By Julian Goldsmith, 9 January 2009 14:53
NEWS
UK heads of IT have cast a vote of no confidence for Prime Minister Gordon Brown's proposals to beef up the digital economy in the latest silicon.com CIO Jury.
Jurors voted 11 to one against the likelihood of the PM's plans to invest in the country's tech infrastructure as a way to boost the general economy.
When asked whether they thought the cash injection would push the economy towards growth, the majority was sceptical.
Many of the jurors believe changes need to be made to the financial infrastructure of the country instead and some suggested more tax breaks for businesses would be more useful to economic recovery than a prospective investment in broadband services.
However, although not necessarily a silver bullet, many jurors applauded the prospect of an improved communications infrastructure for the UK.
Hachette Filipacchi IT director Nicholas Bellenberg said: "This will not kick-start the economy into growth. However, upgrading the telecoms infrastructure is a good thing and I suppose this will create some jobs temporarily for people to put cables in the ground.
"If, as a result of this, better homeworking and small business operation is possible at lower costs - i.e. connectivity becomes less asymmetric and upload speeds are improved - we should see some practical benefits. Increasing download bandwidth without addressing the return path would be very short-sighted."
Today's CIO Jury:
- Ben Acheson, IT Manager, PADS Printing and Commercial Stationery
- Alastair Behenna, CIO, Harvey Nash
- Nicholas Bellenberg, IT director, Hachette Filipacchi
- Pete Crowe, IT director, Fat Face
- Steve Gediking, head of IT, Independent Police Complaints Commission
- Madhushan Gokool, IT manager, Storm Models
- Paul Haley, director of information technology, Aberdeen University
- Jacques René, CIO, Ascend
- Mike Roberts, IT director, The London Clinic
- Mark Saysell, IT director, Creo
- David Supple, head of IT, Ecotech Research & Consulting Limited
- Steve Williams, director of information systems and services, Newcastle University
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Comments
There are 3 comments. Join the discussion
1. Richard
Yes, like all of Gordon Brown's schemes:
I've just received new invoices from my ISP for the 8 pence reduction in VAT for some domain names.
Complete chaos and much extra work throughout industry & business - just for the few pence saved by (temporarily) cutting VAT to 15%.
The government employs masses of expensive advisers:
Why do they make such poor decisions?
2. James Button
Wat s desperately needed is credit at reasonable costs. Has been needed for a year.
1)No mortgages = no house sales.
2)No house sales = builders out of work.
3)Building tradespeopleunemployed = retail sales down.
4)Retail sales down = businesses need credit.
5)No credit for Businesses = more unemployed.
6) More unemployed = repeat from step 3 substituting 'All types of Workers for 'Building tradespeople'.
Gordon - please note that pconditions 2, 3, 4, & 5 al mean more costs and less income to the government.
So - how about direct loans from the government at - say 1.5% above bank rate, fixed at the (then) current rate for 6 months, and renewable - say 3 times at whatever rate is applicable at the renewal times.
You know - STABILITY ?
Because £2500 assistance for taking on a 'trainee' ain't gona be much benefit to a company that cannot afford materials for them to use, or find actual income generating work for them during that 'employment' when they are laying off skilled, and experienced workers due to lack of business caused by lack on ongoing credit facilities.
P.S.
A loan @ 6% (5% bank rate + 1%) when it costs the bank 5% to borrow = 1% profit to the bank.
A loan @ 6% (3% bank rate + 3%) when it costs the bank 4% to borrow = 2% profit to the bank.
So - the banks are looking for as much profit as before, but on half the business, and probably far less than half the risk to them, except for the added prospect of the loan cost causing the borrower to go bankrupt.
3. Stuart Fawcett
If were ever going to compete across our borders then we need to be leaders in an area. In finance we were good until derailed by bad US loans and poor understanding within the regulation bodies, however the concept was fine. In telecoms we should take the same view - having a world class national infrastructure to ensure that data management and more importantly richer content is both available and exportable to the rest of the world. These high quality broadcasts & applications will then let others see and want our talented producers and their products.