Government aims to end IT failures

A cross-government view of technology programmes and suppliers will help to prevent IT disasters, according to Cabinet Office minister Jim Murphy.

One of the plans included in Whitehall’s first government IT strategy, to be published later this month, is for suppliers’ multiple public sector contracts to be managed as a portfolio rather than on an individual basis, Murphy told a conference in London this week.

‘This government is committed to tackling the generic cause of failure,’ he said.
The aim is to make the most of the public sector’s £14bn annual IT spend and to ensure that departments get the best from their suppliers.

Technology is crucial to government plans for reformed public services, says Murphy.

‘We have an ambition of public services which are increasingly personal, and very little, if any, of this transformation can be achieved without IT,’ he said.

The four major challenges are scale, avoiding duplication, successful delivery, and relevance to the government’s overall ‘choice’ agenda, says Murphy.

A key element of plans to transform delivery and improve effectiveness is the development of shared services.

‘Transformation will occur if we take a new approach to joined-up service delivery across the public sector – one that will break down the silo culture,’ said Murphy.

Portfolio supplier management will allow a more central view of departmental IT projects and suppliers, says Ovum analyst Tola Sargeant.

‘If there was more of a joined-up picture of who is doing what, what they are being paid and what conditions are attached, which suppliers are good to work with and where there are problems, it would enable the government to make sure that everybody is getting the same deal,’ she said.

‘It might also improve efficiency, because if anyone is about to sign a huge deal with one supplier they could perhaps co-ordinate a bit better and split the load.’

Better communication across Whitehall would be welcome, but the rhetoric of joined-up government is not new.

‘We have heard similar things in the past, and the proof of the pudding will be in the eating,’ said Sargeant.