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Delivering citizen-focused services for improved operational efficiency

IT professionals in the public sector and local government should prepare for a major efficiency drive, Bill McCluggage, Deputy Chief Information Officer for HM Government said today.

Speaking at the annual Government IT Conference in London, McCluggage said, ‘The pressure we face now is finance. The requirements of citizens are rising, while financial resources are reducing, quite rightly.’ The report of the Operational Efficiency Programme, published in April 2009, identified £15bn of potential savings from back office and IT.

McCluggage identified three themes for the future: common infrastructure, common standards and common capability. ‘We should share a common network in government. And yet, why don’t we do it?’

The public sector should look at streamlining its processes, McCluggage said. He was able to set up a transactional website at home in less than two hours. Yet public sector processes for a similar project would probably involve 26 different people and take 20 or more weeks. McCluggage concluded: ‘We are looking for a reduction in the cost of delivery, more agility… and simplified and standardised IT across the range.’

Local councils were urged to improve their websites by Martin Ferguson, Head of Policy at the Society of Information Technology Management (Socitm). Research shows that 40% of website visitors do not find the information they are looking for, Ferguson said.

This failure often leads them to make calls or face-to-face visits to the council. The cost to a council of a face-to-face visit is £8, while a website ‘contact’ costs just 39p. £11m a month could be saved if council websites were better at providing information and these visits and phone calls were avoided, Ferguson said. He added, ‘We need to ensure the information is up to date and accessible. We need to get the basics right.’

Phil Pavitt, Chief Information Officer at HM Revenue & Customs, said his department faced a budget cut of at least 5%. Spending on IT takes up 21% of HMRC’s £4bn annual budget.

HMRC outsourced its IT contract in 2004, to Capgemini as the prime supplier. Despite several renegotiations, the partnership was increasingly effective, Pavitt said. For example, CHIEF, or Customs Handling of Import and Export of Freight, had been moved onto new data centres and taken delivery of 26,000 new desktop PCs within 3 months, without disruption to the service.

‘In trying to get the best outsourcing partner, we need to keep reminding ourselves who is the customer,’ added Pavitt. ‘Innovation [that comes] with an invoice is not adding value.’

He concluded, ‘I believe the public sector is becoming an intelligent buyer. We are no longer a soft touch.’