focusing on young people will not solve all the problems, we need to work on reskilling and upskilling people in work.'

- Karen Price, chief executive of sector skills body e-Skills UK