System Error: fixing the flaws in government IT

Ian Watmore commends Institute for Government report on government IT

On Wed 2 March, it was a packed house for the launch of System Error: fixing the flaws in government IT at the Institute for Government.

The audience (a mix of civil servants, large corporations, bloggers and 'agilists') came to hear a panel discuss the report's findings and debate how government should respond.

Speakers included:

• Sir Ian Magee (Chair of the Improving Government IT Taskforce)
• Ian Watmore (Government Chief Operating Officer and Head of the Efficiency and Reform Group, Cabinet Office)
• Mark O'Neill (Founder of Skunkworks and Chief Information Officer, DCLG and DCMS)

The meeting was be chaired by Andrew Adonis, Director of the Institute for Government.

The event was kindly supported by Research in Motion.

Platform and Agile

The Institute's report argues that government should re-think its approach to IT: focusing on improving co-ordination, collaboration and common-standards (a 'platform') while also adopting more flexible development techniques ('agile').

Ian Watmore, the Government Chief Operating Officer, welcomed the findings saying "this report is first class in the way it lays out the future. The way we build systems is changing - in a more iterative way and to shorter cycles. To do this we must change our methods to be more agile and to involve users in both the design and delivery of solutions."

He argued that because government IT projects are very large, a particular problem in the UK given our centralised approach to government, it is easy for them to become unwieldy and unresponsive to changing requirements adding "government IT is a difficult as it gets".

Adopting an agile approach helps to address these challenges as well as encouraging policymakers, technologists and users to communicate and collaborate. Watmore highlighted the Universal Credit project in DWP as an example of how government was already adopting more agile approaches.

Changing the government's DNA

Mark O'Neil, CIO at two government departments and self-styled 'Big Skunk' for the cross-government 'Skunkworks', said he planned to adopt the agile recommendations immediately and "try and make them part of his organisations' DNA". The shift in mindset and culture required should not be underestimated.

This theme was echoed in many of the questions which emphasised the enormous cultural transformation implied by the report as well as the need to rethink many of government’s processes. Procurement processes in particular were highlighted as reinforcing a bias towards super-sized projects and a limited number of large suppliers.

Bill McCluggage, deputy Government Chief Information Officer said that there was a lot of work going on behind the scenes to get SMEs more involved in government contracts. "Open standards are a big part of the answer", he explained.

Commenting on the event, Ian Magee, the chair of the Institute's Improving Government IT Taskforce and co-author of the report said, "what we have set out today are some clear, evidence-based recommendations for how government can improve its approach to IT. There are major implications here for all aspects of government, not just the IT community and we look forward to working alongside Ian Watmore and colleagues in the months ahead to help start making that vision a reality."

Report by Institute for Government Fellow Adrian Brown

More information

• Download the report: System Error: fixing the flaws in government IT
• Share your thoughts via our LinkedIn group
• Share your thoughts on Twitter (hashtag #ukgovit)
• Read more about the Institute's work on government IT
• See photos of the event by Paul Clarke on Flickr

Video

• Watch speaker highlights from the event (YouTube, 14m:17s)
• Watch the whole event [64.26mins]
• Read a transcript of the event (PDF, 144KB)
• Why is government IT so challenging?
• What are the benefits of an agile approach?
• Why is it important to co-ordinate IT across government?