The new government ICT strategy points in the right direction, Last week the Cabinet Office published the new government ICT strategy (see news, p3). It contrasts markedly with the strategy published last year, in two important ways.

The new strategy has a much sharper focus and stronger governance. Rather than looking to a ten-year horizon, it identifies a series of required actions to be completed within two years; some inside six months. Last year’s document underlined the collegiate nature of the governance process, highlighting the fact that it would not be delivered by bodies such as the Chief Information Officers’ (CIO) Council or central departments such as the Cabinet Office or HM Treasury. The new strategy strikes a different note. It sets out an approach under which lead departments bear direct responsibility for implementation, and a stronger governance structure that includes a new ministerial committee to oversee progress. The new CIO Delivery Board will take ownership of delivery, which will require cooperative behaviour from all departments.

This brings to the fore the importance of leadership and the integration between policy and ICT delivery. Too often, ICT has been regarded by senior leaders in government as a necessary cost rather than a strategic enabler. It can and should play a much stronger role in driving down costs and improving service outcomes. But too often, there has been a failure to realise that you can’t just leave ICT decisions – which have a direct bearing on services to the public and on the department’s business – to the CIO.

ICT should not be seen as a service provided to the organisation or a bolt-on to existing policy decisions, but firmly integrated into the way government operates. The private sector – and, in fairness, some parts of government – recognise this.

The strategy recognises how important this integration is, and advocates a far more fleet-footed approach to delivering ICT. In its analysis of ICT’s longstanding problems, it points out that procurement timescales are too long, and that projects tend to be too big. These failures lead to unnecessary risk and complexity.
The challenges involved in drawing up a set of requirements and then locking down change in a futile attempt to mitigate risk are illustrated by the development of the HMRC PAYE system.

As Dame Lesley Strathie, HMRC’s permanent secretary, pointed out in a recent meeting with the Public Accounts Committee: “The vast majority of the system works. It does what it was asked to do... but also, you specify you want something in 2003, you have nearly 400 changes… and delivery in 2009. So, sometimes you get what you ask for, but it is not necessarily exactly as you need it [by the time it arrives]. There are very few programmes... that cover a length of period and a scale like this where you get exactly what you set out to get”.

This illustrates several of the problems government and its suppliers have failed to overcome: overlong procurement timescales; insufficient flexibility; a lack of understanding among policy-makers about what ICT can and can’t achieve.

The new strategy has a presumption against large projects and promises to ensure that each department runs a project using ‘agile’ principles in order to embed this approach.
Formally, agile refers to a specific way of developing software – but the principles can be applied to all ICT projects. Rather than trying to specify up front exactly how a major ICT system will function, projects develop in a modular, iterative process, involving users and responding to their feedback. A core functionality is established early on, but flexibility is retained as the project moves forward.

Agile allows projects to react more effectively to changing needs, and ensures that solutions meet business requirements. In last year’s 18,000-plus word strategy, the term agile appeared once; in this year’s far shorter strategy document, it appears 12 times.
All of this is welcome news and fits well with our recent report on government ICT, System

Error, in which we recommend using agile principles and developing a shared, government-wide approach to simplifying elements of ICT. However, System Error also pointed out some of the changes necessary to achieve this. The project approval processes and legal arrangements governing contracts need to become far more responsive and receptive to agile delivery. Just as important is the culture of empowerment that needs to surround government ICT to embed this approach. New skills will be required which are ‘in-house’ rather than bought in through contractors.

Fortunately, the evidence from our research is clear-cut. Organisations that pursue agile development at scale are unequivocal on the positive effect it has had on their business as a whole. By acknowledging that it doesn’t make sense to draw up a ten-year strategy when priorities, circumstances and technology move on every few months, the government has sent a clear message about the future of government ICT. It needs to keep up with changing priorities and technology and in the process, become far more agile.

Sir Ian Magee is a senior fellow at the Institute for Government and chairman of the Improving Government IT Taskforce.

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Written by Civil Service World