Government IT stuck in a 'vicious circle', report says

A report by an independent charity has recommended a radical redesign of the government's IT procurement and deployment processes, criticising the current system as outdated and impractical.

The government's approach to IT is fundamentally flawed for our times.

– Institute for Government

The Institute for Government's 101-page report, entitled System Error — Fixing the flaws in government IT, said the goverment's approach to IT projects creates a "vicious circle" of increasing costs, failures and outdated services.

"Despite costing approximately £16bn per year, government IT seems locked in a vicious circle: struggling to get the basics right and falling further and further behind the fast-paced and exciting technological environment that citizens interact with daily," the report said. "The government's approach to IT is fundamentally flawed for our times."

Failures and delays

One of the key problems highlighted in the report is the government IT procurement and deployment model, which sets requirements at the beginning of the project and then "proceeds at a glacial pace", not allowing for changes in policy or technology advancements that occur in the interim.

The Institute for Government — which interviewed more than 70 people from across Whitehall, the IT industry and the private sector in preparing the report — acknowledged that some initiatives, such as the Oyster travel card system in London and the Department for Work and Pension's payment modernisation programme, have proved a success. However, it said, these "must be set against the many more high-profile failures and delays".

One such high-profile failure includes the attempted revamp of the National Offender Management Service, which began in 2004 with the aim of streamlining it into an end-to-end offender management system. It was due to launch in January 2008, but in July 2007 — by which point £155m had already been spent — it turned out to be two years behind schedule, and the lifetime costs had more than trebled to £690m. Work began on a much-scaled-down version of the system in 2008 and is still ongoing.

The report said incompatible systems, supply problems, a high cost of change, over-customisation with little re-use and a failure to leverage the benefits of purchasing in bulk from a single supplier for standard goods and services all contribute to delays and the inability to keep within budget. It also suggested that many of the systems are not designed with the user in mind; for example, the Prism system in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), which left staff confused and frustrated.

"In the FCO's long history of ineptly implemented IT initiatives, Prism is the most badly designed, ill-considered one of the lot," one staff member is cited in the report as saying.

IT support

In order to bring the government's approach to IT up to date, the Institute for Government suggests a radical new strategy underpinned by the ideas of 'platform' and 'agile'.

In this instance, 'platform' refers to "a system-wide approach to standardising and simplifying shared elements of government IT" and should include bulk buying of commodity goods, co-ordination of common IT functions and support services, and common standards that ensure that all elements of IT are interoperable.

Similarly, the report suggests an 'agile' IT strategy that emphasises flexibility, responsiveness to change, and innovation. However, the report concedes that an agile strategy may be difficult initially due to a lack of experienced members from the user community; an essential factor of similar successes in the private sector.

It is time for a new approach to government IT... Driving efficiencies and supporting innovation should become mutually reinforcing themes.

– Institute for Government

"These problems are not new, yet attempts to fix the existing system have not been transformational. It is time for a new approach to government IT... Driving efficiencies and supporting innovation should become mutually reinforcing themes rather than contradictory ones," the think tank's report said. "The scale of government should be used to its advantage, with the varied expertise and innovations occurring across the wider public sector harnessed more widely throughout the system."

The Cabinet Office welcomed the report and said it had a shared ambition to "drive waste out of government functions, including IT".

Spending controls

On Tuesday, the government also announced new spending controls, which it said will help save billions of pounds in several areas, including information and communications technology (ICT). As part of the new controls, contracts with a lifetime value of more than £5m will be subject to central approval.

"This will ensure best value is achieved and that ICT solutions bought have a common infrastructure and open standards, allowing them to be used across public bodies," a spokesperson for the Cabinet Office said in a statement.

It also said it is looking at reducing the costs associated with delivering key services. For example, it noted the Department of Health's central Microsoft contract has been cut down from £82.42m to just £8.51m, representing a reduction of almost 90 percent.

"We promised that we would do everything we could to ensure we were in the strongest possible position to protect services and jobs on the front line. What we have shown today is that if you are prepared to really look, billions can be saved from overheads and unnecessary costs at the centre of the government — without touching front-line services," a Cabinet Office spokesperson said.