• Scale creates complexity which multiplies risk which leads to failure and waste.
• Scale leads to very long timeframes for the design, procurement and build of ICT solutions, which then frequently become technologically obsolete even before they are delivered.
• Scale multiplies the development cost, which then leads to long contract periods over which the development cost can be amortised, which in turn locks the government into rigid arrangements unsuitable for changing circumstances.
• The huge size of projects and the extended timeframes has inevitably led to overdependence on the few very large vendors who have the experience and scale themselves to manage such large projects.  According to Kable research, in 2007 nine suppliers accounted for 60% of public sector spending on ICT.  These large vendors have a commercial sophistication and strong financial incentives that creates an asymmetric relationship with the often quite junior civil servants who manage them.

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The Conservative Party has long been committed to opening up government data. Under a Conservative government, data would move from being secret by default to public by default; datasets will be published proactively and regularly, in a standardised format so that they can be ‘mashed up’ and interacted with. Future projects and programmes will need to anticipate a requirement that all or part of their datasets or databases may need to be available for public scrutiny.

A Conservative government will:

-   publish online, in a standardised and open format, every item of spending over £25,000, enabling the public to see for the first time exactly how and where the government is spending their money.

-   require local councils to publish online details of all expenditure over £1,000.

require all police forces to publish their local crime statistics online every month, in a standardised and open format.

-   require all government contracts currently for tender with a value of over £10,000 to be published online via the existing Supply2Gov website. This will apply to central government departments, quangos and local government.

-   publish online full information about all of DFID’s projects and programmes – including the results of impact evaluations. This information will be published in a standardised format so that it can be freely used on third-party websites.

However, we want to go further. We will introduce a new ‘right to government data’, so that members of the public can request – and receive – government datasets containing anonymised but socially or commercially useful information. This approach has been implemented by President Obama.

Some of these datasets may already be published – but in the incorrect format or on a non-regular basis. In these cases, we will simply be mandating the format, rather than publication per se.

Examples of the datasets that could be set free are:

• Planning permission documents

• Availability of council owned housing

• Transport timetables

• Police force performance data

• Road traffic data.

• Patterns of carbon emissions

However, there is currently no comprehensive list of government datasets. Consistent with our commitment to opening up the policy making process, we want to harness the wisdom of the crowd and find out which datasets should be published. Please use the comments section of this site to suggest the datasets you would like to be released, and we will use your suggestions to help us set government data free.

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There is no clarity today over where responsibility lies for data security.  There are responsibilities within the government CIO’s Office and within GCHQ, as well as in a number of separate departments.  There will be different requirements in different departments but there must be some minimum standards and procedures that apply across the whole of government.

There will always be a trade-off between the citizen’s interest in the privacy of personal data and the citizen’s interest in the convenience that can flow from government-held datasets being “joined up”.   The difficulty of letting all the different agencies of the state know that a relative has died is often quoted in support of the need for connecting these datasets.

Yet there may be more unsettling reasons for the state to create concentrations of personal data.  In 2006, Sir David Varney, the Prime Minister’s Adviser on Public Service Transformation,  said that government needs “a deep truth about the citizen (or business) based on their behaviour, experiences, beliefs, needs or desires, that is relevant to the task or issue and rings bells with target people.”  Sir David’s interest was a wholly benign one, based on the idea that a government possessed of this “deep truth” can fashion public services more precisely around the individual’s needs.  But there can be more sinister uses for such “deep truths”.  Information really is power, and when the state has too much information about its citizens, there is too much scope for that power to be abused.

To start to address this issue, we have already announced that we will nominate a senior civil servant with responsibility for data security. In addition, the approach the Australian government has taken with respect to data-sharing across departments warrants further examination.  When departments want to data-match records, they are obliged to request permission from the Privacy Commissioner who permits them temporarily to combine data (using overnight batching and fuzzy matching) to achieve a particular outcome.  Once that outcome has been achieved, the combined data-set is eliminated. One example is combining information from various sources to validate a means-tested benefit claim.

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1.    Is it proportionate?
2.    Is the information held operationally necessary?
3.    Is there a time limit on the information held?
4.    Can the data be better controlled by the individual citizen rather than held centrally?
5.    Are there clear governance procedures on how the information can be used and shared?
6.    Is the private information held secure and properly managed?

Those that do not pass will be terminated or reformed.  We are already committed to scrapping ContactPoint and the ID Cards Programme.

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With a budget of £12.7 billion, the NHS’s National Programme for IT is the largest civilian IT initiative in the world. After concerns from both the Public Accounts Committee and local NHS Trusts over whether the Programme offers value for money, the debate on the NPfIT came to a head in the Chancellor’s Pre-budget Report when Alistair Darling claimed that the Programme was ‘not essential to the frontline’ and demanded spending cuts of £500 million. Health Ministers, however, insisted that the Programme was already improving patient safety and NHS efficiency, despite agreeing to the Chancellor’s cuts.

