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21 July 2003
The history of IT in Government - Part One
Government IT in the 1950s: The Role of the National Physical Laboratory
By Joe Organ
During the Second World War, the British government began using embryonic 'computing machines' to aid the war effort. Most famously, the genius Alan Turing and his team at Bletchley Park pioneered computing technology to break the German Enigma code (Hodges,1983). Post-1945 however, it was the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) that took up the mantle, employing Alan Turing to engineer the innovative Automatic Computing Engine (ACE). Crucially, the NPL recognized at a reasonably early stage in its development that computers may have applications beyond the realms of science and war. The 1952/53 NPL report provides one of the first references to the potential in administration:
| | The application of digital computing machine techniques to administrative and commercial purposes, i.e., the mechanization of large scale clerical operations, may prove to be even more important economically than their use for computation (p97) | |
| the approach that the NPL took influenced the path that government IT followed for decades after |
Thus, it is through the NPL that the concept of using computer technology for day-to-day departmental operations, and the delivery of public services was first developed; therefore the approach that the NPL took influenced the path that government IT followed for decades after.
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As a technical organization, the NPL primarily saw itself as a stimulator and promoter rather than an overarching supervisor or coordinator in IT development. From its headquarters in Teddington, Middlesex, the NPL encouraged activity in the fledgling computer industry and in government departments. The English Electric Company quickly became the most prominent private enterprise in computing; it began work with NPL in 1949, engineering a marketable version of the pilot ACE in 1955, called DEUCE. Between 1956 and 1961 nearly 30 DEUCEs were supplied to customers (Hendry,1989,p204). Coupled with this, the NPL instigated clerical projects in a variety of departments, including the Inland Revenue, Home Office, Board of Trade and Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance (Croarken,1990,p138-140).
In the latter, a pilot project was established to automate the colossal and tedious processes involved in internal payroll administration (NPL,1955,p28). In 1956 the laboratory and a newly created Inter-Departmental Study Group produced the pamphlet Wage Accounting by Electronic Computer (NPL/DSIR,1956). Through discussing in detail the logistics of the computerization of pay systems, the document reveals that savings through staff cuts was the main objective of early government IT.
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Although protagonists hope that e-government's primary objective is to produce improvements in service delivery through qualitatively changing departmental activity, the approach of the NPL was understandably more restricted. Just as today, computers were heralded as providing the solutions to some of the problems of the large service provider state, but the tactic was to curb departmental budgets by replacing clerical Civil Servants with automated counterparts, rather than using IT to strive for new and innovative ways of doing business.
The perception in the 1950s was that 'the welfare state can only be run effectively on a diet of numbers' (Bowden,1953,pvii), and the NPL wanted departments to mechanize internal numerical processes.
There were certainly some successes, the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance claimed that 25,000 staff members were to have computerized payrolls by 1960 (MPNI,1959,para 240) and by 1961 it could declare that its computer system used 63 fewer staff than the equivalent manual system (MPNI,1961,para 332).
| the promise of a competent and respected coordinating body, which could have controlled and developed a unified computer policy from the embryonic stages, was lost |
By the end of the 1950s, the NPL had triumphed in stimulating interest in both public and private sectors. Furthermore, it set the tone of government IT for the next few decades; computers were seen as an office tool that could automate clerical processes to render enormous financial savings. However, in 1959 it was decided that, despite the wealth of expertise and experience stored in the NPL, its Electronics Division should be closed as computer development 'can be done more effectively within industry and by departments directly concerned' (NPL,1959,p56). Thus, the promise of a competent and respected coordinating body, which could have controlled and developed a unified computer policy from the embryonic stages, was lost.
NPL was certainly a technical organization, rather than a unit that would have been truly capable at guiding policy and implementation. Yet, with the demise of the NPL's interest in government IT, the possibility of cohesion and clarity of purpose was less likely.
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Without its expertise, a power vacuum emerged as departments were not required to liaise with a supervisory body when devising strategy and policy for computer projects. Thus, in the early 1960s departments were following their own, discrete and isolated IT paths, which largely consisted of 'paving over the cowpaths' of existing clerical operations. Without a coordinating body to oversee computer development, early government IT reflected the departmental structure. Fiercely independent departments operated in policy 'silos' to serve particular interests, priorities and client-groups, and in the absence of a significant supervisory pressure, this approach permeated computer policy. Therefore, opportunities were missed; for instance, instead of a unified computerized payroll system for the whole the public sector, departments developed their own, with incompatible software and procedures.
This situation was not surprising, as it was not anticipated that computers would eventually develop the capacity to communicate with each other, to hold vast quantities of malleable data and offer the potential to qualitatively alter administrative work patterns. Nonetheless, a significant part of the battle that e-government strategy faces is to raze the old departmental approach, and to join up service delivery operations. If the government of the 1950s had possessed tremendous foresight, it might have either bolstered the capacity of the NPL to coordinate policy at the crucial inchoate stages of government IT, or replaced it with a competent central unit. Instead, high-level coordination was practically non-existent, departments were left alone, and the departmentalism which plagues modern government's attempts to 'join up' became ingrained in government IT.
| if e-government succeeds in reforming public services for the better, we have the NPL to thank |
In evaluating the role of NPL, it is important to stress its invaluable contribution. Despite being a technical organization, with posts filled by brilliant scientists rather than policy-makers, NPL had the prescience to appreciate that computers had potential beyond aeronautics and algebra, and it stimulated activity in departments and industry. Therefore, if e-government succeeds in reforming public services for the better, we have the NPL to thank for instigating the relationship between computer technology and public administration, just over fifty years ago. The failing was that not enough was done to follow through this pioneering work, and a crucial opportunity was missed; the NPL's involvement was terminated and IT policy coordination did not appear on the government's agenda. Many of the problems encountered in coercing departments to share data, to work together and to develop innovative inter-departmental operations necessary to the e-government schema have their roots in this initial environment.
It was in the 1960s that the British government began to realize that some of the potential of computer technology was being missed, and coordinating powers needed to be developed to remedy this situation. The next article in the History of Government IT series will analyse this.
Bibliography
| Bowden, BV (1953) Faster than Thought: a Symposium on Digital Computing Machines, London:Pitman |
| Croarken, M (1990) Early Scientific Computing in Britain, Oxford:Clarendon |
| Hendry, J (1989) Innovating for Failure - Government Policy and the Early British Computer Industry, Cambridge/London:MIT Press |
| Hodges, A (1983) Alan Turing: the Enigma, London:Burnett Books |
| MPNI (1959) Annual Report - cmd 1137, London:HMSO |
| MPNI (1961) Annual Report - cmd 1764, London:HMSO |
| NPL (1955) Annual Report, London:HMSO |
| NPL (1959) Annual Report, London:HMSO |
| NPL/DSIR (1956) Wage Accounting by Electronic Computer, Teddington:NPL |
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