On the steps of 10 Downing Street after he won the
general election Tony Blair said his final years as prime minister
would be shaped by what he had heard during the campaign, and he
would continue to listen.
As the government announced the programme for its third term
last week, the IT user community called for the burden of
legislation to be lifted, more investment in skills, greater
opportunities for SMEs, and more transparency in how government
awards contracts and runs public sector IT projects.
Stephen Way, e-commerce and IT manager at bullion company Johnson
Matthey, said the government did not consult broadly enough when
assessing the impact of new regulation.
"I would hope that the new government adopts a considered approach
to legislation requiring corporate compliance, taking advice from
industry bodies to avoid unnecessary development work and systems
changes, while still promoting best practice and corporate
governance.
"There has been a headlong rush into legislation that has required
considerable effort to reach compliance," he said.
Jack Goodhew, head of IT at the Port of Dover, made the same point.
"On a daily basis we can see the effects and costs of a largely
uncoordinated approach to legislation," he said.
"Try balancing the Data Protection Act with the Freedom of
Information Act, for example. Add to this other government
regulations regarding retention of data such as financial records,
commercial tenders, health and safety, building regulations, then
try designing a data archive and back-up regime which satisfies all
these. The vision of 'joined-up government' is still a long way
off."
Skills remain high on IT directors' agendas. Margaret Smith, chief
executive of IT directors group CIO Connect, said the government
needs a strategy to make sure the trend towards offshore
outsourcing does not damage the IT skills base.
"There needs to be a concerted plan of action to make sure young
up-and-coming graduates do not get put off IT as a profession," she
said.
Nick Leake, director of operations and infrastructure at ITV, said
the government should invest in technology skills across the board.
"It should also sort out A-levels to provide a broader-based
curriculum with vocational qualifications complementing academic
skills and more, better-quality maths, science and technology
teachers," he said.
In the public sector, IT managers said the government should
emphasise the link between IT investment, e-government and the 2.5%
efficiency gains expected over the next three years.
Richard Steel, head of IT at Newham Council in London, said, "I
want the government to understand that radical change takes time,
has to be nourished and sustained, and cannot be made to fit with
political expedients."
National and local government have made some impressive progress
towards joining up services, but this is no more than a good start,
Steel said. "The impression given is that we have done
e-government. It should rather be seen as continuing to build the
impetus for service integration and electronic delivery, and the
infrastructure and support put in place for the programme should be
strengthened - not disassembled."
Other concerns raised by IT leaders who contacted Computer Weekly
included lack of transparency in government IT procurement and a
need for rigid processes to prevent further government IT failures.
Unless the government takes heed of the profession, the high-tech
image will be little more than gloss.
Promote opportunities for smaller IT services companies
to prove their worth
Michael Gough, chief executive, National Computing
Centre
We need to re-establish the mid-tier of IT service companies in
the UK in order to recreate the supply chain for IT skills.
As the UK IT services sector consolidated through the 1990s, a
mid-tier gap was created between the largest suppliers and the UK's
growing population of small and medium-sized enterprises.
The SME community now finds it difficult to do business with
larger organisations, on both the supply and demand side of the
industry. When skills are sought for the larger projects,
commentators too readily hail the onset of another skills
shortage.
Although there may be acute shortages of qualified and
experienced project managers, there is not a real skills shortage,
but a lack of visibility of the skills in the local IT market. A
mid-tier on the supply side is now missing, which encourages
UK-based organisations to outsource.
Cities such as Manchester and Liverpool have a thriving digital
industries sector with hundreds of SME suppliers representing
considerable capability that is not visible to the corporate
purchaser of IT services.
The West Midlands has its own trade association which can
influence the Regional Development Agency's IT investments, out of
which have come funded programmes such as Open Advantage - a
significant investment in the promotion of open source software in
business.
A strong indigenous IT capability is essential for growing and
sustaining a strong knowledge-based economy. Plugging the gap in
the mid-tier would significantly improve the supply of skills
throughout the industry, and reinforce the onshore market.
To address the problem the government and venture capital
communities could target IT service companies in the mid-band.
The government could address its own procurement guidelines to
stop discriminating against SMEs, many of which are disqualified
from tendering for work because of their size. It could insist on
IT certification and accreditation schemes that make visible the
quality in the growing ranks of the SME IT community, thereby
enhancing their business potential.
Tackle the skills and opportunities equation - more of
both
Ian Rickwood, chief executive, Institute for the Management
of Information Systems
To support the UK IT industry, the government needs to:
- Take the need to maintain the skills of the UK workforce
seriously. That means allowing personally-funded training and
updating costs to be offset against tax, and those following
industry-recognised development programmes to be exempt from income
tax and national insurance for the time they spend undergoing
training.
- Take equal opportunities for women seriously by allowing child
and family care expenses to be offset against tax and costs funded
by the employer to be tax-exempt, as they are for our overseas
competitors.
- Take the war against e-crime seriously. That means updating the
penalties under the Computer Misuse Act and the Data Protection Act
so that offences are extraditable and those abusing computer
systems and files to aid identity theft, fraud and denial of
service can be effectively prosecuted and punished.
- Follow good practice in its own planning and procurement of
information systems. The government should stop wasting taxpayers'
money on grandiose, centralised, big-bang systems that combine the
maximum risk with minimum achievement.
- Apply rigorous assessment and systems thinking to all proposals
for regulation and scrap all those where it is not clear how the
intended objectives are to be achieved at an affordable cost. l
Scrap all requirements for the retention of information (for
regulatory or law enforcement purposes) where it does not have
costed and practical plans as to how to secure and maintain the
stored data.
Make compliance easier, don't add to burden of
legislation
David Roberts, chief executive, The Corporate IT
Forum
The sheer volume of legislation is becoming a significant burden
on many corporations. Many businesses now have to comply with so
many different types of legislation that it is making it more
costly and more difficult for UK plc to operate.
The burden of legislation compliance is falling heavily on the
shoulders of corporate IT departments. Adapting complex systems to
comply with multiple layers of legislation is very challenging -
especially when you cannot predict what is coming.
The government could be working harder to make it easier for
businesses to comply. It must try to take a more holistic approach
and appreciate the significant impact such high levels of
administration and red tape have on businesses. IT professionals
must be involved and consulted far earlier in the process - more
predictability and clarity is sorely needed.
Another problem is security awareness among home PC users. The
government announced its Project Endurance campaign last November,
designed to increase awareness of internet security for small
businesses and consumers. I congratulate it on the initiative but,
although it said the campaign would go live this spring, there has
been little evidence of it so far.
Encourage more young people to take up careers in
IT
David Clarke, chief executive, British Computer
Society
The UK has the chance to remain a leading industrial nation in
the future, but only if enough investment is made in the
development of computer scientists, engineers and IT
professionals.
Our fast-growing competitors understand the strategic importance
of this, and sponsor their best people into the IT profession,
often through UK-based university activities.
We in the UK do not take this strategic approach, and leave it
to the best intentions of individuals and companies. Despite its
critical importance to UK plc, nowhere near enough of the UK's best
students see the development and application of IT to the benefit
of UK businesses as one of the best long-term careers they could
have.
The numbers of people coming into the IT profession are reducing
at exactly the time we need more of the best people to join it.
The government needs to drive a strategic plan with sufficient
and appropriate investment to reverse this worrying trend.