Auditor: You know what Scotland needs? Proper IT experts

Audit Scotland is calling on the Scottish government to consider providing a central resource of specialised ICT expertise and advice for public bodies. In a report on delays and cost overruns in three public sector ICT projects, the auditor urged the government to conduct a strategic review of current ICT skills within …

[Anonymous Coward]

Cash Cow

Let the cash cow start her milking...

The Contractor market is Scotland is going to blossom. In addition to the identified requirement for skilled IT staff, in 2014 there is the possibility Scotland may vote for Independence, and will then spend 10-20 years setting up all the necessary national services - Revenue Scotland, Department of Work and Pensions, DVLA, Passports, TVLicensing, Regulatory bodies, etc, etc, etc. Pretty much everything the UK has as a shared service will need to be provided as a separate IT service. (initially they will buy the service from the UK, but they will over time migrate everything. Trust me, they will, everybody loves a migration)

Those of us IT Contractors living in the area shall reap the boosted day rates required by Mr Salmond et al, ready to retire in 10 years to a sunnier tax friendly climate.

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't we been here before...

Centralised IT in the public sector... what could possibly go wrong?

[James 100]

Nice theory, but I can imagine it all going horribly horribly wrong in practice. Someone freshly hired from $COMPANY deciding that by some strange coincidence absolutely everything must now be done using $COMPANY's products?

[John A Blackley]

Surprised?

No surprise that, A) when governments want to cut costs the bureaucrats cut what they don't understand and, B) that auditors will point out a lack of controls which leads to project failures.

One small problem is that, now we're paying Nicola Sturgeon to be Minister For Independence instead of doing an actual government job, there'll be even less money to do what the auditors suggest.

[Gwaptiva]

An another little problem...

Since the clearance of Silicon Glen, all IT experts had to move abroad

[Anonymous Coward]

Nicola Sturgeon proven capable of doing her job

The BMA in Scotland gave Nicola Sturgeon a standing ovation & NHS staff I have spoken to found her a mistress of her brief.

When the SNP came into power in 2097 they changed departments away from the Whitehall style silos into broader Secretariats, and if ths gets onto her Radar I can imagine her working hard to do it right.

To get centralised benefits for IT, the Scottish Government would have to take on the NHS I.T. which is, I think, separate and they could pursue getting control of local responsibility for Westminster Dept sites in Scotland.

Can't see that happening.

Like the rest of the Civil Service working for the Scottish Government, the I.t staff will have been under pressure to take early severance & retirement, and the cult of the expert has probably left too much power in the hands of consultants, lessening the ability of in-house staff to get involved in the decision process. The way budgets work, Capital spend being preferable to running costs, that is inevitable.

The Government should invest in its staff again, make it a profession that can retain experience, rather than haemorrhaged for budgets

[Dodgy Geezer]

"..Audit Scotland is calling on the Scottish government to consider providing a central resource of specialised ICT expertise and advice for public bodies..."

That would be CCTA, then - the government's Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency, staffed by civil servants, which successfully ushered in the first government computer projects way back in the 1980s.

Oh, wait - the government closed that down around 2000, because all their consultancy was going to be obtained much cheaper through the private sector. And just as independently....

Chickens coming home to roost...

[Wanda Lust]

What goes around

Sir Peter Gershon who did all the efficiency stuff for dear old Tony & co (you remember, the last lot of story tellers we subjected ourselves to) described the Civil Servants who try to do real stuff like IT as "talented amateurs".

So true.

Actually, the worst is that some of the cast offs from "Talented Amateurs" are finding their way into the commercial sector & that's really funny!