Courting Controversy...

Oh dear. I’m getting myself into all sorts of bother following my Blog entry on “Open Sauce”!

Before I go further, I should make clear, perhaps belatedly, that I am stating my personal opinion, which does not in any way represent Socitm policy.

A lot of the comments I receive are semi-literate, anonymous insults, which are easily dismissed and likely to do their authors more harm than they do me - although I do try to find the time to provide reasoned responses. However, when someone who is clearly intelligent, is prepared to be identified and stands behind well-reasoned arguments, I really have to take notice.

…And if someone as intelligent as Glyn Moody doesn’t understand that I’m trying to poke fun at myself in a blog entry entitled “Open Sauce”, as in having the cheek to challenge some of the assertions around so called Open Source, then I accept that’s down to me trying to be too clever by half. I am, ‘though, disappointed that he should think I “have such distaste for the concept that (I) can’t bring (myself) even to write the words without sanitising them between quotation marks”. Actually, I think some of Glyn’s respondents have caught the sense of what I was trying to say by suggesting other terms, such as “free software”, or “software freedom”.

I do stand by my comment that what many people mean is “anything but Microsoft” and I’m sure that Glyn, in his heart of hearts, knows that there are a lot of people who see Microsoft as the devil incarnate, and “Open Source” as a catch-all to describe the battle for redemption! Yes – I know that the term “Open Source” is clearly defined, but it’s constantly misused, and that’s the point. I also think Glyn makes my point for me when talking about “you license it, just like you license proprietary software”. (I know your, packaged, licensed Open Source-derived software includes a spell-checker, Glyn, but you missed the typo - propretary!!) As he points-out, Microsoft itself uses Open Source, but my view is that once you’ve turned-it into a commercial product, the term is no longer appropriate.

However, when it comes to my assertion that “Open Source software development… lags proprietary development”, I have to put my hands-up; fair cop! I did kind of pre-qualify my remarks by implying I was cream-crackered as I made them, ‘though. Those who know me know that I push myself very hard – perhaps too hard - and I probably should have taken more time for a better considered response.

I can’t argue with Glyn’s examples of innovation based-upon Open Source, so my statement was clearly wrong (as I also admitted to ZDNet, today) but I do know that there’ve been occasions when I’ve wanted products that Open Source software products did not support. The Tablet PC is one that comes to mind, although I’m sure it’s now supported; (I haven’t checked lately.) This tele-presence thing is quite important, in my view. It makes so much difference for teams or groups of people working in disparate locations and work-styles. It’s really great for real-time collaboration.

Anyway, we could argue over this for ever more. What I propose is that Glyn and I meet-up and I’ll take Glyn through the requirements I have, as a CIO, for ICT infrastructure to support an organisation like Newham Council. I’ll be completely open about the products we use, the costs and the benefits achieved, which he’ll be able to see for himself. Glyn, then, can take me through how I could achieve as much at the same or a lesser cost using “Open Source” products, and we’ll both publish the results.

I’ll freely admit that I’m no technician, so I will need a technical expert to support me, and of course agree that Glyn can be similarly supported. If you are up for it, Glyn, give me a call on Monday, and we’ll agree a date for our first meeting.


I worked from home, today, and, when I wasn’t responding to Blog comments, spent several hours in ‘phone calls on Socitm affairs, using ICT as an efficiency-enabler in the depression and executive partnership, and of course in dealing with correspondence.

Have a great weekend.

Getting more joined-up

This morning’s Socitm London branch meeting was held at the Mermaid Conference Centre, at Blackfriars. I was pleased to see great support from central Government colleagues - with updates from OGC Buying Solutions on the Microsoft UK Public Sector Licensing project, the DWP on Government Connect and DCSF on Employee Authentication Services. Geoff Connell (now Chair of the London branch – keep it in the “family”!) gave a short update on the Public Sector Mobile Portal http://mynewham.mobi (designed for viewing on your ‘phone) and I gave my Socitm update. The meeting finished with a great presentation from Ian Brooks of HP, today’s sponsor, “Innovation - from chip to chiller and beyond”, followed by lunch. Presentations will be on the Socitm website.


