Government IT – Doomed to Eternal Disaster? (28 April 2015)

Government is too often associated with bad news stories of expensive IT disasters. However the period since 2010 has seen serious and deep reform of how technology is used in government, and for public services. Tariq will take us through the diagnosis of the problems that plagued technology in 2010, explain the strategies to remedy these, and give an honest appraisal of success and lessons learned, as well as propose ideas for further reform. Topics as wide as digital by default, agile development, contract disaggregation, firm spend controls, skills gaps, intellectual property, modernising security, the primacy of information over technology, transparency and incentivising change in a sector without competitive threats, will no doubt fuel a lively debate!

Our speaker: Tariq Rashid

Tariq Rashid is a technology and digital strategist at the Home Office, speaking in a personal capacity, will draw on his direct experience driving some of these reforms from the Cabinet Office, particularly on open source and open standards, widening access to SMEs, improving commercial design, simplifying security, and user-focussed service development. Before government, he worked in both large global enterprises as well as small high-tech startups.