There’s promising proposals in ‘Transformational Government’ for small innovative suppliers, despite explicit mention of their potential contribution being dropped from the draft. Note that in the final supplier management section it refers to the encouragement of standardised contracts etc in the belief that: “This should allow departments to incorporate additional products and services from other suppliers including SMEs.”

In particular the two items from the key vision which focus on a move to design IT-led services around the needs of citizens and business, and for the Government to move to a shared services culture, bodes well I believe for social software specialists who can deliver innovative and value for money on both counts. For example within a section on shared services, looking at information management, the document looks at collaborative working which would be greatly assisted by wiki-based systems.

It will also be interesting to see how the role of Customer Group Directors work out, charged as they are with leading “the transformation of groups of services to customers, especially for those which cut across organisational boundaries”. As it is one thing to talk about reducing silos and another thing to make that happen as anyone with real-time experience in public sector project management will confirm. Nevertheless in conclusion it recognises the ambitious scope of the strategy “but with strong foundations laid in the next few years it should be entirely achievable”.

To respond return comments by Friday 3 February 2006 to: itstrategyprojectteam@cabinet-office.x.gsi.gov.uk