Review 2007: Government IT
Computing looks back at the highs and lows of a year in public sector technology
Government IT is often controversial
The public sector is the biggest buyer of technology in the UK, and often also the most controversial. With major programmes such as identity cards, NHS IT, e-Borders and many others, the government's IT plans are rarely out of the headlines. we look back on the top public sector IT stories of 2007.
Click on the headlines to read the full story.
January
Local government IT recruitment boom is over
The boom in IT recruitment in local authorities is over, as budgets stabilise following five years of investment in egovernment, according to new research.
The study by user group Socitm, IT Trends in Local Government 2006/7, is based on a survey of 475 UK authorities and examines how the move to delivering online public services has affected council's abilities to sustain a state of change and modernisation.
The report says IT recruitment, which had been growing steadily in the local authority sector, has now stabilised due to shrinking budgets.
Identity cards pave way for Whitehall IT sharing
Plans for the identity card scheme to be built using existing government databases will be a trailblazer for shared services, according to Whitehall chief information officer John Suffolk.
Speaking at the publication of his office’s Transformational Government (TG) annual report this week, Suffolk said there is a growing realisation of the value of cross-departmental sharing of IT.
Blair denies plans for super database
Prime Minister Tony Bair has denied that government plans to make more intelligent use of information held by departments will create a Big Brother 'super database' that poses a threat to privacy and civil liberties.
Plans to share information across Whitehall are 'perfectly sensible' and opposition to them is based on a misrepresentation of what is proposed, claims the PM.
Fire IT project fears reignited
Concerns about the cost of government plans to establish regional fire service control rooms and a national radio network have resurfaced just before the technology contract is signed.
The IT deal for FiReControl, the proposed rationalisation of 46 local offices into nine district centres, is expected to be signed this month. The £350m Firelink radio network deal, awarded to O2 Airwave in March, is now being rolled out.
Government seeking new biometric immigration powers
The government is seeking powers to take biometric data from immigrants for inclusion in next-generation visas.
The UK Borders Bill published last week includes measures stipulating that foreign nationals coming to live in the UK must supply fingerprints or iris scans for inclusion in their immigration documents.
February
The £350m national radio network for the fire service has missed its first deadline and supplier O2 Airwave may be fined.
The contract for the tetra-based Firelink system was finally signed in March last year, almost two years later than first planned.
And according to a regional management board report from Yorkshire and Humberside Fire Authority, implementation is already behind schedule.
Whitehall creates review group
Plans for a Treasury-led project review group will give more muscle to the Gateway process that evaluates government IT programmes at key stages of their development.
The Major Projects Review Group (MPRG) is being created as part of an overhaul of Whitehall’s central buying agency the Office of Government Commerce (OGC). It will augment the agency’s five-stage traffic light rating scheme, which does not have the power to stop ailing projects.
Councils urged to back standard for smartcards
London authorities are being urged to adopt a common standard for the introduction of smartcards, to enable the adoption of a single London-wide card.
London Connects, which works with councils, health authorities, emergency services and education bodies to develop e-government services, last week launched a vision for smartcards to allow citizens access to council services.
MPs argue over ID card pricing
The government is being accused of inflating the price of biometric passports to disguise the cost of its identity card scheme.
The issue was raised in the Commons this week by Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg after Home Office minister Liam Byrne said 70 per cent of the cost of ID cards ‘will be spent anyway on introducing biometric passports’.
March
The government has reclassified software spending to bring the UK’s economic indicators closer in line with the reality of the knowledge economy, according to business groups.
The purchase and development of software will now be measured as investment rather than consumption, adding one per cent to gross domestic product from the 1970s to 2005, says the Office of National Statistics.
UK Visas sign £140m outsourcing deal
The government has signed a £140m outsourcing deal with supplier CSC to run the overseas visa application and issuing process.
Under the five-year contract, CSC will establish 15 visa application centres, as well as providing internet, email and call centres to a further 87 countries.
Whitehall acts on shared IT
Plans for government departments to cut costs by sharing systems took a major step forward last week, Computing can reveal.
A top-level civil service management board has confirmed two of the largest Whitehall departments will provide human resources (HR) and finance services to their peers, following a presentation from Ian Watmore, head of the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit.
Cabinet secretary Gus O’Donnell has written to smaller departments such as Culture, Media and Sport, to encourage adoption of either the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) Oracle system or the SAP offering from HM Revenue & Customs.
Changes to the role of the top ministerial committee on egovernment will for the first time give politicians an overview of all strategic Whitehall IT programmes, Computing can reveal.
