National Audit Office finds UK Govt IT Reforms have delivered real savings

The National Audit Office has produced a report, “The impact of government’s ICT savings initiatives“, that finds government initiatives to reduce spending on IT are working. In 2011/12, the NAO ...

news roundup

This is a brief recap of some of the top technology and technology policy news that has caught our attention over the past week or so – idiosyncratic and non-definitive, ...

Open Standards in Government IT: An Academic Review of the Evidence

Bournemouth University‘s Centre for Intellectual Property Policy & Management (CIPPM) has produced an independent study on the costs and benefits of introducing an open standards policy for software interoperability, data and ...
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Parliament’s thoughts on open source and open standards

Published on August 16th, 2012no comments

The UK Parliament‘s Office of Science and Technology (POST) has published a useful note on open source and open standards.

The note examines the quality, cost and security of OSS and considers government plans to adopt open standards.

A copy is available here.

UK Government open standards – the story so far ….

Published on May 10th, 20122 comment

Last updated: 22.05.2012 19:00

The UK Government is busy consulting on its proposed policy on the adoption of open standards. The consultation is open to everyone to contribute and will close on 4th June 2012.

It’s interesting how heated the topic of open standards can become – so we thought it might be useful to try to summarise various related online coverage to date. Let us know if we’ve missed anything and we’ll add it to the list that follows. We’ll also refresh this post from time to time to add any additional developments. (Some entries are undated, so we’ve done our best to put them in the right sequence based on their content).

 

Commons Committee on Government IT – more work remains

Published on January 27th, 2012no comments

The House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) has published an update (PDF) to its earlier report “Government and IT – “a recipe for rip-offs”: Time for a New Approach” (PDF).

The Committee commends the Government for its generally constructive and proactive response, but points out key areas where the Government’s intended course of action will not be sufficient to address “the scale of behavioural and process change required across government” to achieve its own aims of becoming an “intelligent” customer.

On one point in particular, the failure to respond at all to the Committee’s call for an investigation into the charge that the large systems integrators operate in the manner of a cartel, the Committee is particularly critical. Given the evidence cited in the original report, the Committee’s frustration is understandable. Bernard Jenkin MP, Chair of the Committee has called again for an independent investigation into allegations of cartel-like behaviour among the major systems integrators, which itself may prove structural rather than deliberate.  He also indicated that the Committee would return to this specific issue if the matter is not now addressed by the Government.

Overall, the Committee appears favourable towards the Government’s plans to develop its capacity in commercial skills for procuring and managing contracts,  not just technical IT skills, in order to become an ‘intelligent customer’. However, the Committee has concerns that the Government’s plans may not be adequate to cope with the scale of behavioural and process change required across the whole of Government, nor that the new Civil Service champions of ‘agile development’ will have sufficient seniority, expertise or support.

The challenge for the Government now is to successfully execute its strategy to radically improve IT and deliver better for less: moving from the ‘what’ to the ‘how’.

New LSE Report on Total Cost of Ownership of Open Source Software

Published on December 2nd, 2011no comments

A new report entitled “Total Cost of Ownership of Open Source Software” (PDF) has been published by the London School of Economics (LSE), with the support of OpenForum Europe.

The report is a pragmatic and rational contribution to the debate – and timely, with the need for governments to massively reduce public spending without impacting critical public services. Despite the need for all organisations to understand where and why their limited budgets are spent, the report notes, perhaps surprisingly, that “not many organisations maintain a data set that can estimate TCO with much reliability or offer robust comparative evidence.” (p4)

The report presents a variety of evidence broadly supportive of open source including:

  • “when people with experience apply their judgement to the question of TCO many are clear that cost advantages – cost saving and cost avoidance – are achievable [with open source software], and case studies support this contention. (p5)
  • softer benefits of open source adoption are also widely appreciated – those of flexibility, openness, ability to tweak and customize, and support for open standards and open data – altogether a more open and accessible software environment. This broader vision is where the enduring benefits and associated cost reductions are often seen to come from.(p5)
  • adoption and development of open source can support the sharing of both expertise and expense between government bodies, for example among local authorities facing very similar needs.(p5)

It also notes some of the challenges, including:

  • Open source adopters do note that they needed to hire experts and look for support to meet their organisation’s ambitions including for control of code and configuration, and taking more direct control of their infrastructure to allow agile innovative responses to changing needs.(p5)
  • Pragmatism needs to guide open source adoption and not ideology.(p6)
  • Migrating to open source is more likely to be successful if it is done when there is a real and present need for change or a new approach, rather than simply on the basis of finding open source attractive on infrastructure cost arguments.(p6)

