Intellect responds to calls for more efficient government IT

22 April 2009

Intellect, the trade association for the high-tech industry, supports the government’s aim to ensure that its ICT costs are managed effectively and provide value.  Now more than ever, taxpayers need to be confident that government spending delivers value. The industry is working closely with government to identify ways to strip out costs, to reduce the time and complexity of procurement and to increase the success of ICT-enabled change programmes. 

However, a narrow focus on cuts in ICT spend would risk missing the main issue and a substantial opportunity. Like the private sector, ministers should be using technology to cut their operational costs and improve their services.  The government should be using technology to enable fundamental and strategic business change in public services, to reduce bureaucracy and to improve the support available to front-line staff.  So, money saved through ICT efficiency should be re-cycled to deliver greater efficiency and effectiveness in government operations as whole - for instance by putting more public services online. 

Considerable savings should be possible over time as the government renews or reviews existing contracts and simplifies the way it buys ICT.  Departments need to collaborate much more to ensure there is standardisation and that solutions can be re-used. But this will require active and continuing support by ministers and senior civil servants to push for simplicity, to avoid the over-engineering of procurements and specifications, and to break down departmental and organisational barriers.  Senior Responsible Owners in charge of projects need to be better selected and better skilled, and Chief Information Officers need to be empowered to choose proven standard solutions to common needs.   

The ICT industry, through its trade body Intellect and the joint industry-government Strategic Supply Board, has already provided government with significant input on how the costs of desktops, data centres and networks can be reduced; this is beginning to be implemented and will be further developed.  More transparency and cross government comparisons will help to speed the process of implementation.

John Higgins, Director General of Intellect has said: “The technology industry exists to enable its customers do a better job, be more efficient and save them money – this goes for the public sector too. But, simply cutting the ICT budgets would not be the answer. ICT is the vital ingredient in better public services that cost the taxpayer less.”

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