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Public Sector: IT Projects

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for introducing a debate which has been not only interesting but so wide-ranging that I am trying to think of an area of government policy that has not been covered. The ones that have been referred to have attracted extremely detailed questions. I hope that the House will forgive me if I am not able to answer each of them in great depth. Where I fail, I will of course write subsequent to the debate. I want to concentrate on the broad principles of this issue. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, made some very interesting and challenging points, which were followed up in the debate, and I shall seek to reply to those in a moment. Possibly the most interesting thing that he said was that he was not addressing this debate to the Government, on whom he has long since given up, but to some future—I know not when—Conservative Government. If he was looking to his Front Bench to provide a constructive stance on IT, he must surely feel that the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, has singularly failed him. The noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, accurately identified some challenging IT issues, and I am the first to recognise that we have areas of difficulty as well as areas of conspicuous success. The House will not be surprised if, in the short time available to me, I comment on some of those areas of success, if only to right the balance of the debate as a whole. However, I do not think that the noble Lord identified an alternative strategy to that of the Government to improve the situation. We do not think of projects as IT projects. We see the extensive use of systems and technology as being of huge advantage to government, but the technology is merely an enabling contribution. It enables the delivery of some policy change, which invariably means changing the way that we run our departments or interact with citizens. Of course, change is difficult and it gives rise to criticism when not everyone is in sympathy with certain projects that are pursued. However, I want to emphasise that the complexity of change is now on an unparalleled scale. It is suggested that the Government should be less ambitious, but how, without being ambitious, can the Government serve the public in a modern age with their ever-increasing demands for information and for government to interact with them on a prompt and proper basis? That is why we have introduced a range of systems which bring significant advantages to our nation. By the same token, such schemes will not produce value overnight. I was not at all surprised, and nor will the House be, that, despite criticism of National Health Service projects, my noble friend Lord Warner immediately identified how the NHS Connecting for Health project has considerably improved the service that we offer the community. He was well aware that, if no one else did, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, would draw attention to some of the problems. We are still in the early days of the project and, as the noble Earl, Lord Howe, noted, it will take years before such a development meets his demands in full. However, unless we lay the ground at this stage and unless we are indeed ambitious with regard to IT, we will not get the delivery that is possible. It is startling that more than 50 per cent of the NHS has gone from wet-film X-ray images to digital technology in just three years. That is saving lives and money and improving the satisfaction of dedicated health professionals. In many parts of the country, patients no longer need to visit their GPs to collect repeat prescriptions. They can have them sent electronically to their chosen pharmacy, and already 10 per cent of new prescriptions are delivered in this way. Of course, 10 per cent is not 100 per cent, so it can be looked on as a 90 per cent failure. That is merely a reflection of the obvious fact that it takes time for all the local inputs, such as the GP and pharmacist, to be brought into the system. My noble friend Lord Warner largely spoke on the health service and covered areas that I would otherwise have needed to cover. It represents a conspicuous advance, greatly valued by the public, and an indication of how we need to be ambitious. But we also recognise that we will always be open to the charge that, in the short term, we are falling short of the ultimate goal established for such programmes. For instance, citizens can now obtain their passport in four hours for urgent over-the-counter applications, and that99 per cent of passport applications are completed within 10 days. There is not a single Member of this House who cannot recall a time when we have renewed our passports in rather more arduous circumstances. It is another product of IT services and change which brings real advantages to our communities. The Government produced the Transformational Government strategy in November 2005 and set out—contrary to what has been contended on the Opposition Benches—a clear strategy on how we intend to continue the transformation of public services underpinned by the effective use of technology. It is rightly structured on the key areas we have heard about today; namely, the citizen, shared services, using what we know works and continuing to develop and be supported by IT professionals. I accept the point that my noble friend Lord Mitchell made in his extremely perceptive contribution, which was also emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Birt, and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, who introduced the concept at the beginning of the debate. There is a necessary skills gap which needs closing. The Civil Service was not equipped to deal with the programmes we are introducing, and there is a necessity for enhanced skilling. Several contributors to the debate suggested that the problem was the transition of civil servants who could not see projects through because they were not in post long enough. The aim—and, increasingly, the practice—is now that senior civil servants concerned with these projects are in post for at least four years. It may again be that that is suggested as a limited time