Concern about pay and the impact of the skills shortage on
e-government are two of the main themes emerging from this year's
Computer Weekly public sector IT survey. James Rogers looks at the
issues
While politicians seem to find it increasingly easy to give
promises on how the Government can create the long-predicted
electronic society, IT managers at the coalface of the e-government
agenda are feeling the pressure to deliver.
Salary levels have always been a sore point in the public sector,
and this year's poll of 100 senior public sector IT staff, produced
by Computer Weekly in association with Keltec and Sun Microsystems,
confirms that they are still the poor relations of their private
sector counterparts.
A huge 88% of those surveyed felt that they were underpaid compared
to IT staff in the private sector.
The public sector has traditionally struggled to compete with the
salaries offered in areas such as the City, and other research
appears to confirm that this is still very much the case.
Computer Weekly's most recent survey of appointments data and
trends, for example, suggested that the median salary for a senior
systems administrator in the public sector is £29,600, compared to
£50,000 in financial organisations.
Given disparities like this it is, perhaps, not surprising that the
issue of pay appears to be having a knock-on effect on the public
sector's ability to retain IT staff.
Fewer than half (44%) of the respondents to the survey said that
they would rather work in the public sector than the private
sector, given the opportunity.
The poll also highlighted some real concerns about the implications
of the IT industry's long-running skills shortfall. Nearly half of
those surveyed agreed that the skills shortage had slowed down
their progress towards the e-government targets. Moreover, about
46% of respondents felt that it had affected their ability to
deliver public services.
This makes for depressing reading as the public sector enters a
critical stage in its attempt to meet the Government's 2005
deadline to offer all public services online.
There even appears to be significant scepticism about whether this
target will be reached. Overall, a massive 65% of respondents
disagreed with the statement that "the Government target to get all
public services online by 2005 is realistic". One reason for this
appears to be the perennial issue of money.
When responding to suggestions on how to improve IT service
delivery by government, a quarter of those surveyed called for
increased funding. The second most popular suggestion was the issue
of pay and conditions, which is in keeping with overall concerns
about salary levels.
Experts, however, have warned that the research does have broader
implications for the public sector and underlines the importance of
partnership working. With the public sector struggling to pay top
dollar, partnerships with the private sector present a way to
overcome the skills shortfall and provide access to a wider range
of expertise and resources.
Jim Haslem, president of the public sector IT directors' group
Socitm and head of IS at the London Borough of Bromley, said, "This
underlines the importance of partnership-related developments
across local government."
These sentiments are echoed by IT supplier Logica, which already
works in partnership with a number of public sector bodies.
David Lowson, director of Logica's local government unit, said, "It
is difficult to maintain complete coverage of skills in both the
private and the public sectors. We can meet the skills shortage and
gaps very quickly and also provide long-term partnerships."
Haslem also believes that the survey highlights the significance of
the projects proposed under a new draft national e-government
strategy, which aims to help local government meet the 2005
deadline.
Launched by local government minister Nick Raynsford in April,
E-gov@local: Towards a National Strategy for Local E-government
presents the building blocks for e-government and outlines the
actions needed at national, regional and local levels.
The recently-reorganised Department for Transport, Local Government
and the Regions has invited responses on the consultation paper by
28 June. (Following last week's government reshuffle the majority
of non-transport issues will be handled by the office of the deputy
prime minister).
If the public sector bodies do, however, opt for the partnership
option to resolve the skills shortage then they will have to be
crystal clear about what they require from their IT suppliers.
Going down the partnership route is not a silver bullet for all the
salary and skills issues that an organisation is wrestling with,
according to experts.
Ian Keys, of public sector e-government consultancy Pinnacle,
acknowledges that some form of public private partnership could be
the answer but warns that organisations will have to be very
precise about what they need. "Clients will have to be clear about
what they want their private sector e-government partners to
deliver," he said.