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Newsroom & speeches
20 January 2009
Good afternoon and thank you very much to Intellect and OGC for hosting today’s conference.
It is hard to believe that- only a handful of years ago- very few government services were available online. Now you can use your own computer to a do huge range of things- everything from filing your personal tax, to submitting a planning application, to checking the census. We have truly come a long way.
Over the years, Intellect has played a pivotal role in creating closer and more effective links between government and the technology and IT sectors.
And of course OGC, as the government’s champions of value-for-money, has been driving forward our ambitions to make the most of the technology available to us.
Today’s conference, a partnership between Intellect and OGC, is a symbol of the ever-stronger relationship that is being forged between the public sector and the IT and technology industry.
In these tough economic times, it’s more important than ever that the public sector harnesses technology to deliver its services as effectively as possible. Equally, we need to ensure that the technology itself is procured, implemented, used and maintained as efficiently as possible.
Globally, we are facing some of the toughest challenges for financial and credit markets for decades- perhaps for a century. And business and jobs across the every country in the world are now being hit. That has serious repercussions for the IT sector too, particularly for small and medium sized enterprises, who can be affected both by falling numbers of private sector contracts, and also by a credit squeeze from the banks.
Governments and central banks across the globe are working together to tackle the problems that we face – taking action to keep the banking system safe, to promote lending and to support the wider economy.
We announced further measures yesterday, and last week which will help with the credit crunch. And we have set out wider action to support the economy – with today’s inflation figures showing that the VAT cut is making a difference – and to support businesses through tax changes.
Public sector procurement and support for investment and jobs is important too. That is why we think it is important to increase infrastructure investment during the recession to provide extra support for jobs whilst investing in our future too. That includes investment in IT infrastructure. I think to cut overall public spending during recession would be deeply damaging.
Indeed as we know, using new technology is vital for improving our public services and supporting communities. The benefits of our IT success stories are felt by millions of citizens every day across the country.
In education:
In health:
In transport:
And to provide joined-up access to Government services online we have the DirectGov website, which received 10.1 million visits in August 2008 and was ranked above eBay, Amazon and Tesco for being up to date, helpful and a trusted source of information.
So IT can help us transform services, and it can also help make them more efficient.
Improving efficiency and getting better value for money is always important. At a time like this I think it is even more so. With the evonomy under pressure, there are ever more calls on the public purse, and where possible we need to make efficiency savings so we can use the money in other ways to help support the economy. Also where taxpayers are under pressure, they need to know that public money is being well spent and making a real difference.That means tackling waste or inefficiency wherever we find it.
In 2004, Sir Peter Gershon’s Review brought the concept of value-for-money to the heart of public services and asked people to be hugely ambitious about delivering efficiencies. But it also opened our eyes to how much we could achieve. And in response to the challenges of the Gershon Review we have undertaken the most successful efficiency programme ever in the UK public sector.
We set a target of £21.5 billion of efficiency savings in 2004-07. In fact, the public sector achieved £26.5 billion of savings over that period. That means billions of extra pounds spent where it makes the most difference: improving front line services- on refurbished schools, better hospitals, affordable housing and improved transport infrastructure.
Last year we set up the Operational Efficiency Programme to see what more could be done to get better value whilst protecting, improving and extending our vital services.
We asked four business experts to look at particular areas of public sector operations. Their final conclusions will be made in time for the Budget next year, and they will feed into the plans for the next spending review.
Of course the area of this work that is of most relevance to us today is the IT strand that is being led by Dr Martin Read. I am very grateful to Martin for all his hard work so far, and I would like to thank publicly all those organisations that have co-operated with him during the course of his extensive studies.
Martin is analysing the opportunities to reduce the UK public sector’s IT costs and improve the delivery confidence of the Government’s investment in IT enabled projects, whilst simultaneously maintaining and improving the quality of public services.
We have seen how, across the public sector, significant savings can be made through operational transformation, the development of a world-class IT infrastructure, strategic outsourcing, increased standardisation and simplification and ensuring we drive the best deals for the provision of IT services from suppliers.
However, lets also face it. Procurement of IT services has not always been the most efficient or effective process. And its also important that we do it better, and avoid the waste and soaring contract costs which have unfortunately plagued some high profile projects.
Martin Read will produce a full report for the 2009 Budget with all of his recommendations, but he has been looking at a series of important areas.
He has been looking at strengthening the role of departmental Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and of the CIO Council which brings together CIOs from across the public sector. This move would help ensure that computer systems are not being duplicated and avoid the costs associated with that.
We have an extensive technology and systems base within the Public Sector, and already much of what we do is world-class. It makes sense to reuse existing systems wherever possible: it is cheaper, it reduces risk, it is faster, and it minimises environmental impact.
We are also keen to look at strengthening the sponsorship and assurance of IT-enabled projects in order to ensure that the right mechanisms are in place to realise the intended business benefits from our investment.
We will continue to work hard to reduce the costs and timescales involved in public sector IT procurement.
And using public and private sector examples from around the world, we will build on the existing benchmarking that the CIO Council is undertaking, as a way of driving performance. There are massive variations in the cost of different department’s IT support, in areas where it isn’t clear they really need or are benefiting from significantly different levels of service.
By delivering more efficiency savings and improving results in IT and the programmes it supports, we can keep investing in our public services and help support our economy at a difficult time.
The IT sector has become more important to government and the public sector, and it becomes ever more important every day. So – in line with the core purpose of the OGC – of course that means we need to do it efficiently and well. But the reason we need to do so is exactly because it has become so critical to the way we do business and the public sector’s ability to help transform people’s lives. We look forward to continuing to work with you on how we do this in future too.
Thank you.
[ENDS]
