The government has an "appalling" record on implementing IT systems, and has wasted an "obscene amount of public money" on projects delivered by a few large suppliers, according to a report published today by the Public Administration Select Committee.

The report calls for government to publish more information about IT contracts and its use of IT; widen its supplier base for IT products and services, and work in a more agile way when developing IT solutions.

You can read the full recommendations here and a summary of key conclusions can be found below.

Responding the report, a Cabinet Office spokesperson said: “We have already made significant improvements to the management of IT projects including introducing new ICT controls, increasing transparency, and creating robust governance arrangements. We hope these will go someway to address the problems of the past the committee has rightly highlighted.”

Sir Ian Magee, senior fellow at the Institute for Government and chair of the Improving Government IT Taskforce said the report contained positive recommendations but strong governance would be important in implementing reforms. “To make this work, the government’s IT strategy will need to be clear about what success will look like and who will be held responsible for delivery,” he said.

Andy Burton, chairman of the Cloud Industry Forum and a witness to the committee, said the report was too backward looking. “The committee has unfortunately failed to give due attention to how purchasing IT on a modern, flexible, pay-as-you-use basis is revolutionising how organisations access and consume IT. Instead, it has focused attention on the large incumbent suppliers, heaping blame on them for past public sector failure,” he said.

He continued that “current procurement and governance practices struggle to handle IT as a service rather than as a product; and this should have been highlighted as an urgent priority for the Cabinet Office to tackle.”

Key recommendations.
The report says government should:

• Work with the NAO to identify which data it needs to gather to monitor the progress of its reforms, and to improve benchmarking of IT expenditure across central government.
• Commission an independent, external investigation into allegations of anti-competitive behaviour and collusion from large Service Integrators.
• Ensure that departments specify outcomes, rather than specific solutions, when they approach the market look for an IT service or product.
• Outline how it plans to adapt existing programme models to enable agile development work, and bear in mind the in need to support agile development as it renegotiates the EU procurement directive and revises the associated guidance.
• Recruit more IT professionals with experience of the SME sector, and look at ways to equip departmental boards and senior officials with professional training and support in technology policy.
• Keep SROs in post to oversee the delivery of the benefits which the project was intended to deliver whenever possible, and continue to hold SROs accountable for decisions they took even if they move on from a programme.
• Make more use of ‘hack days’ in which outside developers work with departments existing data to develop new tools and services.

Click here for the full report

IT, Information technology, Agile, PASC

Last updated 302 days ago by Suzannah Brecknell