Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Labour Systematic IT 'to Sound Sexy'

Tony Blair's one-time IT arch has mentioned Labour ministers systematic costly P.C. projects since they longed for their policies to "sound sexy".

Ian Watmore - who is right away in assign of a Whitehall effectiveness expostulate - gave a sardonic evaluation of the formerly government's IT record.

He told the open administration department cabinet Labour's buying had been over-ambitious and badly-managed.

The merger has called a hindrance to large IT projects to save cash.

In a plan report published by the Cabinet Office , it vowed to pierce to "smaller more achievable projects" and mentioned no intrigue will cost more than 100m.

It has moreover betrothed to open up buying to not as big firms, who have found it tough in the past to break the hold of giants such as HP, BT and Fujitsu, who together obtain about a third of middle supervision contracts, value about 5bn a year.

Mr Watmore, who is permanent personal assistant at the Cabinet Office, mentioned a few of the high form IT "fiascos" beneath the formerly supervision had not been down to poor technology but to poor project management and badly-defined policies.

Too often, he told the Commons open administration department committee, ministers simply systematic IT as an "after thought... or worse, there were people considering they indispensable to have a square of technology to make their process sound sexy".

Mr Watmore became the head of Tony Blair's e-Government Unit in 2004 - at the tallness of Labour's IT buying plan - before going on to head the then Prime Minister's Delivery Unit.

He then left supervision for a short spell as arch senior manager of the Football Association, before being brought back to Whitehall final year by Cabinet Office apportion Francis Maude - who was moreover being grilled by the cabinet - with the task of slicing waste.

But it was Mr Watmore's vocation before entering government, when he was handling director of IT consultancy hulk Accenture, that came beneath the spotlight many during the two-hour barbecuing by MPs.

Committee chairperson Bernard Jenkin told him: "You advance from precisely the large corporate enlightenment that has bedevilled IT buying in government. Are you segment of the informative change the apportion is seeking for, or aren't you only segment of the problem?"

Mr Watmore replied: "I am of course not segment of the complaint and we would competition that the corporate attention of this nation has caused the problems."

He mentioned the "so-called IT disasters" of new years were not down to technical problems but "over-ambitious projects" that were approaching to broach intricate changes at a national turn on a singular day, "the supposed 'Big Bang' implementation".

Mr Jenkin moreover questioned the government's undertaking to "open source" software, asking how many polite servants in assign of creation the process work had a credentials in the open source community. He sharp out that the formerly government's "open source" guru had left to come together Microsoft.

Mr Watmore, who claims to have already saved 2bn in Whitehall efficiencies, mentioned he wants to finish the UK government's dependence on Microsoft products, that are used by about 90% of polite servants.

He insisted the supervision was committed to using more "open source" program to save money - but had to change this with concerns about how simply it could be "hacked".

His "personal" view, he added, was that Apple products, that he mentioned he used at home, should moreover be used more in government.

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