One of the most important objectives in the development of the ideal government IT strategy (Twitter hashtag #idealgits) is to establish effective governance. One of the critiques of the existing approach, on the Make IT Better web site, points out that “No-one owns the all-up vision and strategy for the role of IT in Whitehall. In particular, the role it needs to play in the delivery of public services.”. This needs to be fixed.
This lack of a strategic relationship between IT and the UK’s public services and public policy, combined with the lack of clear ownership, results in a lack of responsibility and accountability, and ultimately a lack of meaningful delivery. It also tends to mean that the tactical takes precedence over the strategic.
There is an emerging section on tackling these issues of governance on the ideal government IT competition strategy here, where your active participation is welcomed (either by directly editing the wiki itself, or by leaving comments).
Of course, there is no shortage of government technology policy related documentation – be it historic or one of the many current documents (including Smarter Government, the leaked draft ICT strategy, the Digital Britain Strategy, the Cyber Security Strategy, the Digital Economy Bill, Building Britain’s Future, Excellence and Fairness, the Operational Efficiency Programme (OEP), and the recommendations of the Power of Information Taskforce).
The Labour Party’s analysis on taking power in 1997 was that the localised and decentralised model of IT governance had not worked. IT was being developed in silos, with systems that could not work together and which were focused on internal needs rather than those of the citizen. They therefore introduced a corporate governance strategy run from the centre.
Some 12 years later, this model has not worked well either. So how do we find a balance? How do we find a more effective governance model that provides both a consensual, all-up strategic policy direction for public sector IT, but also one that enables local innovation, agility and (in this dire economic time) cost-effectiveness and value?
One comment in the governance section of the draft ideal government IT strategy asks:
“Aren’t closely mandated ‘standards’ and too large IT projects, (mandated from a far away centre) part of the problem? Shouldn’t decentralisation and innovation be encouraged, just as long as the systems and people can talk to each other and learn from each other? Would a networked approach to governance and policy development … be more effective?”
Finding the right balance is key. We need to help establish a common, all-up technology policy strategy and an appropriately accountable governance mechanism for its ownership, maintenance and delivery. One that helps ensure that work across the technical community (the current IT-focused personnel operating as CIOs/CTOs/IT managers etc), as well as others currently impacting technology policy (Ofcom, BIS, OGC, OGC Buying Solutions, etc) is grounded in common standards and principles.
Such changes will require senior business level ownership that co-ordinates these current functional silo’s and helps to collectively focus them on agreed operational imperatives that deliver against the strategy. The overall strategy needs to be co-managed at the most senior levels: at Cabinet level and at Board level.
But how do we avoid any new governance model merely becoming another example of remote, centralised Whitehall control, isolated from the reality of the frontline demands of public services? This cannot simply continue to be about IT thinking existing in isolation from the wider policy landscape. It needs to be about a governance model that helps ensure that public policymaking is informed by an understanding of technology from conception, through development, delivery and ongoing maintenance. IT which becomes an integrated part of policymaking.
An outline governance model is drafted on the wiki. It is neither definitive nor prescriptive, but there to encourage debate and refinement. It needs considered, intelligent and real-world insights, feedback and development.
As presently drafted, it sets out a tiered model:
* the all-up public sector technology vision, policy and strategy: this would be owned by the Cabinet itself, specifically through a Cabinet Minister. It would be supported by a VERY SMALL permanent Whitehall team (no more than 15 heads), and informed by an independent advisory panel (which could be an adapted form of the Chief Scientific Advisor community, or possibly a new Technology Policy Advisor community), as well as informed representatives drawn from local/front line services and third party non-executive specialists. This would provide a model that owns the all-up strategy and vision and principles, but without a “centre knows best” imposed model. Instead, it would use a collaborative, collegial model empowered and accountable for making things happen.
* delivery of the strategy: delivery of the strategy, through more detailed operational plans, would be the responsibility of Permanent Secretaries, devolved administrations’ lead politicians and representatives, Local Authority Chief Execs, Departmental Boards, Local Authority Mayors/Cabinets, CIOs, CIO/CTO Council, OGC Buying Solutions, Ofcom, BIS, etc. These owners would ensure delivery against strategy through detailed operational planning, in compliance with agreed standards (interoperability, open standards, open source, transparency, etc). They would be held accountable and responsible for delivery.
