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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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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After just over a year since its last review and the introduction of the security schedule (to deal with data handling issues), OGC has now published their latest review of the ICT Model Agreement, version 2.3. The new version includes significant updates in the key areas of financial distress and security management, two major concerns for Intellect (read our press release for more info)

So why is this important? Well, inevitably industry and the public sector have two different views of what a contract should look like, with each side trying to minimise its risks and safeguard itself as much as possible. For example, there may be unrealistic trigger clauses that if applied would only escalate the situation manifold and actually lead to what the authority sought to avoid in the first place: a failed project! The review of the Financial Distress schedule for example took this into account in its changes.
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It’s not a trick question, I do want to know but I don’t want to start counting characters per page, but 20 pages of guidance on how to twitter in government would be a lot of tweets. The latest government guidance is called ‘Template Twitter Strategy for Government Departments’ and is available here. News outlets are all reporting on it and the author even guest blogged on the cabinet office’s Digital Engagement Blog to promote it. Let’s hope the guidance is put to use sensibly.

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The government’s hotly anticipated plans for reforming adult social care finally saw the light of day last week. Having launched a call for more integration of health and social care services back in March 2007, we at Intellect, were pleased to see that the burden of an ageing society and rising costs of care are finally getting some proper attention from government.

The green paper sets out plans for a National Care Service that will offer national assessment, joined-up services, information and advice, personalised care and support and fair funding. News that a Cabinet-level ministerial integration group has been set up to help drive this forward will be welcome to everyone that’s campaigned for reform. But good intentions are not enough.

Having the right technology to underpin these changes will determine whether the vision stands or falls. Various technical, commercial and cultural barriers to providing joined-up services will need to be addressed if we’re are to see the creation of a more sustainable health and social care system. That’s why we’ve launched ‘Fitting IT all Together’ which sets out the industry’s view on health and social care, and which calls for more openness and transparency, a roadmap to support joined-up working, and earlier engagement with industry.

This story is too mind-boggling to pass up. India has now announced that it is issuing a biometric ID card for each of its 1.2 billion citizens. The Times article from today says that “it is surely the biggest Big Brother project yet conceived.” The newly created Unique Identification Authority will be responsible for gathering and storing personal details electronically and issuing a unique identity number (with the card), with an estimated cost of at least £3 billion. The scheme was a key commitment in the election manifesto of the Congress party and has quickly sprung to life.
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The IA09 conference kicked off today with a heading of ‘The Critical Next Steps: Enabling Government Business through Information Assurance’. Sir Gus O’Donnell was first in line with a morning key note speech which reiterated the critical necessity of providing information assurance in government as set out by the National Information Assurance Strategy from last year. Sir Gus also hailed the joint industry-government Information Security & Assurance Board as a necessary channel for improving IA in public sector (on both sides).

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Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change announced last Friday the UK’s ‘Road to Copenhagen.’ With a strategy that is ambitious, effective, and fair the Government believes that we can make great headway coming into the Climate Change Sumit and achieve a robust (i.e. staying below a 2°C rise in global temp) climate agreement that all (relevant) countries agree to. Well, no counter arguing from me on that point.
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