CIOs in the public sector say that transformational
government is starting to succeed, making it quicker and easier for
people to file tax returns online, claims benefits and get, or
exchange, information.
The CIOs and other senior government officers were speaking at
Government IT 09 at the Queen Elizabeth 11 conference centre in
London on 4 February 2009. Their upbeat presentations drew
attention to the more important successful IT-based projects and
programmes in central and local government, which rarely make the
headlines.
Record numbers of self-assessment taxpayers - nearly six million
- filed their tax returns online by the deadline of 31 January, and
without disaster stories, said Kevin McLean, director of strategy
and policy,
Transformational Government, at the Cabinet Office.
Pensioners can claim pension credit, housing and council tax
benefits with one phone call, he said. John Widdowson, director of
Information Assurance a director of CESG, part of the government
communications headquarters, GCHQ, said that eight million people a
month visit the UK government's official website, Directgov, and
ten million drivers renewed their car tax online.
Dean James, corporate IT chief operating officer at the
Department for Work and Pensions, said his staff have a single view
of claimants through the Customer Information System.
Phil Pavitt, group CIO for Transport for London, said, "Doing
transformational government is complex, politically hard, but
rewarding when you do it."
Transformational government is the name Whitehall gives to a
strategy, launched in 2005, to improve services to the public using
technology. The aims include avoiding duplication of work through
shared services, preventing costly mistakes and making it easier
for citizens to deal with government departments and agencies.
There are an estimated 50,000 IT professionals working in the
public sector.
Steve Palmer, head of ICT at the London Borough of Hillingdon
and senior vice-president at Socitm, the Society of IT Management,
told delegates to Government IT 09. "Adversity brings opportunity.
Do not lose focus. Transformational government is a programme, a
journey, not a quick fix and it is starting to work."