After lunch, I attended an EAS Board Meeting at the Sanctuary Buildings in Westminster. The main discussion was of the implementation strategy, different options for establishing the Registration Authority and the Operating Model. The fact that it’s accepted that EAS will now support multiple applications - initially Contact Point, then access to the DWP Customer Information System for benefits processing, then others - undoubtedly complicates the programme, not least from financial and delivery perspectives, but it’s great that we are now confronting these issues; discussion of pan-Government security is gaining traction.

Although John Skipper, in his update to the London Socitm meeting, said that remote access through the GC infrastructure will not initially be supported by EAS, we were told that remote access trials are being undertaken.

It appears that this year’s T-Government report will be delayed, which brings additional opportunities to ensure that the pan-Government security vision is developed for that report.

Open Sauce...

I’d planned to spend yesterday and today at the CMA Conference, held at The Congress Centre in Great Russell Street but, for a variety of reasons, didn’t get there until today’s morning coffee break.

There was some work to do on weightings and tolerances for the Microsoft software procurement and in reviewing bids for the GC Benefits Realisation fund, besides which my correspondence backlog had gone over a week again.


Geoff, Richard and I met with Newham’s Head of Procurement to discuss and agree our procurement approach for the NTC network commercialisation. We decided upon a negotiated competition, in preparation for which we’ll develop our market analysis, finalise technical options and advertise for proposals to meet desired outcomes based on sale of lease of network.


At one point yesterday, I found myself talking on the ‘phone to Adrian, who was in a storage room at Socitm’s Northampton offices, surrounded by mounds of reports, minutes and other documentation dating back, probably, to the formation of the Society. Clearly, another project looms; we’ll need to sort-out retention policies and Electronic Document Records management for the Society, but it also occurred to us that we need an Archivist to document Socitm’s history, before disposing of everything.


After having popped-in to a Newham colleague’s Farewell drinks do in Stratford, I went on to The Chemistry Club, at Sartoria. Francis Maude was the speaker.


Today (Wednesday) morning, the oft-postponed GC Benefits Realisation Fund Assessment Teleconference was held. The IDeA did an excellent job in reviewing and documenting the bids, of which there were 193, for our consideration. Six were agreed, unaltered, for funding, and a further four were agreed, but at less than was applied for. It was agreed that a further twelve required further information & evaluation. Forty-six of the bids were for the Libra project (for youth offending – “topped and tailed” for different YOTs). It was also agreed the IDeA should discuss some funding, probably of a pilot.


The Wednesday morning CMA Conference networking break was followed by a session entitled “Real Strategies for “Hyper Connectivity”. I felt like I’d entered a time-warp. It seemed to me that speakers wanted to hold back the tide; there was a reluctance to recognise that convergence is here; the words said “sweat your assets”, but I was pretty sure they meant “help us to continue to milk our sunk investments, rather than deploying the infrastructure you really need”; technical solutions to managing limited bandwidth to stop users gobbling it for Internet radio were advised, rather than recognising the fundamental cultural and management shift required for anytime, anywhere working enabled by Unified Communications.

Jeremy Hunt, the Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, spoke a good deal of sense, and clearly knew his subject. I liked his analogy of the Internet as the digital equivalent of previous trade routes. He did, however, cause some consternation by saying, as part of the answer to a question, that “Nortel had withdrawn as a first tier 2012 sponsor”. After lunch and, I imagine, some feverish checking, it was clarified that this most certainly was not the case!

The session following lunch – “The future… moves changes and opportunities” – was as refreshing as the one before lunch was depressing. Mark Blowers, from Butler Group, did a commendably succinct introduction to the session, comparing our development of network infrastructure to the Winchester Building.

Bob Falconer, CEO of Gamma Telecom, talked about systemic problems in the industry – over-promising, under-delivering, costs of change, back-loaded costs etc, and suggested an alternative approach to procurement, and his company’s white label service.

Stuart Hill, Vice President and Director of BT’s London 2012 delivery programme, gave a truly inspiring presentation about BT’s approach, as the Tier One Telecoms Sponsor. “Reliability ahead of heroes”, “Treat every amber as red”.

