A theme that came across clearly at last week’s Public Sector Enterprise ICT conference, was that we are currently enjoying a perfect storm of factors enabling wide-reaching change within public sector ICT.
There is agreement that we need change because, as one presenter put it, public sector ICT needs to resemble younger, more nimble competitors in Strictly Come Dancing but currently looks most like Russell Grant. With thanks to James Herbert, head of customer and business services and ICT, Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead for sharing his Strictly Come Dancing analogy at the event.
It was clear from the presentations that most suppliers are running hard to keep abreast of new government requirements, a few public sector IT professionals are rolling up their sleeves and striding out into the brave new world of the Government ICT strategy. But, most interesting of all, was the articulation of frustration about lack of Central Government ICT leadership and, in fact, doubts about whether we do actually have an ICT vision yet in place.
As one central government agency participant at the conference put it, "Government needs a long term vision for ICT. It doesn't have one. The answer is not Cloud (because) that is a current technology delivery model not a strategy." And, indeed, the audience was rather left with the impression that Andy Nelson, CIO at the MoJ, (currently chairing the CIO Delivery Board for G-Cloud) might also be wondering whether the ICT strategy should depend too heavily on the G-Cloud part of the plan.
Nelson said he hopes to create a more competitive market for provision of G-Cloud services to Government and referenced the OJEU that went out last month, for which there have been 300 responses. The idea is that the services will be made available and people will use them, rate them and the successful ones will flourish and the less useful ones will not. In order to achieve this, the Government needs a rolling procurement strategy and this is already running into legal challenges so the viability of adopting an internal market approach is currently doubtful. And yes, by 2015 the target is to have 50% of new central government services provided via public Cloud delivery, which is, he agreed, a VERY aggressive target.
Fortunately, there were some inspiring examples at local government level as to what can be achieved using public Cloud services. Tonino Ciuffini, Head of Information Assets at Warwickshire County Council explained that he had worked with partners to evaluate six Cloud email offerings, half of which were delivered using private Cloud delivery, and half public Cloud delivery. Ciuffini said that public Cloud offerings had obvious advantages: they were half the price of private Cloud offerings; they were already available (whereas private Cloud solutions are still being built) and could be tested immediately. All three public Cloud offerings he evaluated could deliver IL2 secure emails, but whilst Google had the lowest cost and easiest commercial model to understand, both IBM and Microsoft lost out by virtue of their more complicated hybrid pricing model. His verdict was that the move to Google Mail for IL2 communication had reduced costs and improved service for Warwickshire.
James Herbert, Head of Customer and Business Services and ICT for the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead echoed some of those advantages of using Cloud delivery. Yes, there is lower cost. He cited the example of using Infrastructure as a Service to support a digital media centre which now runs for £200 per month and means that the Borough no longer has to manage a £30,000 infrastructure asset. But his main point was this: that “we are judged by comparison with the customer service capabilities of world class commercial organisations; so even local authorities have to offer world class services.” In other words, the whole point of moving to Cloud delivery is about delivering better outcomes for the community you serve. And, he concluded, this is something that seems to be forgotten by the G-Cloud programme.
To push the Russell Grant analogy further: the Government ICT strategy cannot be allowed to become a cleverly choreographed way of appearing to dance, when you are actually standing in the same spot. More confidence, leadership and vision are needed, but I suppose in central government we are, to paraphrase ex-IBM CEO Lou Gerstner, attempting to teach an elephant to dance.
