A ‘long way to go’ for UK government IT

Added by The Editor, 7 months ago.

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Prime Minister Gordon Brown has publicly acknowledged that the UK government "has a long way to go" on its IT strategy.

In an appearance last week before Parliament's Liaison Committee to discuss a variety of government issues, Brown talked about IT in response to questions from Andrew Miller, chairman of parliamentary IT body Pitcom, saying that lessons were still being learned on the best use of technology.

"Public and private sector organisations are coming to terms with security issues relating to the use of IT and the proper organisation of data," said Mr Brown. And while the government fully realises the benefits of IT, he added, it needs to do more to harness that power effectively.

"We're only now aware of the explosive power of information properly co-ordinated to make a difference, but we have got to get better systems in place," said Brown.

But the UK is not alone in making mistakes relating to its deployment of IT, in the PM's opinion. "Every country in the world is recognising that there is so much more to be done to make efficient use of computerisation. I don't think we're alone in learning lessons from present experience about how things can be done in the future."

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Chris Gabriel, 7 months ago

Paul, agree entirely, I do however feel absolute sympathy with many of the IT professionals within Public Sector who actually deliver some cracking solutions to their users. However, they have been asked to provide continual change over decades now, and it isn't hard to imagine the pain they feel. Imagine the private sector having to implement major new policies (and therefore new systems) every 12-18 months. The PS IT professional gets very little time to think about innovation because they have to run so hard to simply keep the lights on. I can't see that changing, but, I think PS CIO's are now looking to build more flexible platforms that can cope with this change. The big uber project is always going to fail, but we musn't forget the great work going on in Local Councils, Primary Care Trusts and Universities who do deliver great solutions without the publicity they deserve.

Paul Sanders, 7 months ago

I'm sure Mr Brown's words are true, but how many mistakes does the public sector need to make before it starts learning from its lessons? ... this has been going on since the Millennium bug ! It's also irrelevant how other countries are doing, and is an apathetic response from Mr Brown. Isn't this the same government that wants the UK to be one of the world's leaders in technology and the use of IT? Saying that it's ok because everyone else makes lots of mistakes, is not the right approach.