Small can be beautiful

Whitehall must put its services online, but this time it will have to leave the consulting giants off the screen

By Tariq Tahir

The Conservative Party’s manifesto was clear about what it believes should be the role of Government websites. They “should not be treated like secure Government offices or laboratories where public access is to be controlled as tightly as possible.

“We see government websites as being more like mixture of private building and public spaces, such as squares and parks: where people can come together to discuss issues and solve problems,” it said. “Where people with similar concerns come together, for example, filling in VAT forms or registering children for schools. We will take the opportunity to let people interact and support each other.”

So information technology (IT) has a clear role in helping to bring about the Big Society of individual self-responsibility and transparent government that enables people to take control of their lives. Yet the relationship between central government and IT is an unhappy one with eye-watering sums of taxpayers’ money squandered in the past 25 years on a series of seemingly never-ending blunders.

While the mammoth £12.7 billion project to revolutionise IT in the Health Service is perhaps the most infamous, other botched projects include the identity cards scheme; the Libra system for modernising magistrates' courts; an attempt to move the Government's GCHQ computer systems into a new building (that one cost more than £300 million); the Benefit Processing Replacement Programme; and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's Prism system.

In an effort to write a final chapter in this sad story, the coalition is set to fulfil the Conservatives’ commitment and place a moratorium on the floundering NHS project and kill the ID card scheme before it gets going. It will also introduce a presumption against Government IT contracts worth more than £100 million.

The new philosophy is that the big projects should be broken down into smaller chunks with small and medium-size enterprises given a chance to compete against the consulting giants traditionally given Whitehall contracts.

One example of this approach is the decision to scrap Becta, the quango that promotes IT in schools. The move is a clear signal of the coalition’s desire for more localised procurement of IT services to schools based on their needs rather than a more monolithic approach.

While the agency was said to work well with schools without much IT expertise, many that had acquired knowledge and experience felt that it had outlived its usefulness and was too rigid in its approach.

The general approach may be right as the web-savvy public is also keen for the Government to up its game and to allow them to access services more directly through their computers.

A survey carried out by the Belfast–based IT company Lagan found that the public rated the Government bottom of a group of 11 “customer facing” organisations. Banks, retailers, hospitals and local authorities came out on top of Whitehall. Seventy-seven per cent of those polled believe there should be investment in IT to improve access to services.

Des Speed, the company’s chief executive, has been involved with 200 government IT projects around the world. He offers an insight into how the new Government can go about delivering its goals.

“If IT projects get too big, they become unmanageable. We believe in implementing projects in six-month chunks. That is our rule of thumb; get something up and running and live in six months. By the time projects that take three or four years begin to deliver, the world has changed. The people involved, the political drivers, the technology. It’s obsolete.”

He believes the Whitehall could follow the example of local authorities, many of which have already put their services online. “They might not like to hear that message but in customer transaction management in local government, the UK leads the world by quite a long way.”

What then of the public servants who will have to bring about this revolution but who will also bear the brunt of the coming public expenditure bloodbath? David Cameron has said, after all, that “Big Society doesn’t mean Big Government”.

A recent study of public sector managers by the Institute of Leadership and Management has suggested that while morale might be shaky, there is surprising willingness to embrace change.

The research suggests, says ILM chief executive Penny de Valk, a “nuanced picture that opposes the cliché of the cruising public sector employee. It reveals a cadre of committed talented and motivated managers who are up for the challenge of leading their teams and organisations through what will be a difficult time.”

Half the managers polled anticipate being able to innovate and develop creative solutions to the challenges presented by budget cuts, introducing improved business practices and tackling bureaucracy.

This perhaps bodes well for the ability of the coalition to bring its Big Society idea to life with the help of IT. Coupled with a willingness to learn from local government and a “small is beautiful” approach, it could mean the end of the IT debacle in our public life.

28 May 2010

Tariq Tahir. Freelance journalist,