By John Thornton |1 September 2011
The successful early completion of the main Olympic venues came as a pleasant surprise to many people. Let’s hope the rest of the public sector learns from this
Be honest, were you one of the many who feared that the 2012 Olympics would be a huge national embarrassment?
With 34 venues across Britain, the preparations are a mind-boggling task of planning, management and co-ordination. All of this has to be achieved against an immovable deadline and in the glare of the world’s media – now heightened by security concerns in the wake of the recent riots. Plus, our experience of big, high-profile projects such as Wembley Stadium, the Edinburgh Trams and Heathrow’s Terminal 5 has not always been as good as we might wish.
But with a year to go, the organisers were able to announce that 88% of the construction had already been completed, including all six of the main Olympic Park venues. Young Tom Daley was able to do that impressive first dive at the Aquatic Centre and the president of the International Olympic Committee announced that London was better prepared than any previous host at this stage.
Contrast this success story with the latest review of government IT projects. The Commons public administration select committee recently looked in detail at the government’s use of IT, branding it ‘a recipe for rip-offs’.
Calling for a new approach, it said IT procurement had too often resulted in late, over-budget IT systems that were not fit for purpose. It blamed a lack of IT skills and over-reliance on contracting out. The committee’s report cites departments that spend an average of £3,500 on a desktop PC that could be bought locally for a few hundred pounds.
The MPs noted that in the private sector service industries, the benchmark for ICT spending is 3% of total revenue expenditure. Local government consistently spends less than 3% and the average in central government departments is at least 5%.
The MPs also found that the quality of central data on government IT was so ‘woefully inadequate’ that ministers had to ask suppliers for the information they needed when renegotiating contracts.
Contrast this again with the strong and often repeated message coming through from so many commentators that we need to innovate, to transform and make better use of technology.
Speaking at the CIPFA Conference in July, Lord Bichard, for example, said that we have set our sights too low.
His view is that public services are still overly expensive and inefficient and that policies are too focused on cuts and squeezing efficiency, rather than on transformation.
Bichard said he did not want to use phrases like data management and information sharing because people get bored too quickly. But real transformation and improvement, he stressed, is dependent on better information sharing and better use of technology.
At the same conference Margaret Hodge, the chair of the Public Accounts Committee, pointed out that some of the public sector’s biggest and most expensive failures to achieve value for money related to projects that relied heavily on technology. She cited the NHS IT Programme, aircraft carriers and the Fire Control System. Problems included short-termism, poor project management, changing ownership and specifications, and not anticipating the consequences of decisions.
The word ‘transformation’ has been overused in the public sector, partly because of the 2005 Transformational Government Strategy, which promised so much and delivered so little. However, the UK does need to rethink radically how it provides and resources public services. There will be a lot that we can learn from the planning and delivery of the Olympics that could help us deliver more big government IT projects on time.
In the meantime, let’s hope that the Olympic organisers can continue their success by ensuring good transport and ticketing systems.
John Thornton is a director of e-ssential Resources, and an independent adviser and writer on business transformation, financial management and innovation
The successful early completion of the main Olympic venues came as a pleasant surprise to many people. Let’s hope the rest of the public sector learns from this
Be honest, were you one of the many who feared that the 2012 Olympics would be a huge national embarrassment?
With 34 venues across Britain, the preparations are a mind-boggling task of planning, management and co-ordination. All of this has to be achieved against an immovable deadline and in the glare of the world’s media – now heightened by security concerns in the wake of the recent riots. Plus, our experience of big, high-profile projects such as Wembley Stadium, the Edinburgh Trams and Heathrow’s Terminal 5 has not always been as good as we might wish.
But with a year to go, the organisers were able to announce that 88% of the construction had already been completed, including all six of the main Olympic Park venues. Young Tom Daley was able to do that impressive first dive at the Aquatic Centre and the president of the International Olympic Committee announced that London was better prepared than any previous host at this stage.
Contrast this success story with the latest review of government IT projects. The Commons public administration select committee recently looked in detail at the government’s use of IT, branding it ‘a recipe for rip-offs’.
Calling for a new approach, it said IT procurement had too often resulted in late, over-budget IT systems that were not fit for purpose. It blamed a lack of IT skills and over-reliance on contracting out. The committee’s report cites departments that spend an average of £3,500 on a desktop PC that could be bought locally for a few hundred pounds.
The MPs noted that in the private sector service industries, the benchmark for ICT spending is 3% of total revenue expenditure. Local government consistently spends less than 3% and the average in central government departments is at least 5%.
The MPs also found that the quality of central data on government IT was so ‘woefully inadequate’ that ministers had to ask suppliers for the information they needed when renegotiating contracts.
Contrast this again with the strong and often repeated message coming through from so many commentators that we need to innovate, to transform and make better use of technology.
Speaking at the CIPFA Conference in July, Lord Bichard, for example, said that we have set our sights too low.
His view is that public services are still overly expensive and inefficient and that policies are too focused on cuts and squeezing efficiency, rather than on transformation.
Bichard said he did not want to use phrases like data management and information sharing because people get bored too quickly. But real transformation and improvement, he stressed, is dependent on better information sharing and better use of technology.
At the same conference Margaret Hodge, the chair of the Public Accounts Committee, pointed out that some of the public sector’s biggest and most expensive failures to achieve value for money related to projects that relied heavily on technology. She cited the NHS IT Programme, aircraft carriers and the Fire Control System. Problems included short-termism, poor project management, changing ownership and specifications, and not anticipating the consequences of decisions.
The word ‘transformation’ has been overused in the public sector, partly because of the 2005 Transformational Government Strategy, which promised so much and delivered so little. However, the UK does need to rethink radically how it provides and resources public services. There will be a lot that we can learn from the planning and delivery of the Olympics that could help us deliver more big government IT projects on time.
In the meantime, let’s hope that the Olympic organisers can continue their success by ensuring good transport and ticketing systems.
John Thornton is a director of e-ssential Resources, and an independent adviser and writer on business transformation, financial management and innovation
