Office of Government Commerce publishes results of ICT market capacity project

The report details the findings of the ICT Capacity pilot project, which was commissioned to identify potential capacity issues within the ICT market. In undertaking this work, commercially available market research was reviewed and information obtained from 20 public sector organisations and 13 key ICT suppliers. Details of more than 170 ICT public sector projects, with an annual value of about £3 billion were obtained.

Some specific capacity issues and constraints that could impact on the delivery of ICT public sector projects were identified, including:
> Bid capacity - suppliers' ability to field senior experienced bid teams;
> Availability of senior experienced personnel, from a delivery perspective; specifically, programme managers, technical architects, and change managers.
> Similar roles within the public sector were identified as constraints.

While the specific capacity issues and constraints identified could adversely affect individual projects, it seems unlikely that there will be a widespread shortfall in ICT delivery capacity over the next three years.

This is primarily due to:
> the UK ICT private sector growth forecast being relatively subdued;
> public sector project services expenditure forecast to peak in 2008; and most suppliers advising of the need to maintain a balanced public and private sector portfolio, despite the level of growth in any one sector.

Further work is required to validate these findings and to develop a more complete understanding of capacity issues.

Going forward, key recommendations include:
> Ensuring adequate visibility of projects, so that major approaches to the market can be better coordinated and departments are not competing with one another for the same resource;
> Consideration should be given to establishing a skills working group involving the Cabinet Office's Professional Skills for Government (PSG) and OGC's Programme and Project Management (PPM) teams, departments, suppliers and organisations such as Intellect, and e-skills UK;
> Ensuring appropriate project management and procurement teams are in place; and
> Ensuring that the level of risk being placed on suppliers and the terms and conditions are consistent and appropriate.

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The Awards are supported by the Cabinet Office e-Government Unit [5], the Office of Government Commerce [6], the Society of Information Technology Management (Socitm) [7], and SOLACE (Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers) [8]. Platinum sponsor is KPMG [9], and also a sponsor is SunGard [10].