The two sides of government IT

Government can get IT right

Is there anything new to be said about government and IT? This week has provided plenty of familiar old chestnuts to discuss.

First ­- supplier relations. After years of being told it gives too much power to vendors, the government adopted strict contractual conditions for the £12.7bn NHS IT programme. Now a second major supplier has had to be replaced as Fujitsu follows Accenture out of the project, potentially leading to further delays.

Second ­- politics. Many of the highest-profile Whitehall IT failures have been down to the demands of politically-motivated policy deadlines overriding the necessities of technology implementation.

Can IT and politics be separated? In the case of identity cards, clearly not, as successful bidders are told by the Tories that their contracts will be cancelled if the Conservatives win the next election.

Third -­ support for industry. For all its good words about promoting a knowledge economy, most IT professionals still feel that government does not support the technology sector with the policies required for growth.

But for all the headlines when things go wrong, government can get it right.

Take the Department for Work and Pensions, working with EDS to achieve a £1.5bn saving in energy costs alone, not to mention the replacement of 140,000 PCs and consolidation of 2,500 servers in six datacentres to 40 servers in just two locations ­ a deal enabled by good supplier relations, and delivering on political goals for energy efficiency.

Focus on the failings of government and technology will rightly go on, but the bright spots are all too often glossed over. While it is clearly vital to learn the lessons of failure, it is equally ­ if not more ­ important to learn the lessons of success.

The challenge ­- and the real debate that must be had -­ is to find the way to make all government IT as good as the best in government IT.