Importantly, it found that many believe that “if open source is to become an accepted and substantial part of information systems activity within the public sector then it needs government-level policies to sustain the change including an overhaul of procurement processes and practices.” (p5) And in the context of current government policy to strengthen the IT profession, “adoption of open source can be part of building a more agile organisation able to innovate and respond to change. It can also be part of (re)building in-house expertise and regaining control.” (p6)

Not only do organisations need to start adopting systematic TCO models in their current operations. They also need to be factoring in the costs of exit to current and future purchasing decisions at the time solutions are being evaluated. Later complexity and expenditure in migrating away from solutions, and the extent of lock-in to a particular product or supplier, are part of the life-cycle costs of acquisition – not something to be loaded onto a subsequent product or supplier. This is why the UK government’s recent initiatives around the use of open standards is of particular significance.

Unfortunately absent from the report are the more macro economic TCO issues that arise for governments. For example, the very different economic impacts that expenditure placed with companies who select to pay their business taxes in a country other than the one in which the procurement takes place. So, for example, £20m expended with a supplier by the government in the UK takes on a very different economic impact, and macro TCO footprint, if that £20m exits the country without any return to the exchequer or other UK businesses, when compared to £20m spent with a UK headquartered business paying UK-based business taxes.

Whilst European law understandably insists on a level and non-discriminatory playing field, taking account of these wider economic factors in assessing TCO for governments is likely to become increasingly important as governments seek to stimulate their domestic economies and boost economic growth. This new report from the LSE should help to open up broader discussion about the most appropriate TCO models for organisations and governments to use. At present, it appears we remain some distance from establishing generally accepted TCO models at both micro, and macro, economic levels.

UK’s IT Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP)

Published on October 22nd, 2011no comments

The Cabinet Office has published the Government’s Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP) for its earlier ICT Strategy. It aims to deliver better public services for less. The intention is to re-use and share ICT assets; to improve productivity and efficiency; and to reduce waste and the likelihood of project failure.

The SIP is available here.

the future of Government IT

Published on July 28th, 2011one comment

Government information technology (IT) is under relentless scrutiny and reform. Barely a month seems to pass at the moment when either another organisation issues a report on the topic, or the Cabinet Office announces a new initiative or appointment.

Recently, for example, we’ve had the National Audit Office‘s “Information and Communications Technology in Government Landscape Review” and the Institute for Government‘s “System Error: fixing the flaws in Government IT“. And the Cabinet Office has hardly been idle either, announcing initiatives ranging from the opening up of public services, to the appointment of a new Director of ICT Futures and the saving of over £1bn on procurement.

In June, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) published their short report Information and Communications Technology in Government. It took the view that

ICT is not well enough embedded in departments’ business, and as a result not enough reform programmes have had ICT at the core. Problems have arisen where expectations for systems are too grand and the proposals from suppliers are unrealistic. Projects have been too big, too long, too ambitious and out of date by the time the ICT is implemented

This misalignment between the business of government, the effective design and operation of public services, and the use of IT was also a common theme in evidence provided during the more recent Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) review of Government IT, whose report – “Government and IT. ‘A recipe for rip-offs’: Time for a new approach” – is published today.

Their inquiry also found that only a few departments have CIOs on their boards, raising questions, in an age of “digital by default“, about where and how civil service management teams obtain their understanding of, and insight into, the effective use of information systems and their integration into their business plans. The PASC report found that

the Government needs to possess the necessary skills and knowledge in-house, to manage suppliers and understand the potential IT has to transform the services it delivers. Currently the outsourcing of the government’s IT service means that many civil service staff, along with their knowledge, skills, networks and infrastructure has been transferred to suppliers. The Government needs to rebuild this capacity urgently.

Importantly, they also emphasised that IT should not be regarded as somehow separate from public services (as something that happens “over there”, conducted only by a technical elite), but rather that:

Knowledge about how modern information systems and technology can be used to improve public services should not be restricted to the IT profession – this knowledge is essential to the work of all senior civil servants responsible for designing and delivering policy. The Government should explore how departmental boards and senior officials can best benefit from professional training and support in technology policy. A systematic programme to improve these skills across the senior civil service would also help support the Government’s aim of ensuring public services become “digital by default” by improving the integration of technology and policy throughout the policy-making process.

