Public Sector IT – has it all gone wrong?
A recent article in PublicTechnology.net (www.publictechnology.net – Broken (IT) Britain) discussed the problems with Britain’s Public Sector IT and reported on the findings of an SAP-commissioned survey which revealed ‘confused and hesitant’ senior leaders. This might be expected around the run-up to a general election, where leadership is usually focusing, rightly or wrongly, on other matters but the reality is that this problem is much longer running than this current election period.
A key problem that IT always faces is that it is all too easy to blame when things are going wrong; IT is all too often used as a proxy to mask the ills of organisations where more fundamental issues have a more serious impact. Whilst it may be possible to take a different look at IT and how it is regarded, it is unlikely to solve anything and is tantamount to treating the symptoms rather than assessing and treating the root causes of failure. It is possible to bring in expertise from outside to attempt to deal with IT issues more effectively but success will be limited by a number of factors that are not being effectively addressed.
There are certain aspects to the Public Sector culture that outsiders rarely understand – things that are almost instinctively known to career civil servants; the kind of thing that is never written down anywhere. These cultural perspectives provide a sustaining coherence that holds the service together through the kind of turmoil that goes with uncertain leadership (how many corporates throw out the Chairman, CEO, Board and all their senior directors every 4 years or so?) The service has the ability to endure, to maintain a steady, controlling hand on the day-to-day running of the country.
There have been plenty of initiatives to try to change things, driving a more commercial focus, joining things up, sharing services and changing culture but most have limited success and the lifers know that all that is required is to keep their heads down, weather the storm and enjoy the calm before the next squall comes along. Civil servants know what is necessary to progress their careers, what they must and mustn’t do to succeed. A good indicator for career success at senior levels is to have broad experience in a variety of roles and a record without a black mark for failure; the easiest way to get that is to be careful in choosing what you take on, or choosing when it is time to seek pastures new. Cynical? Maybe…but first hand experience. The problem is that IT doesn’t conveniently fit this pattern, it changes all too quickly, can’t be easily controlled because it involves so many players inside and outside the organisation and the suppliers just won’t stop coming up with new ideas that challenge the status quo; all most inconvenient.
So you can re-engineer processes, bring in externals and charge them with achieving great things but the culture has ways of dealing with such interventions: mutating IT (and other specialists) into something entirely different (there is definitely evidence for this happening) and absorbing them into the organisation they hoped to transform…ensuring that they cease to be part of the solution and arguably become part of the problem.
If you think this is wrong, revisit Yes Minister or Yes Prime Minister and imagine the storylines that could have been built around IT projects…perhaps it is time to start looking at just what else needs to change to create the environment to allow IT to succeed and stop pointing the finger.