"Serious concerns" over Gov's "lack of strategy" for IT

Friday 05 November 2021

Scrutineers have shared "serious concerns" about the Government's lack of tech strategy after it emerged IT systems now encompass more than 900 applications, while a £28m digital modernisation project is still on track to go more than twice over budget.

The comments from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) - which is responsible for analysing how well public money is spent by Government - followed a hearing with the Chief Operating Officer, where he stated that a strategy of that scale would require a “vast amount of work” which he was not sure would be “valuable.”

The hearing followed a report from the Comptroller and Auditor General, which concluded that poor budgeting had resulted in the costs of the Government's 'Integrated Technology Solution' (ITS) soaring to £63m.

When it was first launched in early 2020, the ITS project to combine the civil service’s creaking finance, HR and other systems into a single modern platform, was first predicted to cost around £28m.

When asked on Monday if there was a clear overarching digital strategy by PAC, Chief Operating Officer John Quinn said: "No there isn't, and the focus has been much more on IT transformation than digital transformation because of the legacy."

When asked if there was an overarching strategy for IT specifically, Mr Quinn responded in the negative, bringing the conversation back to their initiatives in tax and health.

Pictured: Chief Operating Officer John Quinn appeared at a Public Accounts Committee hearing on Monday.

"No. We have a strategy for dealing with the... as we said, we go back to the core thing that we wanted to do which is around tax, health.

"So there's a plan to... the new tax system's already been done, we are currently working on a new Electronic Patient Record which will be a cornerstone starting that road to digital engagement with the citizen on health.

"We will start in the next couple of years a replacement for the... the social security system, again, 2005 vintage home built which means it hasn't had the support issues because we built it ourselves so we know how to support it. But it has provided us with some issues, particularly when we went to home working.

"But do we have a strategy that encompasses the 900 applications and what we're going to do with them? No, we don't."

Pictured: Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Deputy Inna Gardiner, said there were "serious concerns" about the overarching strategy for the Government's digital and IT technology.

On whether they would be developing a strategy, Mr Quinn said that he was not sure of the value of doing a strategy encompassing the whole of Government, but that a general principle of simplification was underlying their work.

"We'll be developing some principles. I think a strategy that covers something as broad as Government in terms of those 900 applications would require a vast amount of work and effort and I'm not sure it's valuable.

"What we have is some principles around simplifying the estate, and so we have multiple use of the same application and different applications doing the same thing. So a simplification of the estate as opportunities arise to reduce those 900 applications down."

He gave an example of this simplification in the recent covid airport testing system, saying: "That booking and testing system was built by us working with Microsoft, its components put together, it's not bespoke code, and it was built as a booking and testing system.

"So when it went live, it was for booking people coming through the airport - it then evolved into also - because if you're booking and testing, you can book and jab as well, so it became the booking system for vaccinations.

"Would we go live with vehicle testing, MOT style testing on the island, it would become the booking and testing system for MOTs."

He later added that they "will publish something by the end of the year" outlining the principles of the programme.

After the hearing, the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Deputy Inna Gardiner, published a comment stating: "We have serious concerns about the integrated IT and digital strategy that encompasses all States services and applications.

"There appears to be a lack of strategy, the need for which has been amplified by the number of applications being rolled out. To avoid a repeat of previous IT failures, the Public Accounts Committee would like to see a clear strategy to understand how all elements fit together."