IT News and Information Blog

The New Goverment - Implications for IT  12.05.2010

The new government plans to abolish the ID card, biometric schemes and more. They will scrap £15 billion of government IT projects. Software houses, IT consultants and others in the IT industry will doubtless be disappointed. As a software developer and consultant, I should be too, shouldn't I? Well, perhaps perversely, I am not disappointed at all. In fact, I applaud their intention and hope that existing Conditions of Contract don't scupper Cameron's (and Clegg's?) plans.

Why?

Firstly because, in Cameron's words, it will reverse "the substantial erosion of civil liberties under the Labour government and roll back state intrusion". As a private individual, I don't like intrusion (who does?) and I like my civil liberties, thank you.

Further, as an experienced IT professional and pragmatist, I know how easy it is for data to be lost, stolen, wrongly entered and misused (remember all those discs lost by the MOD, NHS, HMRC (formerly Inland Revenue) and tales of horror of incorrect and out-of-date medical and criminal records (innocent people being confused with criminals then spending years trying to sort things out.)

Secondly, because, as a tax payer, I don't really like paying a very large company very large sums of money to create software that doesn't work (too many examples to list here - see old issues of Computer Weekly), isn't wanted or isn't needed. Having said this, there are many examples of government IT projects that do work and are incredibly useful (HMRC's Employer CDROM, for example).

Thirdly, the same large firms always seem to be the ones involved (See old issues of Computer Weekly, again.) Small, independent companies like ours don't really benefit from those large contracts. Or do they? If you know differently, please let me know!

Perhaps, common sense is prevailing at last. We can but hope!