The Governmental CIO Office. The USA and UK model.

Dr. Calin M. Rangu

CIO Council, CEO

Summary

US principles and committees UK assumptions, challenges, approaches and

structure UK blueprint, services and information

principles Gartner recommendation

USA STRATEGY PRINCIPLES

•An “Information-Centric” approach—Moves us from managing “documents” to managing discrete pieces of open data and content which can be tagged, shared, secured, mashed up and presented in the way that is most useful for the consumer of that information.•A “Shared Platform” approach—Helps us work together, both within and across agencies, to reduce costs, streamline development, apply consistent standards, and ensure consistency in how we create and deliver information.• A “Customer-Centric” approach—Influences how we create, manage, and present data through websites, mobile applications, raw data sets, and other modes of delivery, and allows customers to shape, share and consume information, whenever and however they want it.•A platform of “Security and Privacy”—Ensures this innovation happens in a way that ensures the safe and secure delivery and use of digital services to protect information and privacy.

USAThe U.S. CIO and the CIO Council establish standards against which the success of all agency programs can be measured, including:

monitoring the year-to-year performance improvement of Federal Government programs

attracting and retaining a high-performance IT workforce

optimizing Federal Government information resources and investments

aligning IT solutions with Federal enterprise business processes

adopting and sharing best IT management practices

managing risk and ensuring privacy and security

USA (2)Currently, there are six CIO Council committees:

The Accessibility Committee ensures that agencies monitor their accessibility performance and consider a variety of internal controls, holding agency managers accountable for providing an accessible environment.

The Strategy and Planning Committee develops policy, direction, and guidance to drive business process improvement, investment management, and technical decisions.

The Management Best Practices Committee serves as a focal point for promoting information management/information technology (IM/IT) best practices within the Federal Government.

The Information Security and Identity Management Committee collaborates on identifying high-priority security and identity management initiatives and developing recommendations for policies, procedures, and standards to address those initiatives.

The IT Workforce Committee advocates for strategies to help develop and maintain an effective IT workforce.

The Privacy Committee improves agency practices for the protection of privacy, serving as the interagency coordination group for Senior Agency Officials for Privacy (SAOP) and Chief Privacy Officers (CPO) in Federal Government.

UK Assumption Government information and communications

technology (ICT) has a really bad name. Much of this is unjustified.

All big organisations – whether in the public or private sector – have examples of failure in delivering big ICT projects and programmes. In the public sector, the failures tend to be very public, while in the private sector, it is easier to keep them in decent obscurity. It is not obvious that the record of government is significantly worse than that of other big organisations.

Government ICT is vital for the delivery of efficient, cost-effective public services which are responsive to the needs of citizens and businesses.

We want government ICT to be open: open to the people and organisations that use our services; and open to any provider.

UK Challenges

projects tend to be too big, leading to greater risk and complexity;

departments, agencies and public bodies too rarely reuse and adapt systems which are available ‘off the shelf’ or have already been commissioned by another part of government, leading to wasteful duplication

systems are too rarely interoperable; the infrastructure is insufficiently integrated, leading to

inefficiency and separation; there is serious over-capacity, especially in data centres; procurement timescales are far too long and costly,

squeezing out all but the biggest, usually multinational, suppliers; and

too little attention has been given at senior level to the implementation of big ICT projects and programmes, either by senior officials or by ministers. Similarly, senior responsible owners have rarely been allowed to stay in post long enough

UK approach

To address these challenges, we will do the following:

introduce new central controls to ensure greater consistency and integration;take powers to remove excess capacity;create a level playing field for open source software;greatly streamline procurement and specify outcomes rather than inputs;impose compulsory open standards, starting with interoperability and security;create a comprehensive asset register;create a cross-public sector Applications Store;expect experts to stay in post until an appropriate break in the life of a project/programme; andencourage boards to hold ministers and senior officials to account on a regular basis for the progress of ICT projects and programmes.

UK model structure

Objectives

1. Reducing Waste and Project Failure, and Stimulating Economic GrowthAsset and services knowledgebaseOpen source ProcurementAgileCapability

2. Using ICT to enable and deliver changeChannel shiftApplication Programme Interfaces (APIs)Online government consultationSocial media

Objectives

3. Creating a common ICT infrastructureOpen standards for dataReference architectureOpen technical standardsCloud computing and applications storePublic services network (PSN)Data centre consolidationEnd user device strategyGreen ICTInformation strategyRisk management regime

UK IT Blueprint

UK Services

Information Principles

1) Information is a Valued Asset

2) Information is Managed

3) Information is Fit for Purpose

4) Information is Standardised and Linkable

5) Information is Re-used

6) Public Information is

Published

7) Citizens and Businesses can

Access Information About Themselves

Gartner recommends:

appointing a public-sector CIO who would report to the highest level and who would be directly responsible for enterprise wide assets and operations (including any shared services).

the IT needs of different agencies can be grouped according to domain features. For example, various agencies deliver human services, yet all use processes based on case files. The government could thus appoint "domain CIOs" focusing on the data modeling, application and architecture needs for each domain. In turn, they would report both to the ministry sharing those domain features and to the overall CIO.

This arrangement would strike a better balance between a centralized and a decentralized approach. However, the overall CIO should retain responsibility for reviewing and evaluating projects to establish priorities for independent initiatives.

Thank you!

Calin Rangu

calin.rangu@ciocouncil.ro

www.ciocouncil.ro