* audit and compliance: the National Audit Office (NAO), Audit Commission, Public Accounts Committee, Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), Office of Government Commerce (OCG) etc would all help ensure compliance and accountability. This would be through professional ongoing audit, validating adherence to principles, the open publication of audits/accounts/reports/reviews and holding of both strategy owners and operational deliverers to account.
So do you agree? Disagree? Either way, your ideas are important.
Now is the chance to influence the next generation of public sector technology policy and IT. To help make it more relevant, more responsive and more effective. As William Heath has blogged on Ideal Government, “There’s no shoutey smugness, no groupthink or doublethink.” We just want to help ensure we gather the best strategic and practical ideas to put into practice. We want to achieve this in a smart, agile way, maximising the use of what is already there, but addressing its shortcomings and optimising the machinery of government to deliver better outcomes.
Your chance to do so is here.
There’s something about accountability missing here. Disasters like the Rural Payment Agency IT system happen because there is an accountability gap between the well-meaning but amateur civil servants commissioning a stupid system to implement a stupid policy and the multinational management consultancy in charge of the delivery of a system they know to be stupid and unlikely to ever work. Everyone’s happy, but when it all goes wrong, what happens? Who gets fired? I’m sorry to put is so crudely, but if you wan to improve public sector IT then we need to get as much as possible out of the public sector and shrink government substantially.
If the IT Director of Tesco wasted a billion quid on a system that never worked and bankrupted the company, then he would get fired (unless Tesco could persuade the government to bail them out).
So stage 1 should be to reduce the scope and scale of government.
Then stage 2 should be to create a vision of how technology will serve us, with some firm targets (eg: the government will issue no more cheques after 1st January 2012, stuff like that).
Stage 3 should be a new delivery strategy that is not based on issuing gigantic contracts to systems integrators with former government ministers on their board.
Happy New Year!
Thanks Dave. It’s a good point – and several senior civil servants I’ve spoken to have pointed out how frustrating it is for them not being able to swiftly and easily sack incompetent staff. As with some of the private sector, they would like to tackle the 10% of poor performers year-in, year-out. They are keen to restore the public service ethic and do recognise the economic reality of the situation that the UK faces.
With some public sector CIO’s reported to be on as much as £350,000 per annum, some parts of Whitehall seem to be paying substantially more than the private sector, but without any of the risk, accountability and responsibility that should go with it. I detect a strong willingness amongst many in the senior ranks in Whitehall to address such issues, but it will require changes to the way in which underperformers and poor performers are dealt with. There is also a recognition that Whitehall will need to be slimmed down. What is less clear at the moment (and may not become clear until after a general election) is whether the political will exists to rise to these economic challenges that the UK faces.
1. I am very surprised to find that there are, apparently, no Universities such as LSE, who have a strong interest in economics and economic policy that already research into this complex, but exceedingly important, area. Is this in fact the case? Could you provide references to any other such research or interested institutions including the National School of Government? A cursory look shows that there is a National School of Government strategy research project.
2. [1.] shows the ambiguity in your use of the .org domain. It seems to me that yours is a commercial site offering paid for analysis and other services. This subject is very important and it behoves any organisation encouraging debate to be scrupulous. Without open references to other similar resources, cross references to parallel work, openness about your contacts in the major political parties and an open discussion of your immediate future it is impossible for an external party such as myself to know how or whether to align with your intentions.
I would appreciate detailed clarification of these points.
[1.] From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.org
The org domain was one of the original top-level domains [sic]. It was originally intended for non-profit organizations or organizations of a non-commercial character that did not meet the requirements for other gTLDs.
…
Example use
In addition to its wide use in charitable fields, it is often preferred by the free software movement, as opposed to the com domains used mostly by for-profit companies. Many political parties and support groups also use org domains.
1. Much of the editorial and many of the comments on this site and on ideal gov cover similar ground and echo one another. While I have my reservations about these sites I find myself in broad agreement with these comments. For instance, looking at the top of this page ‘ … lack of a strategic relationship between IT and the UK’s public services and public policy, combined with the lack of clear ownership … ‘.
