Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can be a force for good or ill. It can liberate, excite, ensnare, imprison; let you spend less, help you spend much more. It can transform an organisation’s efficiency or it can drain its resources in the most wasteful ways imaginable. The use of data can put the citizen in control in the relationship with the state, or it can expose the citizen to abuse by the state. In short, ICT can become the master, or it can be a useful tool.
In Britain the government’s record is poor. The UK government spends more per capita than any other government – and at least 20% more per capita than the Scandinavian countries that get the best ratings for the quality of their e-government. Reducing spend to the levels of those countries that achieve the best outcomes would yield savings of approximately £3 billion a year.
Although spending vast sums, the government’s respect for the security of the citizen’s data has been lamentable. The loss of the HMRC Child Benefit database, with 25 million people’s personal and bank details, is only the most egregious example.
There is today both the urgent need and the opportunity to do things very differently. The fiscal crisis, with the government spending £4 for every £3 it raises in revenue, makes it imperative for the taxpayer’s money to buy more. In the post-bureaucratic age the citizen will expect to have more choice and control in the provision of public services, and to own and manage his personal data to a much greater extent. And the next generation of web technology will enable major advances to be made without the same need for massive ICT projects, with the attendant costs, risks and dependency on a handful of suppliers. Cloud computing, together with open access to government data, could unleash a torrent of social action and innovation.
The Conservative Party is committed to throwing open the policy making process and allowing people to contribute their ideas on how policy should be designed. In the post-bureaucratic age, we believe that crowdsourcing and collaborative design can help us to make better policies – and we think this approach should begin now. This month we published the leaked government IT paper online on our ‘Make IT Better’ website to encourage comments and suggestions and now we are taking it further. Today we are laying out a draft version of our proposed approach to government ICT, which has been informed by the hundreds of responses we have received on the ‘Make IT Better’ site, for open collaboration.
We will publish our new document online on our ‘Make IT Better’ website and we invite everyone to come forward with further responses, ideas and thoughts.
This document draws on the work previously undertaken by Mark Thompson, the Centre for Policy Studies and the Independent Review of NHS and Social Care IT , published this summer by the NHS IT Policy Review Group (commissioned by Stephen O’Brien) of the NHS National Programme for IT, a programme that has become a byword for “how not to do it”.
I would start with Microsoft Office. How much does the goverment and local councils spend on MS Office ?
I would have goverment departments explain why it is necessary to use MS office and not Open Office. There will always be a small minority that need to use some specific functionality in MS office but the vast majority of people would be quite happy with Open Office. A small hardcore of MS office users would have to justify exactly why it’s necessary to use tax payers money when there are now free alternatives.
http://www.openoffice.org (Try OpenOffice yourself)
I would stop Microsoft’s practise of allowing employee’s of the NHS receiving MS Office for home use for <£20 this stops the adoption of free alternatives at home. If Microsoft are going to offer Office for £17 to NHS staff then they should offer it for home use to all users for <£20. (Is income tax paid on that benefit by NHS staff, or is that considered a perk because you work for the goverment ?)
And of course I would consider setting up a department staffed by linux/windows IT staff that provides support for goverement staff.
The goverment would adopt a single brand of linux OS based on Redhat/Opensuse or Kubuntu Linux in order to replace MS Windows.
My mum uses Linux/Openoffice and Firefox (all free) and if she can do it so can goverment staff. No excuses. It's simply a case of learning a few new ways of doing something and then you will see the cost benefits.
That's for starters…