Senior civil servants gagged ahead of IT review

Bar disclosed following last-minute change to Pitcom programme

MPs will be kept in the dark until review is published

The Cabinet Office has banned its senior civil servants from speaking out in public ahead of the publication of the government's revised IT strategy.

The bar was disclosed when the Parliamentary Information Technology Committee (Pitcom) was forced to make a last-minute change in its programme after Andrew Tait, deputy director, G-Cloud, Apps Store and Data Centre Consolidation, pulled out of addressing a meeting.

Members, including MPs and figures from the IT industry, instead heard programme committee chair Professor Jim Norton, visiting professor of electronic and electrical engineering at the University of Sheffield and vice president of BCS, speak on "Ground rules for successful use of IT to address public service cost reduction".

The gag will continue until the strategy is revealed in a few months.