Dear Minister
The Conservative Party put up their Shadow Minister for Innovation and Science in 2009 with a message that the party shared the strategic vision held by key IT architects working in public sector IT, a vision for so long ignored by the last administration. We were told that the strategic vision would also herald an end to the cosy contracts that had led previously to a complete absence of governance over IT strategy. We were encouraged.
Within days of the election the window-dressing had been moved to one side and within weeks the same people were reappointed to key positions within the civil service. It was ‘business as usual’. To date, I see no evidence at all of strategic governance over IT and so, what we will end up with is smaller, perhaps more cost-effective contracts that still perpetuate the expensive, rats’ nest of ‘point solutions’.
For example: there is no excuse for perpetuating the suppliers’ gravy-train of allowing them to impose licensing costs for accessing OUR data. All public sector applications must have licence-free web services interfaces and licensing should only apply when the core functionality of the application is being used. We need to stop suppliers dictating the terms by taking a clear lead on the architectural requirements of doing business in the public sector.
We need clear strategy around how we join-up public services, with citizens at the centre of the delivery model. We don’t need more policy masquerading as strategy. Once this is in place, we need governance to protect the strategy from the deflective ploys of civil servants with performance-managed career targets and unscrupulous suppliers with short-term sales targets.
If your mission is to bring sustainable efficiencies to public sector IT, I respectfully submit that you are missing a trick.
David Gale – November 2010
CEO
SITFO.org
God bless sir, if we have more similar opinion and voices, we can make this country a better one. Keep the good work and all the best