Here’s a short video of a city-wide Strategic IT Framework at work in 2005. It’s since been killed off because of a complete lack of strategic governance over IT. Short-termism is currently massively increasing Derby’s IT costs whilst reverting to an organisation-centric architecture. There is an important lesson here, that unless the long-term strategy is protected by a governance and scrutiny structure, there is little chance of protecting it against the deflective ploys of senior managers and suppliers focused on a short-term ‘quick win’. Cost to date of Derby’s lack of governance is approx £20m and rising.
I’ve been advocating regional CIOs for the public sector since 2004. I’ve had ministerial contact and input in both China and Finland, both of whom now operate such a model. I presented this same architecture as the Regional Services Centre model in Westminster and elsewhere from 2005 onwards and was immediately isolated as a threat to both empires and revenue streams. When we tried it in the East Midlands in 2006-7, one large county council sent representatives in empire protection mode to deliberately try to torpedo the regional initiative. A senior colleague admitted to having been instructed by his director to “kill it dead”.
SITFO blog March 2007: http://sitfo.wordpress.com/2008/03/10/tactical-vs-strategic/
David Gale – June 2011
CEO
SITFO.org
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