Evolve

Future Proofing

The Modernising government agenda set targets for electronic delivery of government services covering several years. And delivering the benefits from those investments will take longer again. In any event, in reality that will not be the end of the story – change is ever with us.

There is therefore a significant risk that much of the investment – whether by government, by the IT industry, or by other potential service providers, could be overtaken by events before it delivers any worthwhile benefits.

• Stakeholders need to recognise this risk, and protect their investment against changes in:
• Government policy (and indeed government itself), which could have a fundamental effect on what Modernising government (or its successor) is trying to achieve;
• Organisation, which is likely to change the roles of those involved with implementing policy;
• Technology, where the pace of change seems to increase continually;
• Service provider.

There are no guaranteed approaches in this area, but any programme must seek ways in which risks to its success can be identified and minimised, and Modernising government is no exception. Many of the risks of change are foreseeable and effective countermeasures can be identified.

The key requirements are to take a strategic view of what the programme is trying to achieve, to focus on the enduring aspects that will outlive policies, organisation and technology, and to develop a flexible environment which allows and, where possible, mandates the adoption of change as it occurs

Data Lives Longest!

The most enduring aspect of any system is the data it holds, and nowhere is this more apparent than with government systems. One has only to consider the continuing importance of the government records held by The National Archive, and the interest generated when Secret records are de-classified after 50 years or so, to recognise this. Census data create a stir every time they are released – after 100 years. Even the mundane records of birth are of legal and statutory importance for the subject’s lifetime and beyond. They remain of interest for demographic and policy making purposes even longer, and of interest to academics, archivists and researchers longer again.

Thus any system is potentially less important (and consequently of less value) than the data it holds. Arrangements must often be made within the overall system concept for the continued retention, retrieval and presentation of the data long after the system itself has disappeared. With systems as large and complex as many of those in government, this is no mean feat. The data just has to transcend the technology of the systems designed to collect them. Obsolescent, inaccessible technology cannot be allowed to lead to inaccessible data.

System life-cycle planning must consider and actively allow for retention and retrieval of the data beyond the normal systems disposal phase. So long as the data is available, it can be used to support whatever future processes, organisation and policies may be developed.

Process Outlives Organisation

Strategic planning for information systems has long recognised that flexibility can be achieved, at least in part, by concentrating on the processes to be supported, rather than the organisation put in place to implement or monitor them. Responsibilities can be reassigned in any organisation by senior management to meet a business or political imperative.

Government is fundamentally no different, there are just more players, in the shape of Parliament and the elected representatives, with the power to enact organisational change. Devolution, and Departmental changes such as the various Departmental permutations of Environment, Transport, and Agriculture/Farming and the Regions over the last few years serve to prove the point.

But Government’s interaction with the citizen, as the consumer of the services it provides, or the provider of the data (and taxes) it needs, remains largely unaltered. So at high level, the major processes continue largely unaffected, even when reporting chains differ.

At lower level, the detail of the processes may change, and, over time, new processes will be introduced, and old ones will disappear. But a modular logical design, coupled with an avoidance of organisational channels, will avoid the stovepiping that so characterises present government systems.

This reinforces the importance of a strategic view in underlying system planning, and emphasises the merits of planning for information systems around life episodes, as this focuses attention on process, and data, and diverts it away from the requirements of the current organisations involved.

Benefits can Outlive Policy

Policies evolve and come and go with government and ministers and elected representatives at all levels. Implementation and monitoring of the success of policies usually involve some form of assessment of the benefits the policy will deliver. And HM Treasury are keen to ensure that Benefits Management regimes are applied to projects of all types – not just IT ones like Information Age government.

But the traditional approach to monitoring the benefits of an IT system, (when applied at all) usually concentrates on the benefits for the principal stakeholders – i.e. those who are footing the bill. So it is not surprising that this often concentrates on savings, or perhaps increased efficiency, or in these enlightened times, perhaps even effectiveness. But Information Age Government is, if we believe the government’s message, is more about delivering improved service to the citizen or business of the UK. These then are the principal stakeholders who should be getting the benefits.

Unfortunately, this particular group of stakeholders don’t have a voice – or if they do, it’s only once every five years. And, of course, for many of the services we are talking about, it is increasingly actually the citizen who is paying the bill as well.

So where is the citizen’s voice in Information Age (or Modernising) Government? Who is going to speak out for them? And who will represent them in contractual negotiations, because they are the ultimate purchasers of Information Age services.

This would be a real challenge in most procurements, but with a true “citizen’s champion”, who can speak out for the UK’s citizens and businesses, there is a chance that Modernising government can be truly citizen centred. Because he or she could then ensure that the programme delivers benefits to meet the real requirements – improved government services for us all. And if this is the focus of what we are trying to achieve we shall at least be future proofing the aims and objectives of the programme – because the improvement in service is, almost by definition, itself future proof.

And the Technology Follows on…..

So what about future proofing the technology itself? Is this feasible in any way at all, as the technology will inevitably evolve as the Modernising government programme evolves in turn.

There is no way to turn the clock back. We need to avoid technological lock-in, to capitalise on developments as they occur, because that way we will be able to deliver even more powerful solutions to the problems we face. But government should not be concerned with the technology; government’s interest is in services and outcomes, not technology. Technology is the business of the service provider. But how is that distancing of government and technology to be achieved in a normal commercial relationship, such as Modernising government will demand?

The key lies in developing the right sort of contractual regime between government and service provider that addresses four crucial issues:

A real and lasting partnership, built on trust, must be established between the two sides of the contract. Each side must manage the risks it can control to the benefit of both parties. Government needs to provide the framework for what is essentially a contract between the service provider and the citizen. It must find a way of discharging the citizen’s role, of delivering benefit to the citizen, in addition to ensuring that it achieves its own objectives in terms of increasing government efficiency, reducing fraud, or whatever they may be.

A contract is needed based on the delivery of services, as that is what both citizen and government require from the service provider. The technology is incidental and must, as afar as possible, be transparent to the user;

An expectation, and indeed a requirement for technology refreshment within a contract which should incentivise the provider to improve the quality of services delivered;

The need for incremental acquisition and development, to deliver only as much technology as is required for the immediate solution, and to retain as much flexibility within the future solution as possible. This will require some innovative approaches to contract drafting and management for success. Big Bang solutions must be avoided. Approval and development cycles are too long – so long that technological obsolescence is inevitable. While incremental development must be controlled within an overall framework, the controls must facilitate the service providers’ assessment of the timing and nature of investment, as it is he who is bearing the risk.

So, to summarise, the keys to future proofing are to:

• Take a strategic view of the whole Information Age Government agenda;
• Ensure the solutions remain citizen centred and episode based;
• Concentrate on the data as the core of the solutions;
• Use process stability to insulate from organisational change;
• Look to effective contracting regimes to minimise the impact of technological obsolescence.

Our Consultant

Please post comments or questions arising from Evolve Thinking to evolvethinking@evbc.co.uk This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . All contributions are welcome.

Our consultant has been helping senior managers improve performance for many years, including the development of business and IS Strategies, and benefits realisation planning and management in the public sector. He was founder-chair of the CSSA’s (now Intellect’s) E-government Group, and was until recently a member of the Senior IT Forum organised by the Office of Government Commerce to address the systemic issues around the implementation of IT-enabled business change projects.