Open Source Government: What the UK's New CIO Action Plan Really Means...

Last month the UK government did something quite radical.  Tom Watson MP, Minister for Digital Engagement, introduced the CIO’s new ‘Open Source, Open Standards and Re-Use’ action plan.  This document is more than a blueprint for future adoption of open source technologies, it’s a mandate - and it should be applauded by every taxpayer in the UK.

You can read it in full here.  It’s an extremely clear and sensible dossier, which thankfully avoids the usual hyperbole when discussing the relative merits of open source and commercially licensed software.  In summary it asks all government IT departments to adopt open source ‘when it delivers best value for money.’  As others have noted, this stance is somewhat different from normal open source procurement statements.  Government units aren’t being asked to ‘consider’ open source solutions, they’re simply being asked to use them whenever the cost case determines.

I’ll return to this point in a minute, because - aside from opening up a world of positive new development opportunities - this statement may prove to be problematic.

Meantime, the CIO’s support rationale for open source is very interesting.  As mentioned, the general mandate is to ensure that procurement decisions are made that provide ‘the best value for money to the taxpayer in delivering public services.‘   In simple terms, the action plan pins ‘value for money’ firmly on the governments ability to freely ‘re-use’ (or re-deploy) as many of its software assets as possible across departments and services.  (‘...not just to avoid paying twice, but to reduce risks and to drive common, joined up solutions to the common needs of the government.’)

Note here that ‘value’ is not aligned to functionality.  I have to say that I cheered when I read this statement.  What they’re driving at is the development of more ‘mature service frameworks to re-use more of the government’s existing IT assets’ ...and this why the plan is so striking.  It’s a set of grown up, long-term development ideas.

Planning decisions are made too often in the world of enterprise software on the basis of frivolous intangibles like new, untried widgets and the total cost of owning a given piece of technology (otherwise known as TCO).    This thinking is stupid.  It assumes that any future benefit is drawn from the technology itself, rather than the people who will ultimately use it, and it implies that the new stuff is used in isolation, within a department or by an individual.

The CIO sees things differently.  Where the government’s concerned, ‘value for money’ should only be established in relation to the people who are funding the show - ie, you and me, the taxpayer; which means that technology choices need to be seen to be delivering value across all of the systems and services that you and I use on a regular basis.

It’s a very sensible approach.  In fact, it’s exactly the way that the Australian government has been developing its web infrastructure for the past 10 years.  They use MySource Matrix, our open source enterprise Content Management System, as a web site publishing ‘foundry‘ for a large part of their public web-based services - from healthcare to policing and so on.  Each time they add a new site they only need to fund the development and training work that’s required to bring it to life. There’s no ‘per processor’ or ‘per seat’ license caveats on their software - just a fair trade with Squiz (and others) to pay  for the building costs.  As a result, taxpayers pay for what they get rather than for what they might get when the software’s unwrapped.

Reading the CIO action plan, it’s obvious they’ve decided that this is a better way to fund technical development.  Take a look at the following policy extract - it’s from the bit that applies to non-open source software:

“Where the public sector already owns a system, design or architecture the Government will expect it to be reused and that commercial arrangements will recognise this. Where new development is proposed, suppliers will be required to warrant that they have not developed or produced something comparable, in whole or in part, for the public sector in the past, or where they have, to show how this is reflected in reduced costs, risks and timescale.”

In other words, the CIO is now demanding that all software is as freely re-usable as an open source solution.  We wholeheartedly wlecome this move.

Returning to ‘value for money’ and the fact that all government departments are now being asked to use open source whenever the cost case suggests that they are more cost-effective, I think that the open source software industry needs to provide the world with some pointed cost comparison cases and/or a new methodology for calculating return on investment (ROI).

The fact that the government is now asking its IT Managers to make smarter, more long term planning decisions based on value is great.  But they will need help in doing this.  Obviously, ‘value’ is a subjective thing - and one man’s apple is another man’s pear.  If we don’t provide the tools and resources to enable the government to assess cost and ROI on a fair basis then there’s a chance that all this good work might come to nothing.

At Squiz, we know that the real value in an enteprise CMS can only be determined over the lifetime of a project.  It needs to take in software acquisition fees, custom development costs, training, implementation time, warranties, and measures of real process and administration benefits.  We’re working with analysts right now to come up with a compelling way to do this on a couple of sheets of A4.

So, watch this space.  And in the meantime, Tom, we salute you.  It’s time to deliver more software value to more people, more of the time.

Author: Stephen Morgan
Published: 31 Mar 2009 8:23am