We may not have a date for next year’s General Election yet, but the campaign is well under way - and, for once, it will be watched with particular interest by the IT community.
The whims and fancies of politicians have always had an effect on IT professionals, of course, but as we approach what will be the most important economic referendum in our lifetime, technology is going to play a more central role than ever.
In the public sector, whoever wins will have little choice but to bring in savage cuts, which will, in politics-speak, be targeted at “bureaucracy” and “the back office” meaning IT will be in the firing line. There is already a growing awareness that shared services will have to be accelerated and outsourcing will become even more prevalent.
One of the biggest changes in Whitehall IT over the past 10 years has been the influx of experienced private sector IT leaders to bring some of their corporate nous to what was an often poorly skilled and badly resourced government IT profession. Given the likely crackdown on high-paid civil servants the Tories’ shadow chancellor George Osborne, for example, promising to effectively cap pay at the level of the prime minister’s salary, will we see a reversal of what has been largely a successful trend?
Changes in government mark changes in public sector IT strategy. Tony Blair’s administration shifted focus from automating the big administrative processes, such as collecting tax and paying benefits, putting technology at the heart of reforming public service delivery.
But that led to over-ambitious projects and ever-expanding databases, neither of which fit comfortably into the modern view of openness, agility and rapid development. We can surely expect big changes to the policy of big IT.
However, one area the next government must get right is IT skills. Every party has spoken of the need to expand our creative and technology sectors to reduce dependence on the City. Whoever wins will only find friends in IT if they make good on this most fundamental of promises.
