CIO Jury: IT chiefs question UK's global competitiveness

The UK will lose its fight to compete with the new Asian economies in the information age because of a poor education system, a lack of entrepreneurs, high taxation and red tape, according to leading UK IT chiefs.

The 12 CIOs on silicon.com's CIO Jury user panel were split evenly down the middle on whether the UK is well-positioned to exploit the information age compared to other countries, but even those who said it is had words of caution.

Others rounded on the UK's education system for failing to produce people with the right skill-sets to help companies be competitive in the global economy.

Jacques Rene, director of IT and projects at Airclaims, said: "I do not think that education in the UK is doing enough to gear our younger generations to fully exploit the information age or indeed to become entrepreneurs."

Paul Broome, IT director at 192.com, said the last leap forward for the UK was the creation of the Open University by Harold Wilson's government in the 'white heat of technology' era during the 1960s.

"Mr Blair should hang his head in shame," he said. "Economically we do not have the government-backed links between state, research universities and business that the USA, France, China and so on do."

Phil Young, head of IT operations at Amtrak, argued it is the R&D and taxation environment, rather than education, that is holding the UK back.

"I think that although we have the skill sets in the UK to exploit the information age, our high taxation and pay rates all impact our ability to invest in R&D and projects as the pay-back and rewards take longer to claw back as say R&D would in China at the moment," he said.

Graham Yellowley, director of technology at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities International, was one of those who said UK Plc is reasonably well-positioned to exploit the information age but said there is still a problem in giving backing to new ideas and innovations.

"What UK Plc doesn't seem to be good at is turning the positioning into full reality - ideas and initiatives are launched but without large amounts of resources backing it, it will always be overtaken by larger investors such as USA and Japan, with China as an emergent," he said.

Andy Pepper, director of business information systems at Tetley pointed to the UK's developed infrastructure as an advantage but Andrew Leaning, IT director at Dod's Parliamentary Communications, warned that the current generation is "punching above its weight".

"We've really failed the next generation with the quality of their education and training and we're going to pay dearly for it in the future. The educational level of people leaving schools now is shocking across the board but particularly in the skills needed for the information age - lateral thinking, creativity and problem solving," he said.

Leaning argued that if UK Plc is to compete it needs a true information age infrastructure such as the universal low-cost high-speed broadband available in South Korea and Japan.

Today's CIO Jury was...

Chris Broad, head of IS&T, UKAEA
Paul Broome, IT director, 192.com
Peter Dew, CIO, BOC
Stephen Hand, group IT director, Lloyd's Register
John Keeling, director of computer services, John Lewis Partnership
Andrew Leaning, IT director, Dod's Parliamentary Communications
Nick Masterson-Jones, IT programmes director, Voca
Andy Pepper, director of business information systems, Tetley
Jacques Rene, director of IT and projects, Airclaims
Graham Yellowley, director of technology, Mitsubishi UFJ Securities International
Phil Young, head of IT operations, Amtrak Express Parcels
David Yu, COO, Betfair

If you are a CIO, IT director or equivalent at a large or small company in the private or public sector and you want to be part of silicon.com's CIO Jury pool, or you know an IT chief who should be, then drop us a line at editorial@silicon.com