Most UK central government systems are doomed before they start
because no one will be responsible for ensuring that they
succeed.
The recent Public Accounts Committee report, "Delivering
successful IT-enabled business change" summarises the key
difference between the public and private sector. "For commercial
organisations, IT-enabled change can be crucial to the success or
failure of the business and, reflecting this importance, incentives
and performance management regimes are geared to motivate those
responsible to succeed."
Public vs private
The case studies of success quoted by the committee all had
continuity of ownership and management from start to finish. Public
sector systems are not inherently bigger or more complex. The UK's
largest and most complex systems are in the private sector, like
the payment clearing services run by Voca or the identity
management services run by Experian or Equifax.
It is the churn of ministers and officials that occurs between
concept and implementation, and a lack of clarity over roles and
responsibilities, that ensure failure.
We have long known that projects that take more than three years
to complete are more likely to be cancelled than to succeed, and
those with more than 15% staff turnover among key staff are in
trouble.
Long projects are common to central government and few officials
are in the post for more than 18 months. It is therefore essential
that the government breaks its programmes into projects that can be
delivered before the officials responsible - let alone ministers
and advisers - have moved on.
Suppliers need to similarly ensure that those responsible for
their side of delivery are committed to success - with sales
bonuses paid after the post-implementation wash-up.
The way forward
The conclusions and recommendations in the Public Accounts
Committee report are all excellent, particularly on improving
skills for government workers, for programme and project managers
and for IT professionals "with a clear brief to develop career
paths and succession planning".
The implications are profound. The current comprehensive
spending review has to be built around the skills available and the
staff development plans already under way, if it is to succeed.
Hence the talk by ministers of incremental change, re-using that
which already works and has been paid for, within existing
contracts.
But it will not be easy of overcome the pressures for "big"
centralised systems for which the minister can be held to account
on the Today programme.
Readers of this magazine are voters as well as IT professionals.
You should write to your MP in support of the Public Accounts
Committee recommendations and the attempts of the CIO Council to
mandate good practice from the beginning, at the top - not
afterwards when it is too late.
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