Government decision makers have little confidence that IT can transform Whitehall

Government decision makers want IT to help improve service delivery, reduce costs and increase collaboration but have little confidence that it will be able to deliver

Government decision makers have little faith that Whitehall IT teams can transform the way government works, according to a report from Eduserv, a not-for-profit organisation and registered charity.

In its report, Government, technology and the language of business change, Eduserv found that improved service delivery - for which digital services are seen as a huge advantage - was the benefit most decision makers would like to see from IT in 2015. However, 65 per cent of Whitehall decision makers are not confident IT will be able to deliver this change in 2015.

Over two-thirds (68 per cent) of Whitehall decision makers want IT to help reduce costs, but only 41 per cent are confident that IT will be able to deliver this. There are similar stats for increased collaboration (49 per cent of government want this from IT, but 67 per cent are not confident that IT will deliver this) and remote working (47 per cent of government decision makers want this from IT, but 49 per cent are not confident that IT will deliver).

In addition, most decision makers also lack confidence that their key priorities for IT will be supported by sufficient investment. Eduserv said the proportion of decision makers who had little confidence in investment was staggering. For better procurement it was 29 per cent, increased collaboration 35 per cent, and for improvement in service delivery the doubters made up 47 per cent of the respondents.

The not-for-profit organisation also found that only a small number of people agreed with the statements ‘employees at all levels understand the importance of IT' (27 per cent) and ‘my organisation has an IT strategy aligned to future business needs' (22 per cent).

However, Eduserv said that it was encouraging that many of the government professionals surveyed believed that the top priority for IT is improving service delivery.

Government professionals also said the most appealing opportunities arising from cloud are to improve services and get more flexibility, ahead of cost reduction, and Eduserv believes this is evidence that people believe in the potential of cloud to drive service transformation.

However, there remain some barriers to cloud adoption. A quarter of senior government decision makers said that security concerns were a barrier and 24 per cent said a legacy IT contract was stopping the organisation from using the cloud.

Ivan Harris, chief strategy officer for managed cloud services at Eduserv, said that overall, the research marked a shift in central government thinking.

"In the past the main focus has been to use technology for cost reduction or giving people the ability to work on the move.

"Today, the overwhelming priority for central government is to harness technology in order to improve service delivery - an area which many acknowledge has been ignored so far," he said.

"But with only a quarter of organisations able to say their people understand the role of IT in service delivery, the defining challenge for successful digital transformation in government is less about technology and more about culture and people," he added.

Eduserv surveyed 100 civil servants for the research.