If you hadn’t heard yet, on Thursday last week, OFGEM finally announced a launch date for its long awaited Smart Metering Prospectus: Wednesday, 04 August.

It’s going to be a big day for Smart Metering in the UK and I’d suggest that all those with an interest in the industry mark the date in their diaries with a big, brightly coloured highlighter.

The prospectus aims to clear up uncertainty around issues such as standardisation, the roll-out implementation framework, and consumer engagement. In keeping with the large-scale project that it has been written for, it’s expected to be rather large itself – rumour has it the prospectus is currently weighing in at a hefty 500 pages.

It’s going to make for vital reading and, once it’s released, my stoic colleagues and I intend to start ploughing through it immediately, in order to offer a response as quickly as possible.

It seems that Westminster has only just got into its usual rhythm before everything stops for the summer recess next week. Those new MPs are just beginning to find their feet and learn the curious ways of Parliament. The Select Committees are almost all up and running and my inbox has been pinging regularly with details of new enquiries and evidence sessions. We have also seen dozens of new peers being appointed. Many of those peers will have been MPs or ministers before but most will not and will find the House of Lords a strange environment.

The new crop of MPs attracted a great deal of interest in the weeks very shortly after the election and their first few days in parliament were the subject of some considerable coverage. But now that the dust has settled a little on general election we’ve had a little more time observe the new intake at work and understand what makes them tick. It will be of little surprise that many of them are focussing on issues that directly affect their constituencies. Interest in rural broadband is especially apparent with flurry of Parliamentary Questions being asked on the subject. The MP for Penrith and the Border, Rory Stewart has made broadband one of his priority issues . He is not alone – many Conservatives that represent those large rural seats see broadband through this “rural lens”. It is a point of view that is reflected by the fact that Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has made the delivery of rural broadband a key plank of her department’s work programme.

It is also clear from examining some of the business backgrounds of the new intake that there are a number of MPs who should have entered Parliament with solid knowledge of the technology sector. To cite a couple of examples, Conservative James Morris has had a successful career as a small businessman specialising in software companies and Labour’s Chi Onwurah is the former Head of Telecoms Technology at Ofcom. They may still be in a minority but we can still welcome the addition of this expertise to the Commons and encourage them to help raise the quality of debate around technology issues.

There were no flags, no whistles and certainly no vuvuzelas at what turned out to be the second most important national event of the week – the Budget. Even if they were allowed in the public gallery of the House of Commons – I don’t think anyone really felt like celebrating. George Osborne termed it the “unavoidable budget” and we should be in no doubt that everyone will suffer. Over the last few weeks, Cameron and Osborne have skilfully talked up the size of the debt. Nick Clegg has also been out and about talking about the need for tough decision on public sector pay and pensions. There does seem to be a level of consensus about the need for radical action to deal with the public finances.
Perhaps he has just parted his hair differently but at Dispatch Box for his first Budget the Shadow Chancellor who was criticised for being too young and inexperienced seems to have grown a little in stature and gravitas over the last few weeks. Government seems to be good for George Osborne.
Overall, Intellect has welcomed the Chancellor’s commitment to the ideas in the Dyson Report. That was the report that the Tories commissioned James Dyson to write before the election, which put forward some strong ideas on how to foster innovation in the UK including focussing R&D tax credits on high tech businesses. There will be a further consultation on this later in the year so it is an issue that we will still need to keep pushing.
On capital allowances and, though the Chancellor announced a small reduction in the rates for capital allowances. Whilst this was better than many had expected, monitoring the situation to make sure that this does not penalise companies, like telecoms businesses, that are heavy investors in infrastructure and small and medium sized businesses that buy technology as capital expenditure.

The announcements on capital gains tax which extend the 10 per cent capital gains tax rate for entrepreneurs to the first £5m of lifetime gains may be good news for technology entrepreneurs but the higher rate could also deter investment in technology companies.

However, it is in the Public Sector that trepidation abounds. The announcement of a further £17 billion of savings, on top of what has already been announced, from departmental spending will undoubtedly be tough to meet. Once again, we have a top line figure and a little detail about exactly where the axe will fall. It simply isn’t true that the government’s belt tightening has started to bite, that will come with the Spending Review in October. Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Simon Hughes had already hinted that he is prepared to amend the budget. It is not at all clear whether he has the support of other Lib Dem backbenchers. Depending on whether Hughes is serious or just posturing, there could be serious trouble ahead for the Coalition Government in the autumn.

Or very nearly at least. Approximately a month after taking office the coalition government is now carefully laying out their plans to cut public spending. David Cameron gave a speech earlier this week in which he hinted that the reality of the nation’s finances were even worse than he had asserted in opposition. It follows the announcement by George Osborne and David Laws of £6 billion of savings in government spending and ahead of the hotly anticipated emergency budget, Cameron’s speech was pitched to place a renewed urgency on action to cut the deficit. However, perhaps the most important function of the speech was to make an appeal to the public to accept the measures to cut spending as inevitable. For those of you that don’t have time to pour over the prime minister’s every word the predictable key messages were as follows:

- we’ve inherited a mess, and a big one
- we’ll have to make tough decisions – we understand they won’t be universally popular
- cutting spending is in the national interest and we all need to take action now.

It is hard not to read an extra ‘please don’t hate us’ plea into the speech. Cameron gave very little detail of what would actually be cut but he did mention big areas of spending like pay and pensions and benefits. Turning this into a national debate will be key to how the successfully the coalition manages to stick to its spending plans. Cameron also knows carrying the public along with him will be a tall order once those measures start to affect individuals.

