ntouk.com - Jerry Fishenden's technology policy blog

An early start for a breakfast in central London with a mix of some of the biggest UK IT players and some of the smallest. A large round table, coffee, tea and a mix of bacon butties, pastries and fruit.

The topic: how do we fix government IT?

As it was held under the Chatham House Rule, I can't reveal who precisely said what ... but here are some of the more interesting soundbites ...

"Public sector IT has failed. The current model is a mess, with no clear leadership or ownership of the overall IT strategy"

"It's not industry's fault what is happening. Every time we try to show leadership or inject innovation into thinking, the government IT side push us away."

"The current CIOs just don't listen. They're remote from the reality of the changes that need to be made."

"We should stop talking about IT projects. There should be no such thing. The trouble is the CIOs aren't involved in public services, so IT is all they think about. Until this is fixed, IT is never going to work properly in the public sector."

"Bringing in CIOs from the private sector has failed. They have no understanding of the public sector ethos. They're not CIOs. They're IT managers."

"Cranfield needs to play a leading role in fixing IT skills in the public sector and bringing leadership and management in-house."

"The shared services agenda is ridiculous. Everyone wants to share their services with everyone else, but no-one wants to use a service someone else has built. It's a solution looking for a problem."

"Government demands completely bespoke solutions at high cost and high risk just to fix 1% of an obscure problem, rather than accepting something off the shelf which is an 80% fit and costs a fraction of the price."

"There needs to be accountability for in-house government IT consultants. They propose ideas that look good on paper, but which fail massively when implemented. Yet they are never held to account."

"There need to be incentives to persuade government departments to join-up."

"The biggest blocker to small players getting involved in government IT is the liability insurance. It's designed to keep the market in the hands of only the biggest players. And even some of them won't sign up to government's absurd and pointless terms."

"Government can never truly outsource risk anyway, so why does it both with such onerous contractual terms?"

"We need proper benchmarking of costs and benefits. We need to be able to show who is doing a good job, who a crap job. And we should fire CIOs and suppliers who are in the latter camp."

"Accounting officers need to be accountable for IT too, otherwise it'll never be taken seriously enough in Whitehall."

"We spend three times as much bidding for a public sector contract as we do a private sector one. It's a huge waste of everyone's time and money."

"Government procurement rules aim to minimise risk rather than maximise gain."

"Government management Boards are focused on policy not delivery."

"Permanent Secretaries don't want CIOs on their Boards. That would implicate them in the 70% failure rate of government IT."

"It's time government focused on outcomes, not inputs and processes."

"The process needs to be simplified to let more small businesses get onto frameworks and hence able to supply the public sector."

"Every time we propose savings and improved services through the use of IT, we get blanked."

"Don't be afraid to mandate things."

"Don't miss the chance to drive massive savings whilst still not kicking-off new projects."

"Don't underestimate the complexity of getting real IT leadership back into departments."

"Don't break what isn't broken. SI's are up for reform, able to take risk and responsibility. We didn't choose the current system or appoint the CIOs we currently have to deal with. We're happy to see change."

"Be careful SIs don't make cuts just by sacking their smaller subcontractors. Ensure transparency of how many SMEs they employ on public sector contracts.

"There are no real CIOs in Whitehall. The current lot are IT Managers. Government needs to bring in a new set of IT leaders who sit on Boards and take real ownership of IT. Only then will you start to fix the problems."

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