The issue of the cultural changes needed to help drive a more successful use of IT in Government was touched upon during the oral evidence with the Rt Hon Francis Maude MP (Q.483+), where the Minister stated

I am always a bit sceptical about trying to achieve cultural change. I think the thing to do is try to change behaviour and, out of changed behaviour, a different culture emerges… you do not achieve cultural change by trying to change the culture; you achieve it by changing behaviours, and the culture change follows from the behaviour change

The key action now is for Government to distil these numerous reviews, reports and recommendations into a short, actionable plan that can deliver  successful outcomes. This will start with a determined effort to improve its baseline data – as the PASC report observes:

The Government’s own information about its IT is woefully inadequate. This lack of data means that governments have failed to benchmark the price it pays for IT goods and services; this data must be collected centrally to allow the Government to obtain the best possible price from the market.

Importantly it also calls for:

All IT procurement contracts [to] be published in full to ensure transparency and restore trust. This would allow external experts to challenge current practices and identify ways services could be delivered differently as well as more economically.

And, with the majority of major IT expenditure committed within existing contracts, the report says that Government should use such information and transparency to help:

… challenge and hold to account current providers, and … renegotiate, disaggregate and re-compete existing contracts where it becomes clear that more cost effective delivery mechanisms are available.

The Committee raise disturbing issues aired during their inquiry, ranging from claims of a “cartel” made during oral evidence to an over-reliance on an “oligopoly” of large suppliers. Addressing this apparent distortion of an effective, open marketplace in the supply and provision of IT services in the public sector forms another key recommendation in the PASC report, namely the need to:

Widen … the supplier base. The Government must expand its supplier base by promoting fair and open competition and engaging with innovative SMEs. To widen the supplier base the Government needs to reduce the size of its contracts and greatly simplify the procurement process. It must also adopt common standards and ensure that systems interoperate to eliminate over-reliance on a small group of suppliers, and commoditise where possible. Most importantly, departments need the capacity to deal directly with a wider range of suppliers, especially SMEs.

The Committee also request an independent investigation into allegations made during its inquiry:

The Government should urgently commission an independent, external investigation to determine whether there is substance to these serious allegations of anti-competitive behaviour and collusion. The Government should also provide a trusted and independent escalation route to enable SMEs confidentially to raise allegations of malpractice.

These various reports, and the ongoing Cabinet Office commitment to reform, suggest that Government IT still has a major period of significant change ahead. If suppliers thought the recent round of negotiations aimed at securing cost efficiencies and savings were the end game, they will need to think again. The direction of travel is clear: what remains less clear at present are the mechanisms to be used to drive the necessary outcomes. Whether for example the Government will adopt measures to prioritise small firms to give them guaranteed amounts of work until the market becomes more balanced. And how the behavioural and cultural changes will be incentivised and delivered.

With several major policy programmes in development, such as Universal Credits and Real Time Information, there is a clear opportunity for the Government to apply the lessons learned and recommendations made across recent reports and inquiries – and to deliver policy outcomes that show the real potential of IT in helping improve the quality and efficiency of our public services.

We await the Government’s official response to the new PASC report with interest.

10 years on, where next for open source and open standards in UK Government?

Published on March 14th, 20114 comment

10 years on, will the UK government’s latest policy pronouncement on open source and open standards prove any more successful than earlier attempts?

The Cabinet Office publication of a procurement policy note on open standards for government IT requirements is the latest in a long line of policy requirements concerning both open standards and open source.

In 2001, the Cabinet Office commissioned a study on open source and open standards, “Analysis of the Impact of OpenSource Software”.  With hindsight, the report seems optimistic:

“Within five years, 50% of the volume of the software infrastructure market could be taken by OSS”.

Elsewhere, it was more cautious:

“[we] recommend against any preference for OSS on the desktop, but also recommend that this issue be reassessed by the end of 2002, by which time early trials of the use of OSS desktops may have generated sufficient evidence to warrant a reassessment”

The report also recognised the dangers of lock-in and over-dependence on proprietary standards from dominant suppliers:

“This report argues that many of the Government’s risks that arise from over-dependence on proprietary free protocols and data formats for interoperability can be controlled by the selective use of open data standards.”

