Delivering the IT promise

Friday, July 02, 2010

Investment in IT must be a key element of future spending plans despite the need for savings across the public sector, says Socitm president Jos Creese

Like other public sector managers, my first thoughts about life under the coalition have focused on the likely areas, depth and impact of budget cuts. For IT we've already had announcements that high-profile projects, including the ContactPoint database and ID cards, are to be scrapped. More will follow.

While these moves are not surprising, there are real concerns at Socitm about indiscriminate slashing of IT spending. Making blanket cuts could be a disaster.

Freeze all new IT spending and you risk cutting off the means to change radically the way public services are delivered and the potential to strip out layers of cost. We need to shift resources and cut costs, but we must also recognise the need to invest in IT to enable the potentially very large savings associated with flexible and mobile working, integrated services, citizen and employee self-service, partnerships and shared services, electronic document management and storage... the list goes on.

Sceptics will say they've heard this all before. IT has promised efficiencies for years, and all that's been delivered is expensive failures.

There is an element of truth in this. IT has under- delivered on investment over the past decade. But we should look at the reasons. One was lack of real pressure on public sector organisations to change and to realise savings, and, if nothing else, the size of today's public sector deficit means change has become non-negotiable.

You cannot apply IT over the top of outdated and inefficient processes and hope that, as if by magic, technology will change everything.

It is time for a more mature approach to public sector IT. I hope politicians and public sector leaders will recognise the opportunity and grab it.

This approach must recognise and deal with some of the tensions. For example, between the efficiencies of data sharing and the implications for privacy; between the desire for local solutions and Whitehall's centralising tendencies; and between the drive for openness and transparency and the consequences of outsourcing services to the private sector.

A mature and considered approach is not a soft option; frankly it is very hard. But it is much better than being driven by dogma or fear of technology driving change.

It is the impact of technology therefore, rather than the technology itself, that has been the stumbling block for delivery of successful IT strategies, something Socitm has highlighted in the seven-point plan we have developed for the new government. Much of this plan concerns culture change, outcomes-focused management, staff empowerment and customer needs.

Very little of it is actually about technology. Under the boring-but-important IT governance heading in our plan, Socitm suggests that a minister, supported by a chief information officer at permanent secretary level, should take on the role of ensuring that policies, frameworks and standards are developed to support relevant IT infrastructures like the G-Cloud and the Public Sector Network.

In addition, those at the top of public sector IT must lead the establishment of the essential trust and identity models needed to enable citizens, staff and intermediaries to interact with IT systems delivering services reliant on personal data. This will be vital if effective shared services and collaborative working between partners, as envisaged under the Total Place concept, are to be achieved.

Total Place may not, of course, survive in its original form, but the new government is certainly committed to locally determined and delivered public services, underpinned by transparency and accountability to strengthen local communities. Socitm welcomes this and goes as far as to say that local delivery of a national IT strategy is the only affordable and practical approach to success. Not only are large- scale centrally managed programmes too difficult, they are clearly also out of step with today's political climate.

Our seven-point plan calls for renewed focus on reformed, collaborative and innovative locally delivered public services. We believe public services will provide more, better, for less when they are led, managed and resourced locally, with citizens and frontline staff and a full spectrum of service providers – public, third and private sectors – given a stronger voice, empowered by information and technology.

Critically, IT should be fully integrated into strategic planning. This is not happening anything like enough. Few CIOs in the public sector have the influence they need at board level. Yet this is essential to guide state intervention at the local level where the market fails – for example with the reach of broadband to certain areas and communities. Socitm believes this is essential, for transforming local public services using IT, for exploiting IT to maintain competitive advantage and reducing the serious socio-economic impact of digital exclusion.

IT can be used to advance elements of the "Big Society" around openness, transparency and access to information. In future, public bodies will be obliged to publish much more of the information they gather and generate, on the basis that this will empower people to come together and pursue principles of self-help, social responsibility and community development.

This could deliver many benefits for local engagement and local service delivery, and Socitm is working with colleagues at the LGA and the Department for Communities – at last led by someone who has also led a local authority – to take this forward. We look forward to working to create a positive agenda for change.