Getting technology decisions right remains a major challenge in both private and public sectors.
See Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 smartphone fiasco for a private-sector example.
Unlike the private sector, however, government operations don’t gamble with their own money and are largely free of market constraints. Public oversight of their efficiency is therefore critical. So the recent report from B.C.’s auditor general on government information technology investment is welcome news for B.C. taxpayers. According to Carol Bellringer’s examination of public oversight of government IT projects, the report aims to promote better outcomes in a complex and rapidly changing arena. Those responsible for those outcomes need all the help they can get. As the report points out, only about 30% of IT-enabled projects succeed globally. Around 20% fail outright; the remainder are plagued with operational problems. In the private sector, that 70% can be extremely expensive and often lethal.
But doing nothing on the IT front is not an option for government. The auditor general’s report noted that a 2013 provincial government internal survey of its IT systems found that more than 40% were inadequate, “needlessly expensive to maintain or at risk of failure or data loss.”
The report’s recommendations include instituting central oversight of total government IT project costs and requiring government ministries to gather IT investment information from a broad range of public-sector entities to support that oversight. Government IT spending decisions need more scrutiny because while B.C.’s Budget Transparency and Accountability Act requires open reporting of capital spending on projects of more than $50 million, no similar public disclosure is required for IT project operations spending.
That’s a significant oversight. The report notes, for example, that $4.6 billion in taxpayer money has been committed to 12 multi-year agreements involving outsourced IT-related services.
Taxpayers need to know that those dollars are being invested effectively. That won’t happen without meaningful budget transparency and accountability.