against the bedding down of such projects, but I emphasise that the Government are fully cognisant of the necessity for the right skills and experience, that they are built over time and that people must stay in post to see projects through and be answerable. The noble Baroness, Lady Byford, is right when she says that Ministers are responsible. Of course they are responsible, both for the development of policy and its implementation. She will know that when things go seriously wrong, Ministers must quite properly answer for that. However, within this framework, there are bound to be difficulties as the Government struggle—as do private corporations and companies—with the demands of implementing new technology against a background of a limited level of available skills within the community. They are much in demand. That means that, as time goes on, we get greater security of the efficiency of government provision because we have the right number of people within the departments to ensure that it takes place. Within that framework, I recognise that there have been problems in the past. Particular problemshave been identified with procurement issues, a point emphasised by my noble friend Lord Mitchell. We accept that on some contracts it would be unwise and unsafe to position a small group to take the lead on a large government project. That is why when we call in support we need to call it in from organisations that have large resources because such projects can be beyond the capacity of a small organisation to deliver. A balance has to be struck on contracts. We wish to drive value for money, quality and delivery but government and government services serve the people and the important thing is that people can relate effectively to the service being provided. I was challenged particularly strongly by almost every speaker about the advantages of greater openness in the process of implementing technology. I recognise that we will be successful with the citizen only when the citizen is aware of what services are being provided, knows how best to make use of them, and is helped to do so. In one area, I shall disappoint nearly everyone who spoke in the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, addressed a question directly to me and I shall answer it as best I can. He said that there would be great advantage if there were greater transparency through the publication of gateway reviews. The gateway process has helped to achieve more than £2.5 billion in value-for-money savings. In the Government’sview, disclosure would seriously undermine the effectiveness of the gateway process, as confidentiality is essential to the whole process. The process is a crucial management tool to improve the success of the Government’s projects and programmes. In our view, it is just not in the public interest to put that effectiveness at risk by disclosing the information in the two reports in this case. I recognise that thatwill disappoint the House. The noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, is always assertive about the necessity for open government. He also raised the issue and I know he will be disappointed by the response. However, a balance has to be struck between the undoubted merits of openness about the Government’s actions and areas such as this where very delicate confidentiality issues are involved. We undoubtedly have to recognise weaknesses in IT implementation and provision, and the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, mentioned the Rural Payments Agency. As she will know, that weakness has been fully recognised by those speaking from this Dispatch Box. However, the public sector performs some of the most demanding tasks in the world. Europe and in the UK can learn much from the private sector about how to respond quickly to consumers’ needs. We are all aware that the very best private organisations can pride themselves on how quickly and effectively they respond to consumers’ needs. Government is, however, a good deal more complex than much of the private provision. We have seen that in today’s debate—which has focused on education, the Home Office, police, agriculture and, particularly intensively, the National Health Service. Scarcely any area of government has not been covered. That is a greater range of issues than the private sector has to address. Therefore, there will of course be illustrations of weaknesses. However, IT introduction is not an untrammelled success story in other organisations either. We ought to recognise that we are still at the beginning of what the Government regard as their transformational strategy. We recognise that we have a great deal more to do—more on using ICT to improve public services, more on improving the value we create for the investment that we make and more on improving the success rate of our business change programmes. The IT profession within the public sector now comprises an estimated 50,000 dedicated individuals. Every day, their dedication and hard work supports those who keep the traffic flowing, ensure that benefits are being paid, save lives, educate our children and prevent crime. These services are vital for our people and delivery is of the greatest importance to the citizen. These services are the product of extremely complex processes for the development of public policy and IT will continue to play a crucial role in providing that support. But it would be inconceivable that we could introduce projects of such significance, with the success rate that we have achieved in so many areas, without noble Lords being able to identify areas, as they have today, where we have fallen short of expectations and difficulties have occurred. In most cases, those occur at the origins of a successful IT introduction. The message that things will inevitably get better and improve tomorrow is not necessarily or automatically welcome, because the evidence shows some difficulties. But in processes of this kind, it is in the very nature of things that the early days will be attended with acute problems. The Government are committed to a strategy and already have successes to their name. We are prepared to provide the resources and manpower to guarantee that we reap the rewards of the investment. I give way to the noble Baroness.