In quick succession and with the budget date looming, the treasury has outlined a tight timetable for the secretaries of state to submit plans on how they intend to meet ‘a tough new set of criteria to deliver value for money.’ But they have also announced that they will embark on a period of external engagement between the government, the private sector, the general public, voluntary and charitable organisations and experts, in order to obtain the best ideas from those most involved in and affected by public services. It could be described as crowd sourcing the budget but how sensitively this process is carried out will be critical to formalising that ‘national debate.’ Much has been made of discussions between the prime minister and his Canadian counterpart who also embarked on some strict deficit cutting measures. The Canadians famously blew up an entire hospital as a symbol of their commitment to reduce public spending. Even with a comprehensive national debate, I would be very surprised if the coalition or indeed the general public in the UK have the stomach for such high profile gesture politics.

The next edition of Whitehall Watch will cover all the key announcements from the budget.

Rather shockingly it was reported today that a printing error at HM Revenue & Customs has led to the private financial details of up to 50,000 people who claim tax credits being mistakenly sent out in the post.

The problem is that in the past, public sector procurement of Managed Print Services (MPS) has too often focused on procuring like-for-like without any challenge taking place as to whether what was bought previously was what was needed.

I’d hope the HMRC’s procurement process looked at a secure set up where only authorised documents could have been printed. This would significantly reduce the chance of any sensitive or confidential information being printed out unauthorised.

• The question the public should be asking the HMRC is: who was responsible for each element of the MPS including the strategy, policy creation, decision making and day to day operations?

• The question I’d ask the HMRC is: who was in charge of the governance? Arguably, the most important element in any project involving multiple parties is governance. Printing infrastructure can often grow organically without a single point of control so it is vital to define roles and responsibilities for support departments.

• Finally, the question the industry should be asking the HMRC is: do they realise that not only will effective MPS make it unlikely that this awful error happens again, but that it can: reduce costs; increase the efficiency and sustainability of their printing; mitigate other risks (e.g. business continuity); and result in greater user satisfaction?

The Intellect Managed Print group are in the process of finishing a paper on the Procurement and Governance of MPS. I’ll make sure the HMRC are the first one on my list to receive a copy. In the mean time they can learn more by reading the Intellect paper “Managed Print Services: A Business Tool for the Information Age”.

As you may have heard at some point over the last couple of years, the economic situation has been somewhat turbulent. The reasons for this have been covered extensively and my days as a history student are now firmly behind me.

The Intellect Financial Services Group convened for its first Conference halfway up one of the strangest buildings to grace the English capital – the eye-catching Gherkin - in late February determined to look forward. Enough of the past, what about the opportunity to move ahead with UK technology at the helm?

Are we past the worst of the crisis? That is a question I dare not answer. But I can tell you that there will be no sustainable recovery unless it is open to innovation and technology driven.

As we near an election, simple calls for ‘more regulation’ will continue to headline stories about bankers’ bonuses – but, as British Bankers Association Chief Executive Angela Knight told Intellect members, ‘more’ regulation is not a good enough answer. It must be ‘better’ regulation which is both flexible and innovative, and that will require the best of UK technology.

Despite the crisis, the City of London remains the financial centre where vast quantities of capital reside and most of the biggest players still aspire to be seen as part of the ‘City brand’. UK plc, led by forward-thinking Intellect members, must now be ready to step up to provide the twenty-first century power tools to keep it that way as international alternatives develop apace. The technology industry must show its value as both an enabler and an innovator for the UK economy at a time when there is an opportunity and appetite for change on a grand scale.

This is the next battle; perhaps it is time to marshal the troops and move on from the last one.

The government plans to direct Ofcom (the first it has ever done this) to implement the, glamorously titled, Wireless Spectrum Modernisation Programme. Through it, The Digital Dividend is about to become a reality, as analogue TV is switched off by the end of 2011. You, civil servants, parliamentarians and their researchers look on, slightly bemused, as those of us who live and breathe spectrum (it is thin air after all…) thrash out the GHz, the MHz, The LTE’s, The WiMax, the DVB T2’s, and all that go with them. All too often, the debate bypasses why these kinds of issues are crucial to Mr. Joe Voter, why real parliamentary engagement is so important and why UK Citizens need representation. Part of this process is making these issues understandable for those representatives.

So why is spectrum, and by implication the digital dividend, so important to your every day man, or woman, on the street? Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1
The annual Intellect-OGC Conference is now halfway through, with the morning session setting the context and landscape of the public sector. As we all know, tough economic times means that the public sector finds itself in a predicament. While budgets are getting cut and savings/efficiency being maximized, the demand for public services is increasing. Thus this year’s conference is aptly named ‘doing more for less’.

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The great and the good convened at 1 Plough Place this morning – home of the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts – for the launch of a new report on how the NHS can save a whopping £20 billion (and to hear what Andrew Lansley had to say about the whole thing on behalf of the Conservatives). I’m inclined to agree with NESTA’s proposition that: “It is possible to develop cheaper, more effective patient-centred services and approaches to public behaviour change but only by adopting radical new ways of innovating within the NHS”. There’s been a prevailing shift towards consumerism in healthcare which signals opportunities to make efficiency savings while improving patient satisfaction through better online self-service systems, as well as kiosks and the like. Is this going to be the holy grail that we’ve all been looking for?
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Thomas Train

The ‘Sage of Omaha’ Warren Buffet has just bought one of America’s largest freight railway firms, Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) for $26bn in an “all-in wager” of America’s economic future.

He could have gotten a big chunk of a UK bank for that price, but Mr Buffet thinks that ‘railroads will get a decent return’ and will underpin a low-carbon economy in the future. With efficiency much higher than any other transport mode for goods, railroads will probably become a hot-potato for politicians as well (for some it already is).

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