Centralised pool of IT expertise would help deliver savings in IT procurement in Scotland, says expert

A recent report (25-page / 877KB PDF) by Scotland's public spending watchdog, Audit Scotland, recommended that the Scottish Government carry out a "strategic review of current ICT skills" that exist within central Government and "identify" and plug any "gaps". As part of the review the Scottish Government should consider whether it would be "beneficial" to "develop centralised pools of expertise" that "public bodies" could tap into.

The Scottish Government should "compare the costs and benefits of investing in skills centrally against the risks of failing to deliver ICT programmes through individual central Government bodies lacking appropriate skills," Audit Scotland said. The watchdog reported that there had been a decline in the number of ICT staff working in central Government in recent years.

Expert in information and communications technology law Louise Cent of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said that it would “make sense” for the Scottish Government to create a group of experts to deliver  IT procurement projects.

Cent said the Scottish Government could benefit from savings "in the long run" if it invested in pooling IT expertise and gave central Government departments and agencies access to that resource.

"ICT procurements are often complex projects and individual central Government bodies may simply not have the internal expertise or resource to manage them successfully," she said. "One of the key elements to successful delivery is project management, including having defined governance structures, reporting processes and procedures to manage risk. The development of a detailed business case that identifies from the outset the cost benefits to be achieved from the project is also important.”

"The Audit Scotland report identifies that central Government bodies often fail to identify the benefits of ICT, making it difficult to assess whether desired outcomes are being achieved. The report also identifies failings in the governance of IT procurement. Governance is necessary to ensure that the right people are approving projects and monitoring delivery. Correct governance should take the form of challenging the project through the life of the procurement and the implementation of it," she added.

"Accumulating a pool of people who have the wide skill set and expertise tailored for IT procurement would help central Government bodies in Scotland to deliver projects on time and within budget and achieve an outcome that was properly identified at an early stage of the process," Cent said. "In addition, IT procurement in the public sector is often carried out in isolation. If a centralised group of experts was created to assist with procurement this might help deliver a more joined-up way of buying IT systems that could push individual bodies into sharing the systems and services. This would present further cost-savings to the public purse."

Collectively public bodies in Scotland spend approximately £740 million each year on ICT, according to Auditor General for Scotland, Caroline Gardner. However, she said that the delivery of ICT programmes was not always properly planned, managed or governed.

"We examined three programmes – which have cost more than £130m in total so far – that were delayed or cancelled in order to learn lessons for other public sector projects," Gardner said in a statement. "We found significant weaknesses in how they were planned, managed and overseen. Some of this arose from a lack of specialist skills, but there were also flaws in areas of basic project management that apply to capital works of all types."

"The Scottish Government needs to address these weaknesses and strengthen its strategic oversight of ICT investment to ensure the public sector delivers programmes that improve public services and provide value for money," she added.