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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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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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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Although it may feel longer with all this sunshine (bar the recent tropical-style action) and long summer nights, it’s been a little over three weeks since the launch of Digital Britain. In this time we’ve seen the appearance of the Digital Economy Bill on the legislative programme for next term and today, an announcement from BT detailing the initial stages of their FTTC roll out. For all those broadband wonks out there these developments represent a significant step towards what I have heard termed, and I kid you not, next generation nirvana. (more…)

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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Building Britain’s Future (BBF) is Gordon Brown’s redesinged house of UK public services. However, like all reconstruction plans the foundation must remain solid yet flexible in its ability to support the new design.

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Nobody wants to look back; everyone wants to look forward and present their take on solving the state of the UK Public Sector. There are a myriad of amiable solutions, all underpinned by technology, available in the UK Plc. But the problem is that the public sector and the market place do not always conjoin in the what, how, and who of solutions, nor the wider social responsibility aspects of a public sector solution.
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