1. We will impose a moratorium on existing and upcoming procurements so that the principles set out below can be applied to them. We will strengthen the central CIO role for this purpose.
2. We will immediately establish a presumption that ICT projects should not exceed £100 million in total value.
3. We will drive better procurement and management of ICT throughout Whitehall, agencies and quangos.
4. We will set Open Standards and encourage Open Source Software
5. We will carry out a transformational redesign of NPfIT and give patients greater control of medical records
6. We will review big databases, and scrap ID Cards and Contact Point
7. We will set common standards for Data Security
8. We will open up access to government data
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First princple – Think customer (citizen) experience and DESIGN this experience. Put govermment service users at the centre of the IT strategy
100 million is still huge
create government web services (soa) and encourage innovation using these.
there seems to be some very good stuff in gov it – vehicle licencing is cool but poorly marketed and not well designed on ui
driving licence application is amazingly good
tax isn’t bad but access is not easy to remember
think mobile, iPod, touch etc
1) The moratorium on existing contracts could be a very costly mistake – how will it work to stop current suppliers being paid for doing nothing?
2) £100m still requires procurement through EU rules, which are a major barrier to SME engagement with government. In Holland there is an informal limit of 1m Euro – I appreciate the scale issue but why not £50m, or even £10m? Same reduction in risk but also greater potential for SMEs to participate. Fundamentally this will require more staff working in whitehall on procurement – but this is absolutely not a bad thing.
3) Open procurement is good but current procurement rules already allow for ‘design competitions’ to let the market come up with solutions – one way of using existing data is to be transparent pre-tender, and allow the market to come up with solutions (basic prototypes) that the Govt can then scale up.
General point on ‘big’ databases:
If IT is to achieve massive efficiency, we need to address the fact that there are hundreds of legacy systems running at present. Many of these systems are very complex and there is little domain expertise. However – if the decision is made to stick with fragmented, individual databases the cost savings to be made will be much smaller.
First Rate, I have just skimmed part of the document and will read and comment in more detail later.
You might like to talk to the people who are further ahead even those overseas. Some of the best known are the City of Munich (Stadt Meunchen), The Gendamerie Francaise and Extramadura in Spain and finaly the Swiss Federal Government. In Kanton Zeurich you can download the tax-form system for Apple, Linux and Windows.
This leads to a (9) and (10) for your list above, which would simplify the interactions of citizens and businesses with government:
9. All documents in/out must be in Open Standard format (excluding OOXML where ISO was corrupted).
If any program is disseminated it must run on A/L/W.
10. There shall be established a Single-Signon system for citizens and businesses across al government services.
Keep up the Good work, much more of which will stay in the UK.
10.
Our research shows…
• The delivery of ICT should be linked to every key manifesto (policy) commitment from the party leading into the 2010 General Election. A localism focus to be primary in all such decision making.
• The party leader should be fully briefed to lead competently on ICT issues and ICT related initiatives (including broadband for all focused initiatives)
• Current initiatives to be retained and expanded upon should include
- Cloud (G-Cloud based)
- PSN (Public Sector Network) – Infrastructure before e-enablement
- Applications Store
• Government departments / agencies / quangos (including local government / NHS / Criminal Justice and surviving regional bodies should be required to submit business plans for IT investments to an ICT Council to examine and advise on national PSN / Cloud / Shared Service opportunities locally and sub regionally.
• All government departments to prepare a Shared Service / Common Infrastructure Strategy for delivery in 2012
• A reconstituted CIO council needs to capture, disseminate and benchmark best practice across all public sector bodies
• The government should make far more use of the Local Government Association to drive through and lead and advise directly on Transformational Change and the use of ICT to assist in that change
• Transformational change should be grant assisted at local government level with RoI focused grants available to local government, local criminal justice and emergency services and the local NHS to design and invest in change programmes at a local level
• The Government should look to develop closer working relationships with representative bodies such as Intellect / Socitm / ASSIST / BCS – invite leading members of those organisations to form and manage advisory group / select committees with access to Cabinet and Junior Ministers as and when appropriate
• Support should be available to assist the UK ICT sector through and out of recession – investing in leading edge infrastructure to ensure the UK is best placed to make the most to the inevitable ‘recovery’
• The importance of the 2012 Olympics and the focus of the international community on the UK should be seen as a core driver and opportunity to place the UK in the ICT shop window to the world
• Central Government has a core role in the development and monitoring of open standards and secure interoperability – and in marketing these developments internationally as best practice for the world
• Leave local government collectively to ‘get on with it’ working within these open standards – allowing each to ‘compete’ one with the other
• Trust the people – the UK is still attempting to run a centralist style state – experience across the world shows that the maximum population where transformation is shown to be working is circa five to seven million
• A link should be established between the provision of ICT infrastructure that cuts across county / administrative boundaries and reflects instead communities of interest – driven by the locality for and on behalf of the locality.
• Technology is an enabler – it is neutral, it is a servant – big does not reflect efficiency nor a workable solution (e.g. NHS NPfIT) and needs instead to be small enough in scale to be nimble and responsive to rapidly changing ‘human’ needs.
• Technology allows / enables work to transfer from the centre to the locality with obvious green (carbon) and new ways of working potentials – plus the potential to open up areas for economic regeneration that otherwise might slip behind in this technology led second ‘industrial revolution’
Legislate to ensure that when government data or systems made available for consumption that the corporate/business world are mandated to use them.
For example.
I had to cancel my car insurance with the AA recently. I had scrapped my car in early January but had not gotten round to canceling insurance until late February. I therefore had to pay for car insurance January and February even though I no longer had a car and it had been destroyed and the information was available through DVLA systems .
I explained to the AA ‘customer service’ representative’s, I spoke to two in the end, that all they needed to do was look on the DVLA’s web site to find that my car had been destroyed. I explained to them that their claims division would have access to this information through the DVLA systems. The insurance canceling department claimed they did not have access to this information through the DVLA or any other systems and that I would have to send in proof via the post, snail mail, of the destruction of my vehicle.
This seemed to me to be increasing the AA’s revenue stream by ensuring the DVLA information was not available to its insurance canceling department. Putting obstacles in the way of my ability to reduce the amount I must pay by willfully increasing the AA’s internal business process.