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UK central government market profile to 2010/11
The total ICT market in the UK central government sector reached £3,440m in 2006/07. Kable estimates that it will grow by 4% to £3,577m in 2007/08, growth in the subsequent years though will slow, reaching £3,777m by 2010/11
Published: 04 Jan 2008
Technology and the transformation of social protection
This report examines the systems of welfare benefits and social services that together make up social protection in the UK
Published: 25 Oct 2007
Public sector outsourcing: The big picture to 2012
In this report we examine £74bn of services commissioned by government from the private and third sectors. By 2012 we estimate that this will have grown to a market worth almost £100bn.
Published: 17 Sep 2007
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News
Supplier warning about NPfIT
13 February 2007
The NHS National Programme for IT needs 'some serious thinking' or it isn't going to work, according to a senior Fujitsu executive
Andrew Rollerson, during his presentation at the Successful Implementation of NPfIT 2007 conference on 6 and 7 February, questioned whether the programme is workable, according to a report published in Computer Weekly on 13 February 2007.
Fujitsu is one of the main suppliers to NPfIT, after winning three local service provider contracts worth a total of almost £2bn.
Rollerson told delegates: "What we are trying to do is run an enormous programme with the techniques that we are absolutely familiar with for running small projects. And it isn't working. And it isn't going to work.
"Unless we do some serious thinking about that - about the challenges of scale and how you scale up to an appropriate size - then I think we are out on a limb."
One aim of the NPfIT is to provide an electronic record for NHS patients. But this project is running two years late and there are concerns about whether such large and complex project can be fully achieved.
Rollerson warned that there is a danger that suppliers would end up delivering "a camel, and not the race horse that we might try to produce."
However, Fujitsu told GC News in a statement that the presentation was ultimately "in support of the national programme". Peter Hutchinson, managing director, public sector, Fujitsu added: "We believe that the programme will achieve a huge step forward in healthcare in England."
Norman Lamb, Liberal Democrat shadow health spokesperson, said that NPfIT was misconceived from the start. "We don't have sufficient expertise in this country to achieve what is the biggest challenge of this sort.
"You require a very specific approach if you are to pull off such an enormous IT project of this sort and those skills simply aren't available."
Lamb believes that the programme has reached a critical point, where changes to the specification have been made quietly without any proper debate.
Stephen O'Brien, Conservative shadow health minister warned: "Even those from inside the programme are now telling the government it is coming apart at the seams."
"You can't impose a top-down system without involving the local operators, the GPs, and winning their support."
Source: Kable's Government Computing
Publication date: 13/02/2007 13:14:18
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Kable is Europe's leading authority on the impact of e-government and public sector technology. It offers a range of public sector ICT research services, events and publications including GC and Smart Healthcare magazines.
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