Hybrid talent will boost innovation

In our third Innovation Nation? roundtable, industry experts discuss the role government should take to help the UK become a knowledge economy

Innovation Nation? is a campaign to examine the role of innovation in the UK economy. Computing, in partnership with Intellect, the high-tech trade association, aims to identify the key steps to ensuring that the UK is able to innovatively exploit technology for social and economic gain.

In our third Innovation Nation? roundtable, our panel of experts discusses whether the government is doing the right things to foster an innovation nation. The panel believes that there needs to be greater co-operation across government, and leadership from the top, breaking down traditional barriers by developing professionals with hybrid IT and business skills.

Improve cross-agency co-operation

One of the biggest barriers to innovation in government is the lack of co-operation between different departments and agencies. The structure of government creates a 'silo mentality' that inhibits an interdisciplinary approach, say our experts.

'One of the reasons we don't see cross-collaboration is that the underlying mechanism is bust,' says Professor Jim Norton, policy adviser on ebusiness and egovernment at the Institute of Directors (IoD).

'We need to realign the machinery of central government with 21st century co-operation rather than 19th century competition. If you aligned that machinery with what we were trying to do you would be amazed at how effective it would be.'

In some cases, IT is used to reinforce these interdisciplinary barriers, says Martin Goodman, managing director of Cable & Wireless's government business.

'You have this massive resistance from departmental silos, and they start using IT to inhibit the potential for some departments to come together,' he says.

'You need to remove the financial boundaries and barriers, to enable collective behaviour between departments.'

Ian Kearns, director of government practice at EDS, says government needs to start thinking differently. 'You can't do it within silos,' he says. 'Some of the ways of freeing productive time are to say: let's not start with the silos; think about what the problem is.'

Tom Abram, chief executive of consultancy Mantix and chairman of Intellect's egovernment group, says innovation is also about changing the way that people work.

'We are talking about opening your mind to new things, looking at what other people are doing, adopting what other people are doing,' he says. 'It is about encouraging interdisciplinary staff and cross-fertilisation.'

There are successful examples of cross-agency working in local government to develop online public services, but the lessons have not been widely applied.

'We have had incentives in local government to get together and work outside the silos, with grant money attached. We have been enormously lucky to have had that; to get the money you had to do the interdisciplinary working,' says Kate Mountain, chief executive of local government user group Socitm.

'But there has been very little joining up across local and central governments, and between the voluntary sector and private sector, where there are benefits to people or where money is going to be made.'

Know when to innovate - and when not to

The panel agrees that government has two roles: as a user of technology, and as a policy-maker to enable innovation. But for public services it is not always appropriate to be innovative - it is more important to get the delivery right.

'There is a time to innovate and a time not to innovate. I don't see why government should feel the need to be a beacon for innovative exploitation of technology,' says Tom Abram, of Mantix. 'I am much more concerned they get the job done and deliver something that works at a reasonable cost. Innovation for its own sake is not a worthy objective.

'The principal influence on innovation in the UK comes from government executing its role as the manager of a country and spending money in the right way. The importance of innovation on the user side of government is that we are just innovative enough.'

Neil James, sector marketing manager for new media and IT at the Welsh Development Agency, says a realistic approach is vital.

'Innovation can be quite a scary word,' he says. 'But some of the things which have an impact are about not getting too complicated too soon. It is all about focusing on things that you can achieve and building upon that.'

Martin Sykes, executive director of Whitehall buying agency the Office of Government Commerce, says government is not afraid of taking risks, and points to a number of ambitious, high-profile projects, such as the NHS IT programme. But he says that vendors also have a role to play in making government IT innovative.

'What evidence is there that the private sector brings new ideas to improve performance within the contracts they have?' he says. 'You can do far more once the contract has been let than you can when you are constrained by the new procurement rules.'

Develop hybrid professionals

Government and the IT sector need to develop professionals that combine technology and business skills.

'There is a critically short supply of really competent people who can manage both technology and people. We need people who are highly competent managers and programme managers,' says the IoD's Jim Norton.

Tim Boulton, chairman of Intellect's healthcare council, says that we no longer place enough value on the role of engineers.

'If you look at some of the inventors of the past, quite a number of them didn't claim any formal education but they were multidisciplined,' he says. 'They had skills across a number of areas, and we need to build that into our society.'