Kevin Russell, CEO of “3” Mobile highlighted some of the absurdities in mobile data regulation and pricing, and illustrated the major daily evening peak in mobile data traffic that’s apparently down to home use.


You may have seen today’s announcement of new Government Policy on Open Source software. A number of journalists have been enquiring after my views!

Well, I’ve had a couple of long days so these aren’t fully thought-through, but my more-or-less “off the cuff” reactions are:

• Open Standards are definitely required.


• I don’t like the term “Open Source”. It’s misleading; what many people mean is “anything but Microsoft”; few businesses actually use open source directly – they buy software derived from open source that has been commercially packaged and sold with support, which, in practice, is little different to licensed software.


• Nevertheless, competition is great for keeping suppliers focussed on delivering customer value, and “Open Source” has certainly played its part.


• All the same, software is only one part of the Total Cost of Ownership equation; don’t consider it in isolation, but as part of the full TCO and lifecycle costs.


• “Open Source” software development, in my experience, lags proprietary development by several years. I don’t think we could achieve the anytime, anywhere fixed and mobile infrastructure with tele-presence we require, now, for flexible and new ways of working using only Open Source.


• I agree with reuse, and it’s a very significant factor in the Microsoft Public Sector software licensing project I’m involved in (and not allowed to talk about).


• If it works for you – fine. I wouldn’t rule-out so-called “Open Source”; Newham has used it for some applications since the time it did its deal with Microsoft (probably the first UK public sector procurement of Microsoft as a supplier) and continues to do so.
  

Of Commerce & the Credit Crunch

Socitm’s Commercial Board met today. Its terms of reference will be published, this week, in the Members’ area of the website, but we agreed that minutes of meetings will not be published. Although we are absolutely committed to the greatest possible transparency in the conduct of the Society’s business, I’m sure you can appreciate that, by its very nature, much of the Commercial Board’s business is bound to be commercially sensitive. Nevertheless, I’ll continue to provide high level reports here.

We discussed a number of aspects of the Socitm Insight Service. Negotiation of the contractual relationship and a performance management regime are at an advanced stage. Martin tabled a short paper concerning the need to review the strategic direction of the service over the next few years, and we’ve agreed to work on this ahead of the next meeting.

A particular discussion point concerned the development of the Supplier Index, and we saw opportunities to link to Government procurement initiatives and build closer links with the RIEPs. There’ll be a workshop to develop this particular development.

Socitm Insight is arranging forums in London (8th April) and Manchester (19th April) to consider IT’s role and response to the credit crunch. The morning will be for suppliers and the afternoon for public sector members.

We also considered a proposal from Elaine, which resulted from the recent meeting with Adrian and I. As I mentioned, last week, this focuses on “quick fixes”. The meeting was supportive, and agreed the proposal subject to a couple of issues of detail, which Adrian was empowered to conclude.

The Weekend Beckons

Adrian and I met yesterday (Thursday) with Elaine at Intellect’s Russell Square offices to discuss Socitm commercial development, marketing, branding and our image/ proposition. She took us through a range of “quick fix” issues, such as management of the core brand, marketing and membership collateral, sales training, weekly bulletins, corporate service bundles and web updating, tidy-up and clarity. Our discussion was hugely enjoyable, and I felt not a little encouraged. We agreed that Elaine will write-up the agreed proposals to take to Monday’s Commercial Board.

Today (Friday) I’ve finished the latest President’s Report, drafted an article for a feature in www.parliamentarybrief.com , skimmed through a draft of Better Connected 2009 and done a bit of work on potential business partnerships in preparation for Monday’s Commercial Board. I’m also more or less up-to-date with correspondence.

Have a good weekend.

Not a Laughing Matter

I can’t talk about today’s Microsoft Project Board Workshop on weightings and tolerances, so I’ll mention the announcement of agreement between Red Hat and Microsoft to build better interoperability and to provide co-ordinated technical support for customers, instead. This sounds-like good news, to me. It doesn’t mention Open Source, although, open source software that’s packaged and supported by a vendor is frequently referred to us such. It will be interesting to see the response.


