E-government: why Labour's got the rhetoric wrong

At the EPIC computing conference last week, there was much talk of Tony Blair's bold promise to get 25 per cent of government services online by 2002, and 100 per cent by 2008.

While most government IT managers believe these targets are reasonable, they claim the emphasis is wrong.

Among all the hype of the electronic delivery of services, another initiative - joined-up government - has been largely overlooked. But not by the IT managers themselves: they see this as the real challenge. Government departments must be able to communicate electronically with each other, not just the electorate.

Even the CCTA (Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency), which provides advice and guidance about IT to public sector bodies, admits that the stress of the rhetoric is misplaced.

It's tempting to say that these people are luddites. It's certainly a rare and distinctly un-sexy thing for anyone to say they're more concerned about email and inter-networking than ecommerce and the Internet, especially in Cool Britannia.

But in fact these are the very people who should be praised loudest: many of the spectacular project failures experienced by governments past and present have been caused, at least in part, by the creation of unrealistic goals.

The private sector too would do well to copy this more cautious approach, and be more open about it. Silicon.com recently asked the IT director of a major utility player about his ecommerce strategy. He rather sheepishly said he didn't really have one - he was more concerned with ensuring his back office systems were ready before switching his company's business online.

He shouldn't be sheepish: this has got to be the best ecommerce strategy you can have. Silicon.com knows of two retailers which have no integration between their online ordering functions and the rest of their business systems. That makes it rather hard for their customer support people to tell you the progress of an order over the phone. And that makes for angry customers.

Retail giant Great Universal Stores - which owns Argos, Burberrys, and Innovations - appointed a board-level ecommerce director last week (http://www.silicon.com/a33464 ). It should be applauded for this move, but it must make sure it does not focus on ecommerce at the expense of the less spectacular, but equally crucial, technology which supports it.

Foundations first: then the e-business, and the e-nation, can be built.

* For an analysis of the government's attempt to embrace electronic procurement, see today's News in View in the Government Channel (http://www.silicon.com/government ). An interview with Bob Assirati, CEO of the CCTA, will be published on Silicon.com in the near future.

* See http://www.ccta.gov.uk/corporate/modern.htm for the Modernising Government White Paper.