ntouk.com - Jerry Fishenden's technology policy blog

I've been spending a lot of time lately talking to politicians, senior Whitehall officials, representatives of overseas governments, think tanks, retired senior civil servants (who prove remarkably candid), academics, technologists and many others about how we can improve public sector IT.

Looking back over some 12 years of government IT reports, strategies and plans, we don't seem to have made much progress. Although in the meantime somewhere in excess of 100-120bn GBP seems to have been spent (possibly far more). A figure that does not seem to be adequately reflected in the way that our public services are currently designed and operated.

So today the Centre for Technology Policy Research(which, transparency declaration, I have recently helped co-found), and Ideal Government are launching an IT strategy competition to see what smart minds can do when put together to help come up with a better approach. We have 1,000 GBP in the kitty to underpin the competition and help organise a party and suitable prizes at the end.

The collaborative wiki and details of the competition can be found online here. We have a commitment from the 3 main political parties - Labour, the Lib Dems and the Conservative Party - to engage with the outcome.

Any effective government IT strategy will need to be rooted in the need to modernise and improve our UK public services. It should not exist as an autonomous work. Neither should it be focused on inward-looking short-term technical fads and fashions. Such lower level pragmatics are the remit of an operational plan. An over-arching strategy should instead set out clear principles and objectives, ones that remain relatively stable over time, and which unify public service objectives with the best of what technology can offer.

If this is going to produce something worthwhile, it needs to be a collaborative work that brings together the best thinking from citizens, policymakers, public sector workers and technologists alike. So inbetween the Christmas turkey, mince pies and repeats of the Great Escape, please come along and join in.

Technorati tags: UK future Britain policymaking politics government IT technology policy policy