In the light of the disarray surrounding the Programme’s purpose and budget, the Conservatives want to assess the value for money of the NPfIT and redefine its scope so that the focus of any ICT deployment is on improving patient care and increasing the productivity of our NHS from the bottom up, not the top-down.

We have made it clear in our response to the independent Review of NHS IT that where appropriate we will localise Labour’s central IT infrastructure so that NHS Trusts and GP commissioners can have a choice of interoperable IT systems which they can tailor to the needs of their local patients.

Local choice will foster innovation and competition at the grass roots and reduce costs. We will bring about choice within a framework of open standards to ensure that each healthcare community can communicate with the rest of the NHS.

Patients are also demanding more choice. Shadow Health Minister Stephen O’Brien has undertaken a consultation which establishes that patients demand access to their medical records and wish to be able to contribute information to them.

Patients need to be able to view and contribute to data that is directly relevant to their healthcare while doctors require reliable data in order to deliver better health outcomes for their patients. IT can deliver a framework which can facilitate this trustful patient-doctor relationship and provide timely information to both parties.

We are committed to using IT to create access to records for patients and the ability to contribute to these records. We want to use IT as a tool to support both the care patients receive from their doctors and the radical improvement of patient’s health and social care outcomes.

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The Thompson report estimated annual savings of £600 million through greater adoption of Open Source solutions. This does not mean that government will not continue to use pre-written proprietary software when it is the best option. It does however, mean two important changes.

First, when a government department, agency or quango asks a vendor to write new code for a bespoke solution it will expect to require that this code is made available under an open source license. This is to decrease the cost of reusing this code across the public sector, to increase the public scrutiny of government ICT systems to prevent gold-plating, and to promote innovation in the wider economy.

Second, when a system is procured that involves supplying pre-existing software code, open source options will always be considered, where they exist. Where open source options are considered inferior to proprietary offerings, the government will assess whether paying a third party to upgrade an open source solution to suit its needs would be cheaper than purchasing a proprietary solution. Through this method it will sometimes be possible to both save taxpayers money, and create technology of use to the wider economy, whilst still being fair on vendors of proprietary software.

Open source is a close cousin of open standards – the creation of standard ways for computers to talk to each other.

Savings from an Open approach to government IT would not just come from reduced licensing costs – the majority of savings would result from using open standards that would free government bodies from long-term vendor lock-in.

We will establish a technical group in the next few weeks to identify the most important open standards for the government to set. These will both generate savings as more companies are able to offer to supply services, and promote innovation.

Open standards and the inter-operability that follows from their use will allow front-line service providers much greater flexibility to pursue their own solutions, subject only to conformity to these standards.  Most of the benefits sought – unsuccessfully – from the massively expensive NHS IT programme could have been delivered at a fraction of the cost, in a quarter of the time, if front line providers had been free to make their own choice of supplier and system, so long as the systems could all connect with each other.

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Second, we will strengthen the capability and accountability of Whitehall departments for procurement and management.  We will appoint senior private sector non-executives to departmental boards, and in any department where ICT plays a significant role in delivering services, we will recommend that at least one non-executive board member has strong ICT/operational expertise.  At present departmental CIOs are not always accorded the authority and support that enables them to question and challenge requirements.  Just as we have undertaken for Finance Directors (It’s Your Money), we will build the CIO role to give them greater responsibility for the effective management and delivery of projects.  In addition both Ministers and Permanent Secretaries should expect to be held to account for the success of projects within their departments.  Big expensive capital projects have to be the responsibility of the most senior leaders in a department.

Third, we will reform the design and procurement process.  The design process should first explore simple, low-cost solutions – this would be the main function of the CIO’s skunkworks.  It should also examine existing solutions before contemplating bespoke commissioning – the ICT Asset Register will help with this.  The design and procurement process should allow for more vendor input and creativity through outcome-driven specifications, and be encouraging toward Open Source solutions.

Procurement can be much faster and cheaper than at present, without sacrificing quality and competitiveness.  Too often consultants are hired on day rates to manage complex procurements.  This adds cost and time.  The government has to be an intelligent and capable customer able to manage such procurements in-house.  When the ASPIRE contract was renegotiated in 2004, the costs of the procurement (to the government) was £27.5 million.  UK government procurements on average take 77 weeks.  This is roughly double the average time taken in Germany.  The EU Public Procurement rules imply a minimum of eighteen weeks.  Suppliers complain that it costs them twice as much to bid for a government contract as for a similar contract in the private sector.  This creates a barrier to entry for smaller suppliers, and of course the additional cost is ultimately passed on to the taxpayer.

