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Governance

Information Technology has become a strategic asset, capable of helping re-design and improve the UK’s public services. But it is often viewed solely as an administrative or operational tool within the public sector. Government IT strategies exist in isolation from those focused on improving public services rather than being an integral and essential component. Current levels of expenditure on public sector IT are not delivering the returns, in terms of public service improvement, that should be expected.

These are fundamental failures of effective governance. They need to be fixed: public sector strategy needs to incorporate IT at the most senior levels of policymaking and civil service business planning if it is going to deliver on its potential.

Key Principles

  1. Implement pre-legislative technology scrutiny and impact assessments: to ensure technology informs the design and potential outcome of proposed legislation, as well as providing insight into its practical feasibility and costs
  2. Ensure departmental board-level capability in technology policy: to ensure IT and technology policy informs public service business planning and policymaking at the most senior levels of the civil service
  3. Provide frameworks that enable self-organisation (not central command and control): to support locally-responsive, cost-effective and high quality public services operating within a common technical and policy framework

Other points/clarifications

There needs to be clear alignment of IT objectives and programmes to policy objectives and strategies: business and IT strategy need to be co-designed and co-led. Performance and success metrics will be based on achieving overall business objectives, not technical outcomes.

A new technology policy leadership role needs to be created to fill the current vacuum between policy and technology. This new function will need to be part of the Cabinet Secretary’s leadership team, with shared governance with business policy and process management.

Recommendations

Things to do

  1. Designate a Cabinet-level Minister with responsibility and accountability for all-up technology policy and IT (across Whitehall, Ofcom, the BBC etc)
  2. Establish an independent technology policy advisory board. This will review and advise the Minister/Cabinet and senior civil service on draft policy and legislative proposals. This will ensure all technological potential and implications are understood and addressed prior to passing legislation
  3. Create a new senior, Whitehall-wide technology policy leadership role and appoint to that role. This will be a true CIO leadership function. This new business-focused CIO role will report both to the Cabinet Secretary (and be a member of his management board) and to the Cabinet-level Minister responsible for technology policy
  4. Rename existing CIOs “Head of IT” to make clearer their function and role, and to avoid confusion with the new, strategic CIO roles.
  5. Create a new, business-led departmental CIO function. Make appointments to that role to the boards of all government departments to ensure that Permanent Secretaries and their teams have competent and informed technology policy advice integrated within their management teams. This will be a strategic business-based CIO role.
  6. Incorporate technology policy into the compulsory curriculum of all senior civil servants to improve their understanding of IT’s potential (both benefits and risks). The civil service needs an infusion of technical talent.

Stop, challenge or review

  1. Require Permanent Secretaries to baseline and provide full details of their current technology policy and IT governance mechanisms (including roles, levels of seniority, internal/external staff and contractors, etc)
  2. Stop the development and publication of IT strategies that are not an integral part of the wider public service strategy. All IT strategies need to be rooted in how they enable better delivery of public service outcomes and be able to demonstrate how they deliver value for money.
  3. Stop all new major IT projects or programmes until they have been subjected to expert, independent review by the new governance team and board
  4. Review all active major public service programmes with a significant IT component and subject them to an expert, independent review
  5. Review the existing pay, grading and employment status of all senior IT roles and functions across Whitehall and ensure they are in line with standard public sector pay and reward packages
  6. Stop any proposed business plans or public service proposals from departments that have not been developed in conjunction with an understanding of technology policy and IT (ie from Permanent Secretariess and boards who have no current capability in this area)

Continue, support or resume

  1. Task the new technology policy leadership role with co-ordinating the revision and development of key IT frameworks in areas such as the use of trusted intermediaries, trust models and identity, open standards, privacy, security and authentication frameworks. Ensure that once the policies are updated and re-issued that they are actively delivered with named, accountable senior civil servants repsonsible for their implementation.



RSS feed of comments 4 Responses to “Governance”

  1. Fraser says:

    Skills, training etc?

  2. william says:

    Fraser – what skills, training is needed? We had the whole government IT profession initiative. What wd you do differently?

  3. robbie says:

    see, now i’m confused. admittedly, I’d jumped straight in at the ‘archietcture’ section – and am now working my way back – but i think this really makes my point. under Things To Do (where not stepping on the cracks of the pavement is clearly a given) 3 and 4 are surely at odds. what is needed is not a simple renaming of CIOs, but CIOs who can do their job effectively, which negates the need for a 3 or a 5; but once you have such, i’d grant that such a senior role would be useful. not before though i’d wager…

  4. Dave says:

    see, now i’m confused. admittedly, I’d jumped straight in at the ‘archietcture’ section – and am now working my way back – but i think this really makes my point. under Things To Do (where not stepping on the cracks of the pavement is clearly a given) 3 and 4 are surely at odds. what is needed is not a simple renaming of CIOs, but CIOs who can do their job effectively, which negates the need for a 3 or a 5; but once you have such, i’d grant that such a senior role would be useful. not before though i’d wager…

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