Government IT projects can work, says LogicaCMG boss

There are some basic rules that can keep large-scale government IT projects on the road to success.

In an interview with silicon.com, LogicaCMG UK chief executive, Guy Warren, pointed to the Compass case management system the company is installing for the Crown Prosecution System as an example of "how you can get it right" with IT projects in the public sector.

Warren said: "You can get big projects right and they don't have to be disasters.

"You need good governance and good requirements. Have a clear specification. You need a very good steering committee because you sign a contract at a point in time but [over the years] you need to modify what the business need is."

Ensuring the technology is accepted is almost as important as making sure it works. "Make sure that business change is implemented properly to make sure that IT isn't rejected," he said.

He added: "There needs to be an ethos in the company of non-blame. You need an open culture."

Warren said there is likely to be good growth in demand for IT services over the next couple of years: "There are still a lot of initiatives to reduce the cost of government and that drives IT spending [on things like] shared services for multiple departments."

ID cards will be another growth area - and not just in the UK as a number of countries have similar plans.

And two-factor authentication to increase security for mobile transactions is likely to be a big growth area too. Warren said: "People do like the remote channels for simple transactions - people like the web but there's been a lot of fraud and spoofing and its been too easy to get someone's details."

Offshoring IT projects has also changed the services that customers are looking for, he said: "That's changed demand from the full project lifecycle to asking 'Can you do the requirements and can you test the software?' - which is an interesting dynamic in the industry."