Government IT providers ‘pleased’ about election result says analyst group

Suppliers to the public sector for software and IT services will be pleased about the general election result, according to industry analysts.

“Without a majority government, we would have seen many weeks of uncertainty and likely delays in decisions around major government projects,” said Georgina O’Toole (pictured), an analyst at TechMarketView.

She said: “In our General Election 2015 Main Party Pledges: Supplier Impact report, we argued that the outcome of the general election would have very little impact on the direction of travel in the UK public sector IT market.

“The Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats were united, for example, in their policies around health and social care integration, investment in mental health and tightening up immigration controls – all areas set to drive ICT investment.

“However, a few things that we can be more sure of now include the commitment to a continuous nuclear deterrent, the introduction of a ‘digital tax account’ and the abolition of self assessment returns, and a focus on public spending cuts to eliminate the national deficit.”

On the last point, she said, the UK can now expect an even greater focus on driving efficiency savings – that will be helped by IT systems. “During the election campaign period, all parties, including the Conservatives, have highlighted the importance of ‘digitising government’. Now, in Whitehall and beyond, all eyes will be on the Government Digital Service and, in particular, what will become of the Government as a Platform (GaaP) initiative.”

Already some pilots are underway, for example for a cross-government “payments platform”. O’Toole said: “But we will now await the result of a McKinsey review of the potential savings that could be achieved through the approach. Already, suppliers big and small have begun to posture around how they could form part of the solution.”

However, she said, GaaP is still all about cutting the ICT budget – the real benefit for suppliers would come if the new government began to invest in innovative ICT solutions to save money from the broader budget.