While outwardly the government may appear to be spearheading a public sector tech revolution, closer scrutiny reveals a picture of chaotic mismanagement which threatens to undermine the best efforts of e-government advocates. Software licensing and network security issues are just two of the more sizeable spanners which have been thrown into the works.
Despite a recent European Commission working paper that heralded a new age of open source for government, more than 95 per cent of councils are still choosing proprietary software over an open source alternative, according to research by IT infrastructure group Bull.
Given that around 75 per cent of councils are aware of the benefits of open source, the take-up rate is surprisingly low. Mike Pawezowski, solutions marketing and business development manager at Bull, thinks a bit of hand-holding is needed in order to translate awareness into action.
"With the press open source has been getting, most councils have been, or will be, looking at using it, but they need to run a few pilots, grasp how open source can help them and how and where they can implement it. The public sector needs to be more comfortable with how to utilise open source," he said.
Apart from the obvious financial payback, open source adoption could mean shorter development cycles and a get-out from contracts that are unnecessarily siphoning off government IT budgets with constant upgrades, Pawezowski said.
Software licensing isn't the only bugbear that the e-government evangelists have to contend with. Research from security testing company NTA Monitor shows government IT security to be worryingly slack, putting citizens' records at risk and holding up the e-services juggernaut.
The report highlighted poor performance in public sector firewall security and warned of high and medium-risk security flaws which bedevil public sector systems.
So what does this mean for 2005 - the date by which all government services are expected to be online?
Roy Hills, NTA Monitor's technical director, said in a statement: "Public confidence in e-services will be crucial for their successful uptake. This could set plans back by years. Action must be taken now before the public's trust is damaged."
Quelle: silicon.com