Also:

“This report concludes that OSS has shown that access to software’s source code is a major enabler of flexibility, and hence reduces legacy problems considerably. The report recommends that the Government obtain full rights to bespoke software that it procures – this includes any customisation of off-the-shelf software packages.”

In 2002, the government published its first open source policy. Its key policy commitments were:

  • UK Government will consider OSS solutions alongside proprietary ones in IT procurements. Contracts will be awarded on a value for money basis.
  • UK Government will only use products for interoperability that support open standards and specifications in all future IT developments.
  • UK Government will seek to avoid lock-in to proprietary IT products and services.
  • UK Government will consider obtaining full rights to bespoke software code or customisations of COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) software it procures wherever this achieves best value for money.
  • UK Government will explore further the possibilities of using OSS as the default exploitation route for Government funded R&D software.

The Cabinet Office also established its e-Government Interoperability Framework (eGIF) to help work with suppliers, academia and industry to agree the open standards that should be used in all government procurements. That regime developed as far as including an accreditation regime to ensure open standards expertise and competence both in the IT industry and amongst individual practitioners.

In 2004, “OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE Use within UK Government” was published. It reiterated government policy as follows:

  • UK Government will consider OSS solutions alongside proprietary ones in IT procurements. Contracts will be awarded on a value for money basis.
  • UK Government will only use products for interoperability that support open standards and specifications in all future IT developments.
  • UK Government will seek to avoid lock-in to proprietary IT products and services.
  • UK Government will consider obtaining full rights to bespoke software code or customisations of COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) software it procures wherever this achieves best value for money.
  • Publicly funded R&D projects which aim to produce software outputs shall specify a proposed software exploitation route at the start of the project. At the completion of the project, the software shall be exploited either commercially or within an academic community or as OSS.

After an early burst of enthusiasm, as the Cabinet Office replaced the Office of the e-Envoy with the new office of the CIO, the emphasis on open source and open standards seems to have waned. After this time, eGIF appears to have become largely dormant with no updates to its open standards since 2005; and there is little if any evidence that the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) ensured any level of compliance with the procurement mandates set out by the policy. It was thus largely a paper policy with little substance.

It was not until 2009 that Tom Watson MP (then Minister for Digital Engagement), revisited and re-energised the policy. “Open Source, Open Standards and Re-Use:  Government Action Plan” was, as the name suggests, intended to ensure that what had long been government policy on paper was given new impetus. Its key objectives were to:

  • ensure that the Government adopts open standards and uses these to communicate with the citizens and businesses that have adopted open source solutions
  • ensure that open source solutions are considered properly and, where they deliver best value for money (taking into account other advantages, such as re-use and flexibility) are selected for Government business solutions.
  • strengthen the skills, experience and capabilities within Government and in its suppliers to use open source to greatest advantage.
  • embed an „open source‟ culture of sharing, re-use and collaborative development across Government and its suppliers, building on the re-use policies and processes already agreed within the CIO Council, and in doing so seek to stimulate innovation, reduce cost and risk,  and improve speed to market.
  • ensure that there are no procedural barriers to the adoption of open source products within government, paying particular regard to the different business models and supply chain relationships involved.
  • ensure that systems integrators and proprietary software suppliers demonstrate the same flexibility and ability to re-use their solutions and products as is inherent in open source.

And 10 years on, January this year has seen the publication of the latest note on open source and open standards in procurement.

There are few published government sources that demonstrate the success of this decade of policies and therefore whether open standards and open source adoption has been successful. Anecdotal evidence from suppliers, small and large alike, suggests that little if anything of significance has changed over the last decade.

Throughout the last 10 years there has been a persistent fault line between government policy aspiration and its implementation. The years between around 2005 and 2009 also seem to have seen a notable absence of focus on key policy areas, such as  open standards and open source. The new procurement policy note repeats earlier positive aspirations about open source and open standards. Presumably this time it will need to be enforced through OGC procurement notices and in terms of compliance at contract level. So that its impact can be independently verified, details should be published online about the number of procurements complying with the policy, and measuring the penetration of proprietary versus open systems and solutions.

Policy pronouncements alone clearly count for nothing if they are not enforced or monitored. The real test will be to measure the progress and impact of the latest policy commitments over the next few years. Key to this will be to see what mechanisms the Cabinet Office puts into place to ensure compliance. Past efforts have failed. Now let’s see if the lessons have been learned and the government can finally ensure long-standing policy commitments can move beyond mere paper words.

Summary of key open source and open standards documents:

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