Fourth, we will upgrade the role of Senior Responsible Officers (SROs). We will create a presumption that they should stay in place for the duration of their projects. Currently there may be three or even four SROs in the lifespan of a project. Accountability is diluted and large cost overruns and delays are the common consequence. We want to make sure that if large cost overruns or delays occur then there is clear accountability and conversely if projects are delivered on time and to budget then rewards are duly given. In order that this does not hold back careers, this may involve an official being promoted in post when running a large project.

Fifth, we will manage contracts to minimise costly changes. Contract terms must be structured to accommodate the inevitability of some change (political, organisational or technological) without costing the taxpayer.  It is well known in the industry that much of a supplier’s margin is made from client changes to the original specification. 

Sixth, we will encourage innovation and qualitative judgements. Today’s grossly inflated costs of design and development are driven by a desire to have a process immune from criticism.  Tenders which are specified to an excessive level of detail enable a supplier to be chosen on the sole basis of price.  The audit culture promotes the feeling that no one can be criticised for choosing the cheapest.  Yet the best procurements are not just based on price but on overall value.  This requires judgements that are qualitative, not just price-based.  We believe that the involvement of senior non-executives from the commercial world will give greater confidence that such judgements are justifiable and can be defended.

We will encourage SROs to publish their plans online via low cost platforms like blogs, and we will encourage them to solicit feedback from the IT literate public and to explain why design decisions are made as they are.

Seventh, we will expect to publish all ICT contracts, and will benchmark pricing against domestic private sector and foreign public sector contracts.  Much greater transparency of contracts will enable comparisons to be made much more readily.  We are sceptical that the requirements of commercial confidentiality genuinely justify the secrecy that surrounds these contracts.  It is extraordinarily difficult at present to establish their content.

Eighth, we will invigorate the Gateway reviews, and insist that failing or redundant projects are abandoned. Too often the public sector feels captive to sunk costs.  The fact that large amounts of public money have already been wasted on an unsuccessful project is not a reason for wasting yet more.  It is estimated that in the private sector only 30% of projects actually survive to completion.

There are several expensive ICT systems in various parts of Whitehall which had become redundant well before their completion, and which still sit unused.  They should have been given a decent burial well before completion.  But the abandonment of a project, however justified, tends to be seen as an admission of failure.  Much better to save the money and scrap the project.

In addition, we will publish centrally online the Gateway Reviews when they are produced, and allow the public to scrutinise the value and progress of a project.

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Over the past decade the government has spent well in excess of £100 billion on ICT.  The result is a large number of legacy systems many of which will generate future costs to run and maintain them.  Nevertheless, over the period of 2010 to 2012, estimates indicate that between £70 and £100 billion of ICT contracts (both outsourcing and projects) will be renewed or instigated during a two year period.  There is therefore a once in a generation opportunity to control spending both on new systems and on legacy systems that are coming up for renewal.

In the near term, there will need to be a period of enhanced central control.  The centre of any dispersed and decentralised organisation, especially at a time of financial crisis, must be able to control the biggest projects that carry financial, operational and reputational risk. The office of the Government CIO currently has no effective mandate to exert that control.  We will rectify that.  We believe that many billions of pounds can be saved by a vigorous approach to the ICT legacy and pipeline.  An early step will be the quick building of a register of all ICT-related assets across the government (including Intellectual Property Rights so the government does not pay for material it already owns).  In addition we will explore whether the CIO should have a small development team – skunkworks – to explore cheap and cheerful solutions to the government’s requirements. The strengthened CIO Office will also be charged with driving improvements in skills across government, the open data agenda, and the role of digitally enabled transparency that we set out later in this paper.

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Does a policy or a business process need an ICT solution at all?  Should the government be readier to say “no”?

If yes, is there an off the shelf product that will deliver most of what’s needed?  Or a solution already developed for another part of government that can be adapted?  Can the policy or process be adapted to slash the cost of the ICT solution?

Where a new bespoke solution is needed, we will apply a presumption against a total project size of more than £100m, reducing risks to a more manageable scale, and opening up more opportunities for smaller and UK-based suppliers.

Is there an Open Source solution, saving development and licensing costs, and reducing dependence on long-term oligopoly suppliers?

Where any bespoke computer code is written for the government, unless it genuinely pertains to national security, why can’t it be released under open source licences?

Why can’t the front line be allowed to do their own thing, subject to common standards, especially on interoperability?

Why can’t we put citizens in control of their own personal data?

Is there a powerful reason why outside organisations and the public should not have open access to government data?

Why shouldn’t all government ICT contracts, outside the national security arena, be made totally transparent?

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