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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Are we witnessing an EU awakening to the role ICT plays in creating a flourishing and sustainable European society? Looking at the recently published proposal for ‘A Green Knowledge Society: An ICT policy agenda to 2015 for Europe’s future knowledge society’ by the Swedish EU presidency one would think so. More so, the European Commission has also recently adopted the recommendation of mobilising ICT to facilitate the transition to an energy-efficient, low-carbon economy. It looks good on paper if nothing else.

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Despite what my colleagues may think, I really do make an effort to keep my desk clear. It’s becoming increasingly difficult. The government is simply producing so much paper on telecoms at the moment. There are no less than five meaty consultations, a select committee inquiry and, lets not forget, the mighty tome that is the Digital Britain report, (along with its little brother, the Digital Britain implementation plan), all stacked up and teetering over into my neighbours territory. I have added first and second draft responses. On Friday, the whole stack of paper fell on my foot. It hurt.

So is my bruised toe worth it? Or, more specifically, is all this frantic policy making actually producing the end results we hoped for? Well, from a legislative perspective, things are definitely moving along well. We are hearing reassuring noises that despite the upcoming general election, the digital economy bill is taking shape broadly as we hoped it would and there isn’t much appetite for playing around with it in parliament. The much hyped “broadband tax’”is likely to make it into the finance bill. An additional statutory duty for Ofcom (“to promote efficient investment”) is almost certainly on the way. If they can work out what “efficient” actually means, this can only be good. Although, DCMS seems to have got jealous and decided that it wants to add a duty for Ofcom as well, probably without consulting. Anything BIS can do DCMS can do better. Whitehall in action.

On the negative side, there appears to be, much to industries concern, clear momentum for ISPs to be required to cut off their customers for sharing files illegally. I have great respect for right-holders. In another life, perhaps I could have created some content worth possessing the rights to… But the fact remains that industry, or ISPs, are effectively being contracted out as a law enforcement agency. There is absolutely no direct benefit, or proposed recompense, for them under these proposals. Instead, they incur huge additional admin costs and may well lose revenue as well. Right holders share none of this burden. That is apart from the fact that the whole system is likely to be unenforceable and likely to be superseded by the Telecoms framework directive, which, dogged by infamous “Amendement 138″ controversy, is currently grinding its way through Brussels as we speak.

We also wonder where all the non-legislative (or partially legislative) proposals are going. Already, large elements of the Digital Britain spectrum modernisation programme are probably going to need to be looked at again. T-Mobile and Orange, unless the competition commission intervenes, are to merge. This means that Kip Meeks valuable work, which Mandleson recently got involved with and was near to completion, will most likely be delayed and revised. While the government hasn’t missed its target yet, the ‘arms length’ entity responsible for procuring the capabilities to deliver a 2Mb/s USC currently has no CEO and hasn’t been formally established. We hope that whoever is appointed will talk to industry in a language it understands. Not quite time to worry, but the way the procurement is run is crucial.

Then there are the Tories. We still don’t really know (apart from the short term point scoring we saw immediately post publication) where they stand. The vaunted Review of the Creative Industries appears no closer to publication. This could all be for nothing if they choose to take a different direction on all these issues. Apart from the fact that we are last starting to get some coherency and traction on these issues in Government, this would mean a new wodge of paper hitting my desk. And a visit from HR about health and safety and Intellects ‘clear desk’ policy. I think I will just blame the government. I normally do.

I think the answer is obvious (but would welcome other ideas as well). It must be that industry demonstrates on the one hand, that ICT costs need to be managed effectively and provide value, and on the other that strategic investment in ICT has the potential to cut operational costs and generate wider efficiency savings at the same time as improving services.

This is our view on the Operational Efficiency Programme announced by HM Treasury almost six months ago. The OEP aims to make efficiency savings of £3.2 billion in IT, with £1.6 billion of this resulting from collaborative procurement. As taxpayers we all agree that savings must be made and that efficiency in government be improved. However, as the technology industry we also believe that government will not achieve this by just cutting IT spend by 20% as we have first-hand insight of the integral role technology plays in both making government operations efficient and delivering world-class public services.

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Yesterday, the FSB launched a new report urging the Government to transform post offices into small business hubs. A number of interesting ideas were put forward, including establishing a business desk at each Post Office with specially trained staff or offering meeting room facilities to start-ups and micro businesses.

I welcome the report and its call for action. A number of the points resonate with proposals Intellect put forward in its response to the Business and Enterprise Committee’s inquiry into the future of the PO network. For example, Intellect’s response suggested:
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The relationship between privacy issues and smart metering was always going to be fraught with concern. As such, I was interested to read this article which includes a summary of some of the key issues being faced in Canada and Netherlands. Firstly, to Canada, where law-enforcers have monitored energy usage as part of gathering evidence against suspected marijuana growers. Clever, eh? However, in court, the judge dismissed the ammeter as a source of evidence for reasons of invasion of privacy; it transpired that the police hadn’t obtained the necessary search warrant to use it. Not such a smart move after all.
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