In an exclusive interview, Treasury chief secretary and committee chairman Stephen Timms says the plan will give ministers the tools for unprecedented co-ordination of the Whitehall technology investments that are central to policy and spending commitments.
April
Politics delays ID card tender
The government’s ID card procurement will go ahead slightly later than planned so it can benefit from the ‘clear air’ of a new prime minister, say sources.
The formal procurement notice published by the Identity and Passport Service last week says tendering for framework deals for the national biometric ID plan is expected to begin around June. Earlier plans anticipated an April or May start.
NHS IT may never be a success, claim MPs
The government says the £12bn National Programme for NHS IT (NPfIT) is making progress, despite a stinging report from MPs that questions if it will ever be a success.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report published on Tuesday points to supplier problems and major delays in developing electronic health records at the heart of the scheme.
It questions the overall price of the programme and calls on the Department of Health (DH) to produce an annual statement outlining the costs and benefits.
Birmingham IP network connects 750 council sites
Birmingham City Council has completed the installation of one of the largest converged networks ever introduced by a local authority, connecting more than 750 schools, libraries and offices.
Service Birmingham, a £475m partnership between the council and Capita which aims to save £1bn over 10 years, has completed the final phase of the IP network to improve communications and access to services.
The government is reconsidering the confidentiality of its Gateway project monitoring system following sustained pressure to publish the key findings of IT progress reviews.
The move would be a major about-turn for the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) scheme, whose traffic light-rated reports have, until now, been kept firmly under wraps.
May
Leeds City Council’s 345-strong IT department is at the vanguard of plans to establish a fully-fledged technology profession within the public sector.
The local authority is the first such body to implement a skills competency framework developed by the Cabinet Office’s eGovernment Unit (eGU) as part of its IT professionalism agenda
Foreign Office closes online visa application site
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has shut down its online application system run by visa service Vfs Global after a reported security breach last week.
Lord Triesman, secretary of state for foreign and Commonwealth affairs made a statement on the reported security breach of the Vfs visa application web site.
ID cards deals primed to start
The procurement framework for the national ID card scheme will be in place by the end of the year, with the first contract awards scheduled for the second quarter of 2008, according to the latest timetable.
Sources say formal bidding for inclusion on the framework list is expected to start before the end of June.
A group of up to five major suppliers are expected to be included on a framework covering generic terms and conditions. Specific components of the scheme, such as customer services or biometrics, will then be allocated by mini-competitions within the four-year period of the overall deal.
Whitehall buying agency the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) is appealing against the Information Tribunal ruling that it must release early reviews of the ID card programme.
The OGC has resisted requests under the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act for the Gateway reviews carried out at key stages of the controversial Home Office scheme. Publishing the documents, for ID cards or any other government programme, will undermine the frank discussions upon which effective reviews rely, says the OGC.
June
Government IT needs more programme management
Lack of programme management skills is jeopardising the success of major government IT projects, according to the influential Public Accounts Committee of MPs.
More than half of the Senior Responsible Owners (SRO) taking overall responsibility for delivery of major technology schemes have no previous experience in the role and nearly half spend less than a fifth of their time on SRO-related tasks.
UK government services ninth in world league
UK government services have gone up three places to ninth in the global league, according to an annual survey from consultancy Accenture.
The report focuses on citizens' satisfaction with the delivery of public services and the challenges of making best use of new technologies.
Over half of government consulting spend goes on IT
The government has increased the amount it spends on consultants by a third to £2.8bn between 2003-04 and 2005-06, according to a Public Accounts Committee report published today.
IT and project management skills were cited as the most frequently purchased, accounting for 54 per cent of total spending on consultants.
NHS IT will never be the same again
No other public sector technology programme, however controversial, has generated quite the same furore as the £12bn National Programme for NHS IT (NPfIT).
The project is held up as a paragon of tight contracting, technical vision and world-leading innovation.
But it is also used as an exemplar of the worst excesses of disastrous government IT: autocratic, unworkable and a spectacular waste of money.
Richard Granger’s combative stewardship of the programme for the past five years has created almost as much controversy. And his departure in a few months, announced this week, will have a significant impact.
Whitehall shares desktop IT
The Cabinet Office’s newly-procured desktop infrastructure is to be offered to other government organisations as a shared service.
One medium-sized Whitehall department is expected to sign up to the contract in the coming weeks, launching central government’s first standalone shared services programme.
The Flex deal – formerly known as Isaac – was signed with supplier Fujitsu last month and is a managed service covering the Cabinet Office’s 2,500 desktops.
