Treasury appoints former Logica chief exec

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In a bid to improve its IT accountability, the Treasury has enlisted the services of Martin Read, the former chief executive of international IT services at Logica.

The appointment follows the government department’s new efficiency review.

According to a statement from the Treasury, ministers are now “keen to see better use of modern IT to cut bureaucracy and improve service delivery”.

At the request of chief secretary to the Treasury Yvette Cooper, Read will now review the public sector’s £13.2 billion annual spending on IT.

“We need to get the best value for money for taxpayers from every pound the public sector spends,” said Cooper. “That means keeping up the pressure to improve efficiency right across the public sector. Over the last few years we’ve seen billions of pounds of efficiency savings, but I think there’s scope to go much further in a series of areas.”

Cooper has asked Read to examine the standardisation and simplification of business processes, improve the government’s success rate on delivering IT projects and improving hardware and software procurement.

As well as looking at supplier performance and the use of benchmarking and best practice standards to drive further efficiency savings, Read will also look at back office services more widely in a drive to identify further savings.

In regards to his remit, Read said that there was much that the public sector could learn from the private sector.

“I am pleased to be involved in this programme and to be leading the work on back office and IT services. These services form a vital part of any modern organisation.

“The private sector has made significant strides forward in this area in recent years and my work will examine the scope for the public sector to benefit from this experience, in order to deliver further efficiencies over the coming period.”

The efficiency review is expected to produce an interim report for the pre-Budget report and a final report for next year’s Budget.

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