EDS's Ian Kearns says there should be more training focused on creating hybrid skills, and recognised career paths for people with multidisciplinary ability.

'We need to create different professional roles, train people for those roles, they get accreditation, and they are a respected part of the system,' he says.

'You would get new people coming through with new thinking, you would have people with the capacity to do interdisciplinary work on new stuff and still have a recognised career path. And then with the right incentives you would stimulate people to do the kind of thing you want them to do.'

The University of Southampton's Professor Nigel Shadbolt, an adviser to the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, says more science and technology role models are needed.

'Student numbers are declining on IT courses,' he says. 'The problem is not supply from the sixth form, it starts in schools. If you want to sow the seeds for an innovative nation you have to tackle that problem.'

Government must lead but not centralise

The panel says there must be greater government leadership on the role of innovation.

'There needs to be somebody at Cabinet level responsible for driving the knowledge economy,' says Intellect director general John Higgins.

'At the top there is a political will to use technology and innovation to help us become a knowledge economy. But it falls down because driving that into policy is hopelessly fragmented.'

Intellect's Tim Boulton says government must resolve this issue soon. 'There is an urgency the government hasn't picked up,' he says. 'Getting this properly led at Cabinet level would help to instil a sense of urgency that will help cultural change.'

Rod Matthews, director of e-council programme for Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council, says the leadership role is not well developed across government.

'What is stopping cross-sector innovation? It is about leadership style, and appreciating leadership as its own competency,' he says.

'Leadership is a profession in itself, and it is a challenging one. But until that style is appreciated as a core profession and can look across sectors at the bigger picture, with cross-disciplinary objectives, that is going to be a real problem.'

The IoD's Jim Norton says the government has too much of a centralised approach to IT, and that this can restrict innovation. 'Maybe it is a command and control mindset, that says this all revolves around centralisation of national systems. I would rather we talked federated approaches,' says Norton.

Focus on people and processes, not just IT

The experts believe government focuses too much on the IT aspect - sometimes failing to recognise that any major project is really about organisational change.

'To deliver something with technology you don't just need technology, you need people and process,' says the IoD's Jim Norton.

'Ministers have still not really got the message that there is no such thing as an IT project; the only thing is change projects, and they should be budgeted accordingly. Do they understand the budgetary implications of getting a service to work, as opposed to a bright shiny piece of hardware and software sitting in the corner but not actually doing anything useful? Do you have a programme manager? Do you have a budget for training? Do you have a budget for re-jigging your reward systems to change people's behaviour? All those things are critical.'

EDS's Ian Kearns says there needs to be more discussion between the three key stakeholders of government, IT industry and citizens - and suggests there should be a formal way to ensure this takes place.

'There is a need for a place, perhaps a national institute, where industry, public sector and IT sector people come together to address the interface between technology, the public policy challenges that we face, and the needs of our citizens,' he says.

What the experts say

Rod Matthews, director of e-council programme, Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council

What is innovation to a different type of community? It may be very different to a suburban area than to a city region. Customers don't necessarily recognise what services they need. So, innovation may be about presenting that openly and visibly through a clear engagement with those customers, or more surreptitiously, by providing people with services whether they know they need them or not.

Neil James, sector marketing manager for new media and IT, Welsh Development Agency

Our imperative is to grow the Welsh economy into a knowledge economy, and we believe that the only way we can do that is to encourage people to be more innovative, more entrepreneurial and more aspirational.

Kate Mountain, chief executive, Socitm

Whether it is in people's personal or professional life, their life as a child or as a continuing-learning adult, we have a responsibility to foster this area so that individuals have their minds open to innovation, and to the benefits that the application of technology can bring.

Ian Kearns, director of government practice, EDS

We need to focus on delivery as well as innovation. Getting delivery right is what we need to do to earn the right to be in a position to have a conversation about innovation.

Professor Nigel Shadbolt, University of Southampton

Role models for science and technology are still few and far between.

Tom Abram, chairman of Intellect's egovernment group

Do politicians 'get' IT? I think they get it as much as anybody else - probably a bit more than most. Do they understand it enough? Probably not, and that's a problem for industry, government, and the public sector.

Martin Sykes, executive director, Office of Government Commerce

Is innovation about new products or about smart ways of using what we already have? The Department of Transport is getting ready to replace high-speed trains. Should it be looking for innovative solutions, or going to suppliers who can make trains that run on time, reliably, every day?