Suffolk signals changes to government IT practices

Government CIO spells out ICT priorities on his blog

Suffolk emphasises two way conversation

Government CIO John Suffolk emphasised the importance of a two-way conversation between government and IT suppliers in his blogyesterday.

He also says he understands that suppliers will expect the government to change its business practices: “This may include standardising, simplifying, or reducing requirements.

"[We may need to] think differently about topics such as risk transfer or the structures within teams that drive up costs," he explained.

Unsurprisingly, he said the government's main focus is on reducing costs.

He also spelled out three main strands of the government ICT strategy.

The first will see central government departments, agencies and non-departmental public bodies prohibited from signing any new ICT contracts or contract extensions worth more than £1m without specific agreement by the Treasury.

The second strand will assess the value for money of no less than 80 per cent of all programmes where ICT is a key element.

Contracts worth over £50m will be looked at by the Major Projects Review Team; where they are less than £50m, departments themselves will be responsible for the review.

The ICT project review will feed into two overlapping phases. The first phase will see projects decommissioned. This will include reshaping, redundancies and contracts terminations or changes.

The second will see contract renegotiation. Renegotiations will be led by Suffolk’s team, the OGC, departmental commercial directors, chief information officers and legal specialists.

The third strand covers exceptions to the above where "the introduction of the moratorium might go against our objective of finding cashable savings, or might put at risk the viability of an ICT organisation or indeed frontline citizen/business services".