This is according to ICT research House Forge Ahead, which recently released a report on the top-five ICT trends to have emerged in the public sector.
Head of Research at Forge Ahead Adrian Schofield said the top-five list is a rough guide to the trends public sector Chief Information Officers (CIOs) are encountering.
This encompasses their challenges whilst driving government's overarching goals of using ICTs for developmental goals, lessening the digital divide between the three spheres of government and enhancing the ICT sector as a whole.
"The market should think of this list as a 'cheat-sheet' to the priorities CIOs may cite as key over the coming year, when doing business with the public sector, and for looking at past priorities public sector CIOs have cited, its not surprising that the skills shortage is at the forefront this year," said Mr Schofield.
The Head of Research said the first trend was that CIOs continually faced staff capacity issues and budgetary constraints.
He said government needs to recruit individuals directly from university whilst emphasising the global nature of the IT industry, highlighting the IT industry was one that offered above average packages.
By marketing ICTs correctly, Mr Schofield believes that a turnaround can be affected and government can create the pull-effect towards ICT as a career choice.
The second trend, said Mr Schofield, was that just under 50 percent of department in the Social, Governance and Administration and Economic Cluster made use of Open Source Software.
"While this is good progress, these clusters have future plans of increasing their open source software usage to 90 to 100 percent," said Mr Schofield.
The third trend, he said, is the issue of securing government information and information systems. The vulnerability of e-security has come under the spotlight in the last two years and efforts are underway to ensure "security around foreigner's electronic transactions, especially since a high influx of foreigners is expected for the 2010 World Cup."
The fourth trend is e-Government which involves the integration and use of ICTs within departments to fast track service delivery to the public through providing e-services in spheres such as education, health and administration.
"Research has indicated that less than half of all national government departments have e-Government policies in place," said MR Schofield.
He added without clear vision and e-strategy, national government will experience difficulty in indentifying what needs to be done or how to prioritise actions.
Lastly, Mr Schofield believes the fifth trend to relates to the shrinking budget for ICT development when it should be growing.
While government CIOs rated budgetary constraint as the third major impediment within their ICT divisions, insufficient budgets are a challenge experienced by almost all national government departments.
Autor(en)/Author(s): Michael Appel
Quelle/Source: BuaNews Online, 06.08.2007