2. It seems to me that paradoxes enter the vision of very large spend projects. A constrained project in the private sector has a well delineated beginning, middle and end. At end the supplier must find other work, elsewhere. And always in competition with other suppliers.
3. If there is a big government spend, whether through one supplier vehicle or through many competitors the delineation is not as clear.
3.1. If the spend is with multiple small(er) contractors and there is a domino of failures, the one client becomes responsible. And if there is a domino of badly interpreted requirements this maybe more difficult to unwind between multiple suppliers. Although each one would ‘feel’ responsible, i.e. do their best to be proactive as their company would be on the line.
3.2. If the spend is through single supplier it is very difficult for anyone to ‘feel’ responsible, because, in some way, no one is. This is why performance related pay is so important. Unfortunately the motive to increase company profit can mitigate against the discipline of performance related pay, and others are, as noted, demotivated anyway.
3.3. The issue is whether the overhead of going for smaller suppliers unsustainable? Note that many comments advocate a smaller Whitehall.
4. I think that from the outside we grasp at easy visions, such as the Civil Service is bloated, or they are naive and so on. I doubt it is a simple as that at all. But I also suspect that there is ground to be made up in the contractual arrangements made between government and their suppliers, itself an area for legitimate research and innovation.
4.1. The software supply market to the government sector is very young and, as yet, immature.
4.2. As commented by myself and others elsewhere, government has skewed the market. It has also skewed its maturation.
4.3. Government do need a strategic approach to the market in order to redirect it. Government need a vision of what the market should look like and, I presume, that vision should be based on some good theory and not a few figures.
4.4. Without either the theory or figures to hand my guess is that government needs to encourage the development of a few different types of suppliers, as well as to handle more (much more?) with small business.
4.5. In building construction someone invented the idea of the concrete mixer lorry. I expect that now there are a few major suppliers, but no real monopoly in the area. This has lead to innovation, site mixing towers, the ability to supplier different and new forms of mix with little lag between lab and market and so on.
4.5.1. Software seems different. Here suppliers wax and wan. Must this be so? Unlike my construction example it seems that suppliers in software rarely stick to a narrow specialist part of the market. Possible as a product of the complexity of the field? Perhaps government should be encouraging this?
4.6. As I have commented elsewhere, there seems no equivalent of the independent partnership e.g. of surveyors, but for software, this model should also be valuable in other specialisms. In other words, divide up the specialisms and size them accordingly. Maybe this could be applied to legal services as well, after all why not?
Thanks Adam
Actually the LSE does good work in this area along with others – see for example “Digital Era Governance” (Patrick Dunleavy et al), Oxford, 2008. They also run a series of free seminars and events looking at a whole variety of related issues.
CTPR does a lot of pro bono and voluntary work – and, where we can find sponsors/advertisers (such as for our newsletters) we make these available free of charge. Where we do charge for reports, we do so to repay our associates and third parties who put together the research and reports as we run a co-operative model. Hopefully over time the paid-for research work will enable us to produce a greater volume of “public good”, free reports. However, we do want to remain non-partisan and independent – so any advertising or sponsorship is unacceptable if it comes with “strings attached”.
Personally, I have contacts and discussions with all of the major parties and aim to provide a balanced view of their intentions and capabilities with regard to technology policy. Our newsletter aims over time to have interviews with key figures across the political spectrum – our two most recent have been with the Conservatives and the Lib Dems. We hope the next one will be with Labour, although we also need to be sensitive over timing and the upcoming general election.
Jerry, Thank you very much for your response. I have now read the Feb
Newsletter. I am impressed. The first section ‘Trust in our digital lives’ is a
vital discussion, necessary for CTPR to cover, but I am restricting myself to
cost saving in software delivery. In this the second article, the interview with
Chris Huhne and the third, Where next, are highly relevant. I have no background
in politics, management or economics. I have not been reading up on this
subject prior to my own thoughts. It is, therefore, very striking that nearly
everything that Chris Huhne says I agree with, especially with respect to the
need for the Civil Service to be empowered and the comparison with its
historical self. I must conclude these are fairly accepted notions by this stage
that flow naturally out of any serious thought about the subject.
