By Andy McCue, 20 September 2006 16:05
NEWS
Government IT projects have a poor track record because of a reckless and "gung-ho" approach that leads to insufficient testing and over-complex design, according to a new report.
The Where next for transformational government? report by The Work Foundation (formerly the Industrial Society) claims too many government IT projects fail to address the risks involved and ignore the advice of staff who will use the systems.
Alexandra Jones, associate director at The Work Foundation and co-author of the report, said public sector IT managers have a "reckless streak" and are too easily blinded by the potential of the technology.
She said in the report: "Government should not be about cutting-edge innovation - it should be about serving citizens well and efficiently. If someone gets their benefit late due to computer failure, it matters in a way that it simply doesn't when private sector ICT projects fail. The private sector can afford the luxuries of innovating; in the public sector, ICT needs to work."
silicon.com Public Sector
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Recommendations in the report include trialling large-scale IT projects on a smaller scale before being more widely rolled out; keeping projects simple rather than trying to reinvent the wheel; avoiding constant revisions to projects, which can lead to scope creep; and better managing the process change behind computerisation.
The report was sponsored by Adobe and is based on the views of 1,000 members of the public, 500 frontline staff and 25 senior managers in the public sector.
Comments
There are 6 comments. Join the discussion
1. Adam Ripley (IS Integration)
At last somebody speaking common sense about the need to provide tried and tested solutions to deliver true cost benefits to the British public. I hope the government takes head of this report and puts in place some action towards improvement.
As I have stated publicly many times the approach to testing systems in the government sector is often to leave it to the supplier. The private sector have, in the main, got wise to this and know just because its in the contract that it says it will work doesn't mean it will work in practice. The project budgets must include provision for an indpendent test assurance process that works closely with the business.
Lets hope this report hits home.
2. anonymous
She _must_ be joking. Government IT may be inept, badly managed, lacking focus or clear objectives and overseen by people with no experience or qualifications but 'gung ho'!?! My experience is that government IT is typically years behind industry, psychotically risk-averse, insecure, massively indifferent to customer need and very, very slow. "cutting edge innovation"? Does she not know use of USB devices is considered dangerously modern and banned in most of the Service?
I'm bang alongside the statement, "in the public sector, ICT needs to work." but the reason it doesn't in most places is because the systems are so old their largely obselete and fail to work with newer ones.
Government IT is shot through with fundamental flaws - as is the Civil Service - but over-innovation is very much not one of them.
3. Richard Davies
I don't work in the public sector and I still think this women is full of it. She is off the mark and just trying to say her piece which is simply an opinion. I agree more with the comments made by anonymous!
4. Christopher Quinton
This report is quite extraordinary. Government IT projects are anything but reckless and "gung-ho". Over-complex design, is a common issue, and this is a major cause of problems.
The public sector is so risk averse that their decision-making process is ponderous at best, amongst the quicker decision-makers, and slower than continental drift with the rest.
5. anonymous
Most government IT projects are doomed to failure before they start.
The primary causes of failure are
a) risk is not sufficiently taken into account in assessing competing proposals when
initial procurements take place;
b) as a result, evaluation, even at the bid stage, tends to focus on initial price and (often, politically driven) timescales;
c) suppliers who express views about e.g. the resources or timescales required to undertake a project *properly*, are not usually rewarded for such corporate professionalism. The procurement "game", whose rules are invariably devised by advisors who, conveniently, have no responsibility for delivery, positively encourage competitive risk-taking - rather like a game of "chicken".
The result is that most projects are under-funded and targeted with unrealistic timescales from the outset.
6. Mark Outhwaite
Doomed - hmmm. Actually the reason many IT projects in government are doomed is that the underlying processes they are trying to computerise are byzantine, incredibly complex, built up on a coral reef of legislation (the live on top of the dead) and so obscure that few people if anybody can fully understand the end to end process and why it works - which is a miracle in its own right if it does. Computerising a 34 page benefits claim form may be some kind of achievement but it begs the question why it had to be 34 pages long and not just two. Until any IT project in government begins with a fundamental review of the underlying processes and their redesign, realignment and simplification (and that pig zoomed dangerously close as I typed) then any IT implementer bidding for public sector work is guilty of a triumph of hope over experience.