We continue with our Gov CIO Series 2009 with a Q&A Session with Glyn Evans who urges stakeholders to evaluate public sector ICT as a tool that delivers business objectives and makes candid comments on the state of ICT in the public sector in the UK.
1. Since the publication of the Government’s Transformation Strategy in 2005 – How would you assess the overall role of ICT has played in helping local government deliver public services?
ICT is clearly playing an increasingly important role in supporting both the improvement of public services and the realisation of efficiency savings. However, we should always stress that our objective is IT-enabled transformation and that to realise the benefits we must also be prepared to change processes, organisational structures, responsibilities, etc. If not, we will not deliver to the potential; we risk perpetuating ICT being a tactical add on to business as usual rather than a strategic tool that supports the delivery of corporate objectives. Overall, however, I think we have won the argument that IT can enable the transformation of government. The challenge to the profession is to deliver this in practice.
2. In you council could you highlight the areas with some examples where ICT has been most effective?
Birmingham has a massive IT-enabled transformation programme in which we are investing hundreds of millions of pounds; it’s hard to select the highlights. We have, for example, implemented a new approach to the management of finance and procurement which has improved quality, standardised processes across the Council and realised large savings. We have this year implemented a new performance system in which all employees’ appraisals are held electronically and can be aggregated and analysed, for example, by grade or by department and will be used to determine incremental progression in future years. ICT is enabling our approach to agile working, allowing us over the next few years to reduce the office space occupied by administrative staff by more than 30%. And we are in the final stages of testing our citizens’ account, which over the next few years will integrate all our services so that our customers have ‘one view of the council’
3. What challenges would you say local government ICT faces overall as well as in your council?
Probably the most significant challenge will be the pressure on budgets in the next few years. We will need to ensure that our organisations do not lose sight of the fact that investing in IT can drive down the overall cost of services and that these savings can far exceed marginal savings from within the IT budget. However, we also need to recognise the need to bear down on the unit running cost of our IT estate. That will require more standardisation across local government, for example on desktops and applications, and greater adoption of a virtualised, multi-organisation server farms. Such standardisation will impact on the need for support staff and I anticipate that we will be reducing headcount in this area.
4. How do you see the role of ICT evolving in the next few years? What would you the key growth areas in your opinion?
The greatest growth area will be in the widespread adoption of social media tools. This will have two aspects. First, it will be external, improving citizens’ ability to engage with their local authority and with each other. This will result in a demand for greater transparency, provide new lobbying opportunities to which councils will need to respond and bring new challenges to our services. For example, in Birmingham a group of local web developers are creating their own, ‘improved’ version of Birmingham’s website through scraping and revamping the content. It will have a Wiki-based approach, so content can be amended, with interesting the implications for accountability. Second, we will see social media tools increasingly used internally within councils and across local government in order to maximise the contribution from the knowledge and experience of our employees. This will help maintain morale in difficult times – awareness that you are making a contribution is a key driver of job satisfaction – but it will also be a challenge to our traditionally, and still predominantly, hierarchical cultures.
5. What suggestions and thoughts would you have for your counterparts as well as newer members of Local Government ICT profession?
First, I think collectively we need to grapple with the nature of our profession. Most ICT professionals are supportive of their organisations adopting IT-enabled change programmes. There is less consensus around the issues of accountability for such programmes; are ICT professionals responsible (and accountable) merely for the technology, or are they responsible (and accountable) for the business change? I am firmly in the latter category, but know that many others are not. We need to initiate a debate in order to reach a position where there is general agreement on what it means to be an ICT professional.
Second, enjoy the job! In local government we are making a positive difference to many people’s lives every day and that could not happen without the ICT that we provide. Keeping hold of that thought whilst facing the day-to-day pressures is what makes it all worthwhile.