My immediate background has been as an employee of one of the big suppliers into government,
though not particularly big in IT per ce. I left this role because I was ashamed
of the wastage and exceedingly low standard of work I saw. I felt that if there
was wastage that at least the standard of work should be high, that the work should be
innovative, which is, after all, risky. This was not the case.
I will not go into further specifics, however, I came to think about the nature of the way
money was spent in the contract and the relationship between my employer and
HMRC. I realised that what ever the failings on the part of my employer they
were being witnessed by HMRC. I came to the conclusion that this cannot be an
isolated case of mismanagement leading to very poor use of resources but was
probably indicative of the whole software supply area. As I could see projects that were being
charged out at £10,000,000.00 that I knew, in terms of features, should be
costing no more than £500,000.00 I have further concluded that, in software
delivery, savings can be made in the order of 90%. So I am with Chris Huhne when
he calls for a more hard headed approach from government.
One of the issues government has is that it pre-announces how much money is in the pot. This
weakens (to say the least!) it’s ability to negotiate. I don’t know the answer
to this, but it does seem an answer is still needed.
Referring back to HMRC, I do find it astonishing that they allow a large proportion of the
work done to be on time and materials.
My knowledge of this is very limited.
Forty years ago, in construction, any contract on time and materials was considered a gold mine.
Also, forty years ago was about the time when contract management was introduced
and the independent management team consider a project a failure if they didn’t
run at least one of their subcontractors into bankruptcy. (Achieved by refusing
payment on the pretext of some gaff.) Should government behave like this? I’m
not sure that they shouldn’t. They certainly cannot when they vet their
suppliers on the basis of ‘due diligence’. I don’t know the answer to these
sorts of issues. I do know that the present state of affairs isn’t
sustainable.
I shall move on now to your review of the Conservatives.
My heart sunk when I read ‘Is there an Open Source solution, saving development and
licensing costs, and reducing dependence on long-term oligopoly suppliers?’ as
this betrays ignorance and the desire to use catch phrases. On its own, it is
clutching at straws. But I then read ‘Where any bespoke computer code is written
for the government, unless it genuinely pertains to national security, why can’t
it be released under open source licences?’ This, actually, is a very
revolutionary suggestion. Part of my shame and despair in my previous employment
was that the vast majority of the code base was open source, there are two
strong points to be made about this.
1. Absolutely no contribution was made or attempted back into those open source projects.
Frankly, that is a bit like theft, in the context or the mores of open source.
It shows a glib contempt for the intellectual endeavour of others upon whom they depend.
2. The code management and, therefore, the relationship with ongoing open source projects,
was non-existent. Little or no benefit accrued from using open source.
It is excellent that the Conservatives should, I have to say very belatedly for main stream politics,
suggest the use of open source, but this is not a thing to grab at, it is
something that needs planning and management. The second part, contributing code
back, suggests the potential of the virtuous cycle may be appreciated. Again,
this potentially has structural implications. Some economic/managerial planning
is needed to assess impact.
The final point I would like to make is about human behaviour.
It should be understood about mass psychology, that is any large
group, that the very lowest common denominator is found in the group psychology
and then a lot of mental effort goes into reinforcing the default positions. The
Conservatives use the phrase ‘long-term oligopoly suppliers’ wanting to
reduce dependence. But this dependence has been reinforced by a series of
beliefs about safety of supply, and a number of other factors.
If there is a very large Ministerial demand the belief is that only a large supplier can
fulfil.
When the Centre for Technology Policy Research says that the way public
services are delivered needs to be reformed I am not sure what is being
suggested. The issue is should policy be top down led and, if so, must the
accompanying technology be top down led. These are two separate issues. Large
Ministerial demands do not have to be made and large fulfilment,
all in one go, orders do not have to be worked up.
I suggest it is the later that should be the subject of research.
This area strongly intersects not just with economics but also with organisational
behaviour patterns.
An area in which I believe the Civil Service is far ahead of the private sector.
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