Information management skills key to safeguarding public services

Socitm report says top-quality information is vital to the success of IT-led efficiency programmes

Efficient information management equals cash savings for public sector says Socitm

The recommendations in new report titled Managing information: managing the lifeblood of the organisation could deliver significant cost savings to public sector bodies.

The report, by ICT policy management body Socitm, argues that information management is "ill-understood and poorly managed by public sector organisations ".

Socitm warns that unless more resources are put into information management training, cost-cutting initiatives -- such as customer self-service, flexible working, shared services and business process redesign -- will struggle to achieve the desired savings.

These initiatives need "top quality information in order to work", the report says, but Socitm's research suggests public sector organisations are being " mean with the necessary training, possibly through ignorance of the need".

The report's conclusion is that "success demands a rigorous approach to information governance, with input and (more importantly) ownership from right across the organisation".