Tories pledge radical overhaul of UK public sector ICT, but where's G-Cloud?

Government 'skunkworks', superfast broadband, smaller ICT projects, radical data transparency and ensuring that the next Google or Facebook is British! But talk of G-Clouds or a full-scale commitment to the Cloud Computing delivery model is conspicuously absent.

With the election now only weeks away, the Tories have put flesh on the bones of their much-previewed technology agenda. The manifesto makes some bold and wide-  ranging commitments which – if enacted – would result a in radical overhaul of public sector ICT in the UK. “The Conservative Technology Manifesto is yet more evidence that the choice at the next election is between 5 more years of Gordon Brown’s tired government making things worse, or David Cameron and the Conservatives with the fresh ideas, energy and leadership to get the country moving,” claims Shadow Chancellor George Osborne in the manifesto's foreword.

The presence of Osborne's introduction is indicative of how the Tories plan to use a revised technology strategy to address the economic issues of cutting public spending and reducing the deficit. “It’s clear that we cannot go on with Labour’s model of an economy built on debt,” writes Osborne. “We need to build a new British economic model, with saving and business investment as the bedrock of our prosperity, helping to create new, highly paid jobs in every region.”

Right to data

All well and good and so far, so familiar. But what does the Tory ICT manifesto really mean in practical terms. First up, is legislation to “enshrine the freedom of government data” and create a new ‘Right to Government Data’. This would enable the public to request – and receive – government datasets. It's an idea based on the Obama adminstration's 'Right to Data' policy. The Tories argue that a similar strategy here would provide a massive economic boost. The manifesto claims: “Dr Rufus Pollock of Cambridge University, the lead author of the HM Treasury report on the economic value of open data, has produced a new calculation that our plans to set government data free will create an estimated £6 billion in additional value for the UK.”

There will also be a push towards 'crowd sourcing' with government web sites thrown open for more collaboration and interaction with citizens. "The Conservative Party believes that government websites should not be treated like secure government offices or laboratories,” argues the manifesto. “We see government websites as being more like a mixture of private buildings and public spaces.”

Superfast 100 mbps broadband will be extended across the country. If achieved, this would create a broadband network some 50 times faster than Labour’s planned version. But this will involve private sector investment to deliver and a loosening of planning regulations. But the Tories argue: “This approach has proved successful in other countries such as Singapore and South Korea: these countries are global leaders in superfast broadband infrastructure.”  

The danger with the free market approach is that there will inevitably be some areas of the country where it is simply not economically attractive enough for private sector firms to want to invest in such network expansion. This was what held back Broadband Britain when BT began rolling out faster network services last decade.

But the Tories have found another pot to plunder if the market won't play ball on this occasion. “If the market does not deliver superfast broadband in certain areas, we will consider using the proportion of the licence fee dedicated to digital switchover to finance superfast broadband roll out under the new BBC licence fee settlement, starting in 2012,” notes the manifesto. “This amount would be leveraged to maximise the investment made, either by making it available as loans or on a matched funding basis.”

Further transparency will come from plans to publish online every item of central government and Quango spending over £25,000 – including every contract in full - and every item of local government spending over £500 – including every contract in full. In addition, detailed information on the salaries of senior civil servants and local council officials will be published online.

One aim of this is to get control of government ICT spending and prevent the 'sprawl' that has been the characteristic of so many ICT programmes in the past. Instead of commissioning multi-year, multi-billion pounds ICT programmes, the Tories intend to cap projects at a £100 million ceiling. There will be more projects as a result, but each would be smaller and therefore presumed to be more manageable and to enable better damage containment should they go wrong.

The next Facebook is British?

The smaller size of the contracts is also intended to shake up the supplier landscape by creating procurement opportunities for SMEs as well as the major ICT vendors and systems integrators. UK ICT firms tend to fall in the SME category so another benefit of this move is intended to be the incentivisation of such firms to compete for more government business on a more level playing field.

The manifesto says: "The Labour Government have spent more per capita than any other government in Europe on IT – but too much money has been wasted on failed projects, and they have failed to use these procurement projects to stimulate innovation and growth in the economy. Conservative government will open up government IT procurement to innovative new companies and small businesses. Under Labour, just nine IT companies received 60% of public sector IT spending. We can’t go on like this."

If a new breed of SME firms win business, then more jobs will be created, runs the theory. Some 600,000 jobs in fact, leading to an £18 billion boost to GDP. That plus tax breaks and a superfast broadband infrastructure might would then hopefully lead to a re-boot for the UK technology industry. "Our ambition is to ensure that the next generation of Googles, Microsofts and Facebooks are British companies,” said Shadow Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt. “Our ambitious plans will make this happen."

A Tory administration would also create a small IT development team in government – a ‘government skunkworks’ - that could work on developing its own low cost IT applications in-house as well as advise on the procurement of large projects. There's also mention of a beefed up role for the Government CIO who will – in a largely unspecified way – be able to reach out across departments “to implement IT open standards, open data and other IT policies”.  

Overall it's an ambitious programme of commitments and one in which a lot of elements are interdependent for their success. The superfast broadband network is clearly the bedrock of all the commitments. Without that, there will be no UK Facebooks or mass adoption of 'crowd sourcing' by the UK electorate.

But one element is singularly and notably missing from the manifesto commitments: Cloud Computing. While the Digital Britain report recommended the rolling out of a Government Cloud – the G-Cloud – the Tory manifesto makes no mention of this or indeed to Cloud Computing at all.

Speaking at last December's Business Cloud Summit run by PublicTechnology.net's sister site BusinessCloud9, Adam Afriye, shadow minister for innovation, universities and skills, suggested that a series of smaller G-Clouds might be a better option than attempting a massive, centralised push. It may be that these fall under the auspices of the smaller ICT projects commitments and the push to open up business to SMEs – both factors that favour the strengths of the Cloud Computing model.

It may be that it's just the terminology that's been avoided – although the term is surely no more impenetrable to voters than 'skunkworks'. Given that the Obama administration's ICT policies have clearly extended a heavy influence over the Tory plans, it seems strange that Cloud Computing – the central plank of US federal computing strategy – gets no mention in the Tory vision for future ICT. An oversight or a critical omission?