IT high on Brown’s agenda
Gordon Brown’s first day as prime minister today (Thursday) is being cautiously welcomed by IT leaders as an opportunity for a renewed focus on technology-enabled reforms.
Few anticipate changes to major government IT programmes, or to the wider public service modernisation agenda underpinned by the Transformational Government technology plan.
But the looming General Election, expected by some as early as 2008, will focus the new PM on realising tangible benefits from IT-enabled public service reform programmes.
July
Shared services deal set to expand
More government departments could sign up to one of the largest shared services agreements in Whitehall, after supplier LogicaCMG agreed an extension to the deal.
The contract with the Treasury’s buying agency OGCbuying.solutions provides public sector payroll and related human resources (HR) processes.
Government signs £40m deal for online child directory
IT services company Capgemini has signed a £40m deal with the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) to build and host an online directory of children.
The ContactPoint system will hold details of all children in England from birth to age 18 and will allow better communications between those working with children, to help deliver more co-ordinated services.
Capgemini will build the system ready to go live in early 2008 and host it until at least 2014.
Public sector IT is making waves
The past few years have seen the biggest shake-up in the history of public sector IT.
Ambitious e-government, shared services, outsourcing and transformation programmes have sought to revolutionise the efficiency and service levels of public sector organisations. And securing the skills to ensure such programmes succeed is having a huge impact on public sector IT recruitment.
At the most senior level, there is a strong demand for effective business leaders with experience of driving through successful change and integration programmes.
Commons' technology committee faces axe
The influential House of Commons Science and Technology committee is facing abolition following Gordon Brown's machinery of government changes.
Labour chief whip Geoff Hoon is considering the future of the committee, following the absorption of the old Office of Science and Technology into the newly-created Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (Dius).
MPs slam government in continuing rural payments row
MPs have criticised the government’s response to a report that investigated the problems with the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) IT system.
A Commons committee report earlier this year criticised the way the agency was pressured into proceeding with the computerisation of its system for paying farm subsidies resulting in huge delays paying farmers and a looming EU penalty, despite receiving ‘red lights’ on Gateway progress reviews.
August
More than 1000 arrests from eBorders pilot
The government's next-generation border control technology pilot has screened 29 million passengers and led to 1000 arrests, according to a government report published today.
The multi-million pound Semaphore pilot project, being run by IBM, started in 2004 and covers 10 international routes.
It is the precursor to the £1.2bn eBorders scheme which is currently being procured.
Border control plan costs rise
Official cost estimates for the government's plan for electronic border systems have gone up by almost 80 per cent since the start of the pilot two years ago.
The trial of the eBorders scheme to log and check every passenger travelling into and out of the UK has resulted in more than 1,000 arrests since it began in 2004, says the Home Office.
But the full project is now expected to cost about £1.2bn over 10 years, compared with estimates of £1bn over 15 years in July 2005.
The formal procurement process for the government's biometric national identity card scheme has finally started.
The intitial competition is expected to take around nine months and will create a preferred list of five prime contractors to bid for future deals to develop and run the scheme.
Individual deals worth around £2bn will then be let through a series of mini competitions. The first are expected to be a replacement fingerprint system and the enrolment application for both passports and ID cards.
September
Government IT market will continue to grow
The public sector IT market grew by nine per cent to more than £8bn in 2006 and will expand by 11 per cent this year, according to figures published by analyst Ovum on Thursday.
Growth is largely driven by infrastructure programmes such as the £12bn National Programme for NHS IT, the £4bn Defence Information Infrastructure and the £2bn Joined-Up Justice scheme.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is setting up an application delivery centre (ADC) to ensure new developments exploit existing technology investments wherever possible.
The first project to come under the group’s remit will be the front-end customer account management (Cam) system for the in-coming Employment Support Allowance (Esa) ¬ a key part of New Labour’s welfare reform agenda.
Whitehall plans web accounts
The government is considering creating individual online accounts for citizens accessing public services over the internet.
The proposal is being evaluated as part of wider plans to move Whitehall-wide technology services to major delivery departments, from their current home in the Cabinet Office.
Fifty firms at first ID card bid meeting
Fifty potential suppliers to the government's planned multi-million pound biometric identity card programme participated in the first bidders' conference last week.
The procurement for the scheme was launched last month and the framework contracts – which will handle up to £2bn of subsequent business – are expected to be signed within nine months.
Police IT edges closer to a national programme
The police service took another step towards a more centralised approach to technology with the publication of the chief inspector of constabulary’s interim report last week.
