First, following up from my last blog entry where I was a little sceptical towards what the budget would bring in terms of greenness. Apparently, this budget is the ‘world’s first carbon budget’ that aims to ‘provide businesses with the certainty they need to justify investment in low carbon technologies and help create hundreds of thousands of high-value jobs’ with ‘over £1.4 billion of extra targeted support in the low-carbon sector.’ However, some say that this supposedly green budget is nothing more than a ‘whitewash’. And although the rest of the budget was highly criticised all over the media world, the ICT industry saw some benefits as identified by Intellect.

The day before the budget announcement, HM Treasury published their findings of the Operational Efficiency Programme, which have identified a total of £15 billion in annual savings, from which 3.2bn coming from back office IT which ‘should be achievable without compromising the quality of frontline public service delivery.’ Intellect has responded to this initiative by supporting the government’s aim to ensure that its ICT costs are managed effectively and provide value. On the other hand, a narrow focus on cuts in ICT spend would risk missing the main issue and a substantial opportunity to cut departmental operational costs and enable fundamental and strategic business change in public services.

Lastly, the Conservatives reiterated their stand of scrapping the ID cards if they come into power. However, Bill Crothers, CIO of the Identity and Passport Service (IPS), and its chief executive, James Hall, have according to the pressreportedthat ‘if the Conservatives win the next general election and cancel ID cards there will be little in effect to cancel’ since the IT infrastructure for passports is being combined with that of ID cards.

Three strikes and I am out! Much like Intellect’s first softball game last night was, the outcome of these three topics are highly unpredictable and should provide with some buzzing around offices for some time.

Technorati Tags: Efficicency, Green IT, ID Cards

Tags: Efficicency, Green IT, ID Cards

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 at 1:16 pm and is filed under Public Sectors, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.