IT revolution needed in local councils, says BCS boss

Spending Review IT announcements were too focused on Whitehall, claims Jos Creese

The IT announcements made in last week's Spending Review were too focused on central government and were "not that revolutionary", according to the boss of the BCS, Chartered Institute of IT, which claims local councils need to get in on the IT transformation act.

Last Wednesday, in his Spending Review and Autumn Statement, chancellor George Osborne set out plans to invest £450m in the Government Digital Service (GDS) and said digital transformation among departments would help them cope with the budget cuts he plans.

In a post on LinkedIn, the president of BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, Jos Creese, said the announcements were much too focused on central government.

"I have never seen so many references to digital in a budget statement before," he said. "The GDS will continue to be at the heart of digital reform, receiving £450m to create common IT platforms. Overall, £1.8bn will be invested in national digital transformation projects in the next four years, in what is described as a ‘digital revolution' in Whitehall.

"There has been criticism that these examples are about Whitehall. Frankly they are also not that revolutionary. What will be revolutionary, is digital reform of local public services."

Creese argues that unless local authorities take note of the direction the government is going when it comes to digital, and plan accordingly, they could face "a very bumpy ride indeed".

He added that the approach local authorities currently take to IT is often not good enough.

"Local public services have to be seen to champion more sharing," he said. "We are seeing a Darwinian process of natural selection emerging in shared services. But it's too slow and we need to make more of a crisis. IT infrastructures must be shared openly - there will be little space for the patchwork of small datacentres, in-house development teams and bespoke local systems that still exist across health, police and local councils."

He said Whitehall needs to resist the temptation to work out IT strategies from a central government point of view and that local authorities need to work together locally as well as connect to national systems.

"This is how a truly integrated and digitally advanced society will work, not as independent islands with their own infrastructure and setup," he added.

Local government needs to be proactive in its digital and IT transformation, Creese said.

"I think that the implications for local government are clear: public funding will expect adoption of digital means to improve services and reduce costs," he said.

"Rather than asking Whitehall to tell local government what to do, or creating a local GDS mirror to do that, local government should do what it does best - just get on with it. The track record of the sector in delivering technology innovation, savings, successful change and shared services continues to outperform anything in Whitehall."