Mike SimonsCabinet Office minister Ian McCartney told 300 public sector IT
leaders last week, "We'll never, ever tolerate failure," as the
Government laid out the technical standards for the delivery of
e-government.
Launching the E-Government Interoperability Framework (e-Gif),
McCartney said common standards were the key to transforming public
services to meet the needs of the users.
The framework mandates all public sector organisations,
including local authorities and the health service to use Internet
standards, including XML (Extensible Mark-up Language), XSL
(Extensible Stylesheet Language) and Web-browser technologies, to
allow different systems to exchange data.
McCartney's introduction drew both praise and words of caution
from European IT industry leaders who were in London to support the
launch.
Neil Holloway, European vice-president of Microsoft, praised the
Government for a world leading approach, but said those responsible
for e-government should expect failure in the future.
IBM's Piero Corsini repeated the warning. "We may make some
mistakes," he said. "It is not an easy task."
Anwar Choudhury, deputy director in the e-envoy's office, who
has overall responsibility for the policy, told the launch meeting
that there would be no exceptions to e-Gif. It is, he said, "the
answer to everything and everybody".
Anticipating reluctance by some public sector IT organisations,
Choudhury said the e-envoy and the Treasury had £1bn to spend on
IT-based projects which comply with e-government and e-Gif
policies.
In addition, he said new government project review procedures
would look for compliance and so would the National Audit Office,
the public accounts watchdog.
Ann Steward, director of e-government at the e-envoy's office,
warned that e-Gif was not a fixed technical standard but an
evolving approach that would keep pace with industry
developments.
A new version of the policy will be published next spring, but
officials insisted the framework would always be based on open
standards.
Suppliers' representatives all emphasised their companies'
commitment to open standards, but some of those who advised on the
e-Gif strategy admitted to Computer Weekly that it would be a
constant battle to stop a drift to proprietary solutions.
Tim Dawes from Socitm, the local authority IT managers'
organisation, spoke for many in the audience when he warmly
welcomed the framework, but cautioned that many detailed questions
remain unanswered.
Choudhury said some of those questions would be handled through
the UKGovTalk Web site, which will provide agreed XML schemes for
the whole public sector, tool kits for conversion to XML, best
practice guidance and online support.
"UKGovTalk is there to help you. It is not just the Cabinet
Office passing down policy," said Choudhury.
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