Title: Comprehensive Spending Review: Maximising Government Efficiency

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Online banking; online shopping; online gaming; online dating; and now online Government. With many aspects of 21st century life having a major web-based element to them, the UK Government has recognised the benefits and urgency to follow suit. However, this is likely to have a significant impact on the wider government workforce, as online efficiencies lead to less dependence on offline resources.

The move towards greater efficiency was given a major push by the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR 07), which included a five per cent budget cut in real terms, over the next three years for the Treasury and Cabinet Office.

Essentially, the review demands that all Government departments must improve delivery of citizen-centric public services through the innovative use of new technology, while continually reviewing efficiency, including how to maximise capability with a reduced resource pool.

Addressing 21st century citizens’ needs
In future, Central Government will look to work more closely with local government offices, using the local government infrastructure to service Central Government citizen touch points.

Currently, the most expensive element of serving citizens is face-to-face contact through regional offices all over the UK. Through the development of more online ‘tools’, citizens will be provided with a self serve facility, thus reducing dependence on the existing regional office workload. Consequently, agencies will be enabled to combine regional office capabilities, providing technological support to deal with issues from several departments.

Achieving all this, however, is highly dependant on technology and changing business processes.

Tangible savings and benefits
The benefits of this shift in emphasis are numerous; firstly by developing automated online citizen-centric processes, the public, who are increasingly demanding and time-driven, will be better serviced through a faster turnaround. Secondly, central Government is likely to generate further significant efficiency savings through the consolidation of departments’ regional offices. Thirdly, brown site land, which is no longer needed for offices, can be made available for ‘social’ housing, and lastly with the more ‘mundane’ processes being dealt with online, jobs will become more interesting, as staff are cross-trained and freed up to do more interesting and challenging work.

Countering the terrorist threat
As Central Government becomes more open, it also faces the paradoxical challenge of implementing wider and more stringent security practices to ensure the security of UK citizens, information, interests and infrastructure. The Comprehensive Spending Review outlined plans to significantly boost investment in homeland security to deal with the “severe and sustained” threat of terrorism.

The fundamentalist nature of 21st century terrorists means that countering this threat is increasingly reliant on better intelligence. This demands investment in technology and resource, especially as the terrorist threat is increasingly technologically-based.

The importance of this investment is obvious when one considers the London Olympic Games are less than five years away. The size and profile of this international event identifies it as a major potential target for both terrorist atrocities and criminal cyber attacks.

Collectively, the Security Service (MI5), the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and Government Communications Headquarters have a combined budget that will rise from £2.5bn in 2007-08 to £3.5bn in 2010-11 – an average of 9.6 per cent a year over the next three years.

Since 9/11, employment levels in counter-terrorism, intelligence and resilience have risen sharply, with M15 going from 1,800 staff in 2001, to 3,200 this year. Although 300 more staff are likely to join the agency by the end of this financial year, recruitment is likely to stabilise, with more emphasis and financial resource focusing on supporting technology. This is to address the increasingly data intensive world we live in. As negative elements of society make use of evermore sophisticated technology, the real challenge is to be able to extract nuggets of information from the sea of data that mankind generates, and then derive real intelligence from this information in a timely manner.

Defending UK interests abroad
As well as boosting investment in homeland security, CSR 07 outlined the Government’s commitment to addressing the challenges faced by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), including increased funding for the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the enhancement of conventional capability across the Armed Forces such as future Aircraft Carrier (CVF), and funding the renewal of Britain’s nuclear deterrent.

By confirming the Government’s pledge to such expensive, large-scale programmes and its continued funding of the two theatres of operation, CSR 07 puts greater pressure on those responsible for defining the MoD’s future Defence Programme, and its upcoming Programme Review (PR08), to ensure they make correct decisions on what, when and how capability is delivered to the UK armed forces.

The ability to do this will be strongly influenced by Through Life Capability Management (TLCM), which looks to ensure decision-makers choose the most effective capability decisions, as defined by all Defence Lines of Development, and prioritise the development of each individual programme to deliver best value overall capability to the Front Line Commands.

Finally, as with all Government departments, CSR 07, alongside the soon–to-be updated Defence Industrial Strategy, will help define and fund an improved UK military acquisition infrastructure that has the ability to deliver TLCM with reduced timescales and costs.

Companies such as VEGA are already engaged with Government and Defence sector clients, enabling them to make these tough decisions; and with the provision of extensive knowledge and experience can aid the client teams responsible for the successful delivery of new capability and improved services as the initiatives funded by CSR 07 begin to manifest themselves and Gordon Brown's team focuses on its vision of a citizen-centric and secure future.

About the Author: Paul McIndoe is an online, freelance journalist and keen hillwalker. He lives in Edinburgh with his two dogs.