Can technology lift Britain out of the downturn?

gallery

Technology will save £35 billion in two years by improving efficiency and public sector reform will help Britain meet the challenges involved in overcoming the recession, according to the government.

Minister for Digital Engagement Tom Watson said that the government has already achieved £26.5 billion of efficiency savings through the transformation of the public sector, underpinned by technology.

He was speaking at the launch of the Transformational Government Annual Report, which outlined the Government’s progress in improving public services, much of it centred on the use of digital technology.

John Suffolk, the government’s chief information officer, said in the report’s executive summary that the world economy had forced the government to focus more on “driving value” out of investments.

He said: “To make progress we must re-use, not re-invent. We must invest where we can create value for all, not for one.”

In addition to efficiency savings, the government also put in place regulatory and security policies for the use and sharing of data, due to high-profile data loss incidents last year.

At HMRC, 90,000 staff had been trained on information security, while 20,000 laptops had been encrypted at the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

Suffolk also highlighted expansion on the government’s use of open source, as well as the introduction of user focused web 2.0 tools and technologies.

Email to a friend

Print this page