System upgrade?: The first year of the Government’s ICT strategy

This follow-up report examines the Government’s ICT strategy, which was published shortly after our original report System Error and adopted some of its recommendations.

The Government recently published its own assessment of progress. The headline from our examination of the evidence is that the ICT community in government has indeed taken some important steps forward. We set out examples in this report.

We found though that there is more work to be done. There should be better engagement of senior business leaders in government working together with ICT leaders towards a strategy which is collectively embraced. The innovative approaches to development for which we argued in System Error could be developed much further. Questions also remain around accountability, measurement, and a common approach towards improvement. It is, in our view, crucial therefore that ICT is given the priority it needs among the Government’s policy and business leaders. It is after all critical not just to the success of future policy development but also to the Government’s drive to deficit reduction.