The Society of IT Managers (Socitm) has criticised the government's plans to save billions of pounds a year through the better use of information technology.
Socitm said in a briefing on the government ICT strategy that the ideas behind the announcement are well meant, but that the government has tackled them in the wrong way.
Rather than placing the emphasis on cutting costs, Socitm thinks that the government should make more of the fact that it will save money, specifically through the use of successful IT projects.
"It is disappointing that the strategy fails to discuss or demonstrate the wider opportunity for reducing cost and improving all public services through the application of ICT," said the briefing.
"We believe that a much greater emphasis should be placed on the savings that would come from better technology deployment in order to achieve the strategy's stated aim of 'improving the lives of the citizens and businesses it is here to serve'."
Socitm agrees with a lot of the government's plans, especially a continued focus on portfolio and programme management, better use of green IT, supplier management and, importantly, professionalism.
Also key are the increased focus on data and information handling, and a greater emphasis on opportunities from new and potentially disruptive technologies.
However, the organisation warned that these should be approached with caution, and that "here and now" technologies and processes should be favoured over any that are still emerging. These include flexible working, shared services, agile implementation and customer self service.
Soctim's 'What's missing' list offers a number of recommendations, including the proposal that any service suppliers meet "mandated technical and business obligations in order to do business with government", and the suggestion that third-party users, such as the NHS, be more involved in any technical decision making.
Plans to standardise desktops should also be approached with caution, Socitm added.
"In our view, the notion of a common desktop strategy runs the risk of being out of date as soon as it is agreed, and of becoming increasingly irrelevant as user devices continue to evolve and become consumer items," the briefing said.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): David Neal
Quelle/Source: Computing, 14.02.2010
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