MPs call for external benchmarking of government IT

Public Accounts Committee says IT could be improved through comparison with industry best practice

Benchmarking could improve government IT, say MPs

An influential group of MPs is calling for more benchmarking of government IT to improve service delivery.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has released a report into the Capability Review programme, a government initiative to publish external assessments of Whitehall departments to improve the civil service.

One of the report’s key recommendations is to use “quantitative external benchmarks” to assess the capability and performance of departments, and highlights IT as one of the areas that could benefit from such an approach.

“Benchmarking against the best private and public sector organisations is a key driver of improvement,” says the report.

“There are many areas open to comparison, including the use of innovation, the handling of customer complaints, staff confidence in senior leadership and the management of finances, human resources, projects, estates, procurement and information and communication technology.”

Many private-sector IT leaders use benchmarking tools or external consultants to compare the performance of their technology with industry best practice.

Government chief information officer John Suffolk has repeatedly called for Whitehall IT teams to look for best practice and replicate the lessons learned, rather than “re-inventing the wheel”.