Sir Ronnie Flanagan was commissioned in March by then- home secretary John Reid to review UK policing.
Reducing bureaucracy is a major priority, according to Sir Flanagan. And a number of his recommendations include either explicit or implicit calls for standard, national systems.
Public sector needs greener IT, says minister
The public sector needs to focus on greener and more efficient IT, Cabinet Office minister Gillian Merron told the European Commission egovernment conference in Lisbon today.
Technology is responsible for up to one billion tonnes of CO2 emissions every year, a similar proportion of global output to that of the airline industry.
And the government's £12bn annual spend makes it the UK's biggest IT user, said Merron.
Government outsourcing to rise to £100bn
Public sector IT outsourcing will grow by £26bn to £100bn by 2013, with services to the citizen alone worth £56bn, according to researcher Kable.
The value of services to government will also rise, from £33bn to £44bn in the next five years, says the Public Sector Outsourcing report published today.
October
ID cards shortlist agreed
A short list of eight suppliers has been chosen for the government's controversial £2bn biometric identity cards programme, out of an original list of 11.
The successful firms to go through to the next stage are Accenture, BAE Systems, CSC, EDS, Fujitsu, IBM, Steria and Thales.
MPs set to join the BlackBerry age
MPs are set to be allowed to bring BlackBerrys into the House of Commons after rebel members failed in an attempt to prevent their use – despite three-and-a-half hours of debate last week.
Currently external communications during Commons debates are restricted to messages written on slips of paper passed by messengers wearing traditional black tail-coated uniforms.
NHS IT plan "is a success story"
The NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT) is now so well advanced that the health service “could no longer function” without it, the government has said.
Exchequer secretary to the Treasury Angela Eagle told MPs last week that NPfIT is a success despite delays implementing key aspects of the strategy, including the Lorenzo next-generation hospital administration package.
Problems with the armed forces’ £100m human resources system are being blamed for plummeting morale.
The Joint Personnel Administration (JPA) system has already saved the military £100m and enabled HR staff numbers to be cut by 1,400, or about 20 per cent.
But in the past month alone Computing has received more than 150 separate complaints from service personnel, including those seeing action in Iraq and Afghanistan, facing continuing financial issues because of JPA.
November
e-Borders winner set to sign
A consortium led by US defence technology supplier Raytheon is expected to be confirmed as preferred bidder for the UK government’s £534m e-Borders deal, according to sources close to the negotiations.
The Trusted Borders consortium was selected last week in preference to the BT-led Emblem group, said insiders. The Raytheon bid is said to have had a considerably lower price tag than its competitor.
Tax man loses 25 million people's records
Child benefit records for 25 million people, including bank details for 7.25 million families, have been lost by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).
Chairman Paul Gray has resigned in what the Chancellor of the Exchequer describes as an "extremely serious failure by HMRC in its responsibility to the public".
Shared services not delivering, says NAO
Government shared services programmes are not delivering the levels of administrative savings that is possible, according to the National Audit Office (NAO).
The Cabinet Office estimates Whitehall departments could save £1.4bn per year by centralising finance and human resources (HR).
But though projects going ahead in the NHS and HM Prison Service are on course for significant cost savings, progress across the sector is slow.
December
£50k-worth of computers lost by Department of Justice
Days after the HMRC missing disks scandal, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has revealed that a desktop computer and 26 laptops worth £50,000 have gone missing this year.
Last year departments lost a total of 292 computers, many of them from the Home Office and Ministry of Defence.
A £450m joint venture between two West Country councils and IBM could be the first of its kind in the country if a local police authority also signs up to the scheme.
The new company, called Southwest One, will focus on improving the delivery of key IT services, including design, finance and human resources, to Somerset County Council (SCC) and Taunton Deane Borough Council (TDBC).
And if Avon and Somerset Police Authority goes ahead with its plans to join, the councils claim it will be the UK’s first cross-sector shared service partnership.
Government has "a long way to go" on IT strategy, says PM
Prime minister Gordon Brown has told MPs that the government "has a long way to go" on its IT strategy.
In an appearance before Parliament's Liaison Committee to discuss a variety of government issues, Brown talked about IT in response to questions from Andrew Miller, chairman of parliamentary IT body Pitcom. He acknowledged that lessons were still being learned on the best use of technology.
Three million records lost in another government data scandal
The UK government has revealed that a US-based IT contractor has "lost" the records of three million British learner drivers in the latest missing data scandal to hit Whitehall.
Transport secretary Ruth Kelly was forced to confess to the second major security breach involving personal records from a government department in statement to MPs.