Health CIO Connelly at odds with PM over NPfIT value for money? - The Tony Collins Blog. Subscribe to this blog About Author Tony Collins is an investigative and campaigning journalist and former Executive Editor at Computer Weekly. With his friend and colleague David Bicknell he wrote "Crash", which found common factors in the world's largest public and private sector IT-related failures. He wrote "Open Verdict", a book on the strange deaths of defence scientists. He writes, and gives talks, on the tensions and disputes between suppliers and users. Contact Author Email Tony Twitter Profile Linked-in Profile In September last year I asked Christine Connelly, the Health CIO, whether the £5.8bn spent so far on the National Programme for IT had been value for money. Her reply in defence of the NPfIT leaves me to wonder whether she and David Cameron have different views on the value for money of the billions spent on the programme so far.
Connelly said in reply to my question: “The money we have spent so far I believe has been value for money.” Connelly: “UK Government Will Impose Compulsory Open Standards” “UK Government Promises To Go Open – Again” In a post entitled UK Government Promises to Go Open – Yet Again Glyn Moody provides a rather cynical view based on his experiences of Government promises regarding ICT and openness: “after years of empty promises, the UK government assures us that this time is will really open up, embracing open source and openness in all its forms”. However there is also some optimism in the column: “… there is a ray of hope. For as I reported a month ago, the Cabinet Office has settled on a rather good definition of open standards that includes the key phrase “have intellectual property made irrevocably available on a royalty free basis”, which does create a truly level playing-field that allows open source to compete fairly.”
The column concludes: “Let’s hope it really marks the beginning of a new era of openness in UK government IT – and that I won’t have to write this article ever again.” Publication by the Cabinet Office of the “Government ICT Strategy” UK Government ICT Strategy resources. This strategy sets out the strategic direction of central government ICT and the main actions for the next 24 months.
The Chief Information Officer (CIO) Delivery Board also published a strategic implementation plan, in collaboration with departments and HM Treasury, in October 2011. The government’s ICT Strategy and Strategic Implementation Plan will deliver better public services for less cost. Through reuse and sharing of our ICT assets, we will improve productivity and efficiency while reducing waste and the likelihood of project failure.
This in turn will improve and open up public service delivery by supporting online transactional services for citizens and businesses, and create channels for collaboration and policy debate. Government ICT strategy targets cloud, apps and open source | Public Sector | silicon.com. Government aims to reduce ICT complexity | Guardian Government Computing | Guardian Professional. The government is aiming to reduce the complexity of its ICT projects in an effort to raise the success rate of their delivery and to save money. The Cabinet Office has published details of its plans in a new Government ICT Strategy document, with an emphasis on breaking down projects, moving away from 'big bang implementations' and encouraging smaller companies to bid for business in the field.
It is also aimed at increasing the use of open source software, building up relevant skills in the civil service and developing a single government web domain. Francis Maude, minister for the Cabinet Office, said: "For too long, government has wasted vast amounts of money on ineffective and duplicate IT systems," said Maude. "We need to ensure that frontline services have the tools to do their job to deliver effective public services. "We will end the oligopoly of big business supplying government IT by breaking down contracts into smaller, more flexible projects.
Government puts open source at the heart of its new IT strategy - 3/30/2011. Wednesday 30 March 2011 01:01 The government has launched its much-anticipated new IT strategy, with open source highlighted as a key part of its plans, and a promise that the coalition is "determined to do things better. " "We want government ICT to be open. Open to the people and organisations that use our services. And open to any provider, regardless of size," said Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude. The ICT strategy report put open source as a purchasing priority, "Where appropriate, the government will procure open source solutions," it said.
As part of the government strategy it will push ahead with a move to cloud computing, which will include large-scale datacentre, network, software and asset consolidation. An online government applications store, to enable the reuse of business applications and components across the public sector, will also be created in the next 12 to 24 months. Maude says the government's bad reputation for ICT is largely unjustified.
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