Ex-government CIO hits back at McCluggage's 'failing IT strategy' claims

Joe Harley says government is making progress towards its IT goals

Ex-government CIO Joe Harley has hit back at his former deputy CIO Bill McCluggage's claims that the government is unable to achieve its IT goals.

Harley worked with McCluggage in his year in charge of government ICT before retiring from both the government CIO role - a role that is now filled by Andy Nelson - and his role as CIO of the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), in spring this year.

In July, McCluggage told Computing that a lack of metrics in government IT was damaging its aim for greater efficiency.

In an exclusive interview with Computing, Harley, who now works as strategic adviser at technology solutions provider Amor Group, said that there had been progress with metrics in government ICT but conceded that there was still work to be done.

"Metrics is key in all of government IT and if we can't measure it, we can't manage it. I think there has been a lot of progress in gathering of metrics but it is hard to acquire really good cross-government metrics, so that we can properly measure the progress and performance [of ICT]. There has been a lot of effort into this but there is probably a bit more to do to get the really powerful metrics which we need," he said.

McCluggage had also criticised the government's approach to cyber security, describing the pace of change as "glacial" - something that Harley strongly refuted.

"I did not see [a glacial change] in the areas that I operated in the DWP. I'm not sure about other parts of government - perhaps Bill had some visibility but I didn't see that. I thought there was a real impetus for change - it is such an important topic so I wouldn't say that there is a slow pace," he said.

Harley also defended government IT for being what McCluggage labelled "an extremely risk-averse environment".

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Ex-government CIO hits back at McCluggage's 'failing IT strategy' claims

Joe Harley says government is making progress towards its IT goals

McCluggage had suggested that there should be an incentive for public-sector organisations to act quickly and take risks, but Harley said that although government should work faster it had to take into account any potential risks.

"I think it is right for government to be cautious and experiment. It should be more nimble, pilot things and get proof of concepts delivered, which then gives them more confidence to implement [ICT] on a national scale. Innovation is key to the future and for doing things faster in months rather than years, but at the same time it has to balance out with the risks of doing so," Harley said.

The problem, McCluggage had said, was that Whitehall was unwilling to adopt newer technologies and evolve at the same pace as the private sector.

But Harley said that for major systems it would not be possible to take risks.

"Nobody would forgive you if you took risks with major systems without thinking, so there is risk aversion in government IT, but I also think that there is a reasonable understanding of why that is the case.

"I have seen evidence of real improvement over the years, with departments more willing to take risks - thoughtful risks, I might add - but it is also really important to have strong risk management processes around it," he said.

Harley also suggested that people within government needed to be more responsible for their actions.

"I think we need to be more light-footed and make people more accountable for their decisions and actions rather than [blaming] committees and programme boards," he concluded.