The government could reduce its IT spending by £7bn a year if it
accepts the recommendations of a new
report.
Martin Read, a former Logica chief executive, said today that
the government should introduce better governance of IT-enabled
change programmes to achieve £4bn of savings a year on back-office
operations. His report also calls on the government to make £3.2bn
of savings a year on IT spending.
There needs to be better management of information, benchmarking
and reviewing of costs, as well as better governance of IT
programmes, said Read.
His main recommendations were:
• Standardising common IT-enabled business processes, such as
financial reporting
• Improving the success rate of government IT projects. Read
recommends doing this by ensuring project objectives are better
defined; improving the auditing and review process; improving
leadership
• Improving IT hardware, software and services procurement
• Driving up supplier performance using the Common Assessment
Framework
• Extending the use of benchmarking.
Read is one of five independent advisors who between them have
identified scope for £15bn in efficiency savings in government. The
government is expected to respond to the recommendations, published
in the
Operational Efficiency Programme (OEP), in tomorrow's
budget.
Around £6bn of the identified £15bn savings are expected to be
realised in the current spending review period. The rest will be
delivered by the end of the next spending period.
In addition to IT, money will be saved through better
collaborative procurement, asset management, and property
sales.
The target for the current spending review was overall
efficiency savings of £30bn. The government has increased this to
£35bn of savings by 2010-11 following the publication of the
OEP.
In the foreword to their report, the five advisors say, "The
private sector never stops seeking greater efficiency in the ways
that it purchases and provides services, and neither should
government. There is scope to go further and increase the value for
money the public sector achieves from both its activities and from
some of its most valuable assets."
Government has already achieved £26.5bn of efficiency savings
under the Gershon Efficiency Programme - beating its target of
£21.5bn.