Innovations in information
technology have always brought about conveniences for customers, both
in private and public sectors, and saved money for companies by
replacing salaried employees with algorithms. But Information Technology (IT) remains a slow-moving
enterprise and a generally sticky wicket for governments, whatever
the good intentions to stretch precious public dollars.
Recently those snarky
Brits revealed that they have been fairly successful at doing this,
wickets aside. Amid a government shakedown complete with hoax
emails, resignations, and PM Gordon Brown’s head on the block, the
release of 2008’s Transformational
Government Annual Report last month offered
some good PR for the United Kingdom—to the tune of billions of pounds of savings thanks to
a number of initiatives.
Among the biggest was the success of
the Department of Work and Pension’s shared services initiative,
which had already saved 50 million British pounds (US $82 million)
and was projected to save up to 100 million pounds by the end of the
2008-09 fiscal year.
Along with finance and human
resources, IT service sharing is a large part of those numbers. One
such shared service is the computer platform Public Sector Flex which
offers a suite of programs to be used universally across the public
sector and claims to be greener, more reliable, more secure, and
cheaper than outdated systems. This includes up-to-date file sharing
software, support for Blackberries, and a security chip that gives
workers access at home and on the go.
Likewise, the “Tell Us Once”
program does just what it says: helps citizens avoid an aggravating
run-around when trying to tell gov agencies about a change in
address, for instance. With Tell Us Once, Brits can avoid the wasted
money that comes with logistical snafus. Touch screen kiosks have
replaced bulletin boards, giving job seekers quick access to a huge
and up-to-the minute database of job opportunities. New
data-matching efforts in the Audit Commission found 140 million
pounds in fraud and overpayments, and Britain’s Directgov web
portal and its Businesslink business advice site have been very
successful.
In all, the government claims to
have saved 26 billion pounds (US $42 billion) in those and similar
efficiencies and plan to do better next year.
Can the U.S. mirror this success?
The Obama administration has
certainly implied that it intends to
do so. The first ever federal CIO, Vivek
Kundra, is reported to have a huge wall graphic in his office showing
the Federal IT spending for each agency. It seems that they want to
keep IT pace with our English-speaking brethren, and the new focus on
more efficient IT has been noticed by those in the industry, making
government a more attractive place for talented IT professionals.
Savings are already underway for
some agencies. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) used Google’s Blogger, a free service, to keep
costs low when launching a new blog. Portals USA.gov and webcontent.gov have
moved to cloud-based servers which will save some significant Bennies.
Though many of the initiatives that have been introduced federally so
far are more focused on using IT to improve transparency—see the
new Data.gov, and its resulting web 2.0 tools—IT savings will
become not only important, but necessary to the continuation of
progress
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