The government needs to do more to encourage UK
companies to invest in IT, according the chair of theConservative Technology
Forum.
Malcolm Harbour, who is also part of the West Midlands
Conservative MEP team, said compared with other countries in
Europe, the UK "underinvests" in technology.
He said the Labour government has allowed technology to slip in
terms of priorities.
"The government started off with intentions of giving technology
high priority, but it has become a bit more disaffected over the
years. It is sometimes rather difficult to see eactly what
direction their policy is now going in," he said.
He said he would like to see public procurement being used more
strategically, "We would like to see public procurement put more
into play as a vehicle for encouraging technological
investment."
The Tory policy for IT is based on "David Cameron's themes",
with a focus on localising services, Mr Harbour said.
"We would like to see how technology can be used to support
bringing more responsibility to local communities and citizens, and
allowing them to make more decisions and access services at a local
level.
"Trends in technology systems seem to be working in favour of
that approach, whereas they seem to be going against having a very
centralised approach."
Two main issues they will be focusing on is security, including
issues such as e-crime and privacy, as the government looks at
putting more citizen information on national databases.
"I am not sure we are really doing enough to protect our
critical national IT infrastructure," said Mr Harbour.
"In terms of privacy, citizens have to be very confident in
terms of how their data is going to be managed. They want to have
control over what government departments have access to their
information. So far, this has not been done."
He said the role of the information commissioner will get more
important as these changes are implemented.
"The commissioner will have an increasingly important role, and
it will be more focused on public services data," he said.