The public sector has been set targets to co-ordinate
service delivery, share services and improve IT professionalism in
a plan published last week by the Cabinet Office.
Every branch of the public sector has been told to draft a plan
of transformational projects that must be completed by July
2007.
The Cabinet Office will seek to encourage sharing of customer
service centres and back-office functions, such as finance and
human resources. A common infrastructure for the public sector will
be built and a culture where sharing is politically desirable will
be developed.
The Transformational Government Implementation Plan will also
establish a Cabinet committee to set guidelines and possibly new
standards for data sharing between public sector bodies.
A second document proposing ways of transforming local
government has also been published.
Richard Steel, head of ICT at the London Borough of Newham, was
part of a group of local government IT directors and chief
executives that advised the Cabinet Office on the plan. He said,
"Something that is missing from both papers is any kind of raw data
to support the assertion that joining up and sharing is always a
good thing."
The implementation plan has divided the public sector into nine
areas and asked for shared services plans to be drawn up by
November this year. The areas are education, health, criminal
justice, local government, the Department for Work and Pensions,
defence, HM Revenue and Customs, multiple agencies, and the rest of
central government.
Local government IT directors said they were unclear who would
draft the plans and what they would contain. They also identified
local political and economic priorities as potential issues that
had to be addressed.
Steel said, "If we could satisfy ourselves that critical data is
safe and the service quality is as good as or better, and there is
no skewing of local political priorities, I would say go for
it."
Work has already begun on building an IT infrastructure that can
be shared by different public sector bodies. A Common
Infrastructure Board with members from local government as well as
key central government departments has been established to identify
what infrastructure is needed.