The other story to catch my eye, today, was this one about “application anarchy that eats bandwidth”. My personal view has always been that such stories have much to do with general management; wasting time with ICT is no different from wasting time gazing out of the window, reading your horoscope, or chatting at the water fountain. However, now it’s also about fundamental advances in our use of ICT, which has become pervasive, is core business for everyone and reliant on an appropriate culture of shared understanding and responsibility. Although the author of this survey has a vested interest in raising awareness of potential problems that his organisation can help to address – “the technology is available from us and….” – he is quite right to point-out that the world has moved on, and that’s something we all need to recognise.

I asked a management colleague for his view, and concur with his assertion that “whilst many (requirements) relate to specific security technology, a great deal of the organisation’s information security is dependent on clear Human Resources policy and processes, and their effective implementation and enforcement. ICT is an integral part of almost everyone’s ‘day-job’ and everyone must take responsibility, and be accountable for their part in securing the organisation’s information. It’s essential that policies and processes are clear, well communicated, and understood by all”.


“No CoCo. No housing benefit data. No joke.” says the headline, “especially if you are a citizen dependent on a housing benefit service”, it might have added - and, whilst Authorities prevented from accessing the DWP’s CIS system, won’t be able to process benefits, neither will the DWP be able to collect their benefit data and do its job, so they’ll both look silly. It’s better by far that we recognise our shared responsibility to make Government Connect a success. Most Local Authorities have done a magnificent job in working to achieve CoCo compliance in the last six months, despite a poorly planned initial programme that followed years of repeated false starts and fruitless activity.

Socitm is following-up the communications it has received about problems experienced, but we urge any Authorities that have not yet reported their status to do so – to anna.smith3@dwp.gsi.gov.uk (even if already advised to the Account Manager) - without delay. Codes of Connection should be submitted to GCtech.team@dwp.gsi.gov.uk, (even if already given to the Account Manager).

Information is Power... (Francis Bacon)

Richard Quarrell and I met, as planned, to discuss “Psiphon”. I think this project could be very important, but we need to do some testing and assessment to establish that’s the case. The idea is to automate the creation of organisations’ Information Asset Registers, facilitating reuse of information and supporting the creation of a market for public information. If this can be got off the ground now, it will be very timely since, as previously reported, the “Power of Information” Taskforce report is being published in the spring, and Richard Allan will be speaking on this at the Socitm National Conference on 23rd April.

I agreed that Socitm would help to recruit volunteers to form a Reference Group, which Newham is prepared to Chair, to help refine the design and testing requirements.


On Tuesday, I spoke in the “Transformation & the Role of Technology” stream, chaired by Steve Palmer, at Osney Media’s Public Sector Transformation Summit at the Royal Lancaster Hotel, Hyde Park. Glyn Evans followed me, and we both joined a panel with other speakers to round off the morning programme.

Unfortunately, the three of us missed the Plenary sessions because we were meeting, in the Hotel Lobby, with Adrian Hancock and John Serle, to ensure we’re all singing from the same hymn sheet concerning the ways in which the National Advisory Council (chaired by John) and Socitm Futures (chaired by Glyn) work together, and their respective remits. I’ll say a little more about this in the President’s Report that I’m currently working on. However, it has been agreed that the March 9th Socitm Futures meeting will be a Workshop to review the top two Policy Priorities – Information Management / Assurance/ Resilience, and pan-Government Security Vision – with the aim of agreeing objectives, methodology, outputs/ products and the delivery plan for each. Martin Ferguson has agreed to facilitate.


Mike Simons, the Editor of ComputerWorldUK, sent me a note containing this link, which he thought I’d be interested in. I have to confess that this story about the proposed “Coroners and Justice Bill” had passed me by, but I am now not only interested, but quite alarmed at what seems to be being proposed. The BCS seems to have done a good job in producing an emphatic response, which I believe Socitm would want to support.

There is a commentary on the bill, which proposes major amendments to the Data Protection Act, and may override any other existing legislation that impedes its intention, at http://www.amberhawk.com/uploads/datasharing%20explain_website.pdf Of course, there will be other views and perspectives that I’ll gladly reflect here, but this does seem a subject that deserves our attention.