World's governments to keep spending to erase technical debt
(2022/12/12)
- Reference: 1670859010
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/12/12/governments_spending_analysts/
- Source link:
Parts of the commercial world might be saving their money in 2023 with one eye on progress across the economy but the public sector will keep on spending amid continued efforts to reduce technical debt.
According to forecasts conjured by the mystics at Gartner, an estimated $588.9 billion will be spent on technology next year, which if correct – and it's a big if – would equate to a 6.8 percent jump year on year.
Daniel Snyder, director analyst at the market researcher, said:
[1]
"Government organizations are continuing to modernize legacy IT and invest in initiatives that improve access to digital services as constituents increasingly demand experiences that are equivalent to online customers interactions in the private sector."
[2]
[3]
"The total experience framework, which helps agencies manage employee and citizen interactions, is enabling transformation and will remain among the main driver of IT spend in 2023," Snyder added.
According to a paper by Britain's Digital Economy Council titled Organizing for Digital Delivery, in 2019 the UK public sector spent nearly half of its annual £4.7 billion ($5.76 billion) IT budget on [4]keeping the lights on activities on outdated systems. And the authors warned this could cost could have expanded to more than £20 billion ($24.5 billion) over the following five years.
[5]
"The challenge is by no means limited to government services as there is a universal temptation to invest in new feature development vs the 'worthy but dull' task of ensuring security and stability in the underlying platforms," the paper states.
UK government began to organize a contracting agreement in August 2022 said to be worth $4.5 billion for application software services for the local tax collection agency, HMRC, with the aim to "become less dependent upon legacy technologies."
Just last week, inadequate IT systems and kit were blamed for Britain's [6]doctors collectively losing 13.5 million working hours annually in the health sector, according to the British Medical Association.
[7]
Meanwhile, a study by the [8]Government Accountability Office in the US found the majority of the $100 billon government spent on technology in 2021 went towards operating and maintaining legacy tech. Efforts to bring systems into the 21st century are [9]gaining steam via the Legacy IT Reduction Act of 2022.
CIOs are required to collate legacy inventory – systems and software – used at their departments or agencies, including expected retirement dates, the cost of replacing them and so on.
[10]You might want to consider the cost of not upgrading legacy tech, UK's Department for Work and Pensions told
[11]How do you protect your online systems? Cultivate an insider threat
[12]ISS dodges space junk from satellite Russia blew up
[13]Banks bid legacy tech farewell as they sail to the cloud – but now all that infrastructure is in hands of the big three
The legislation was sponsored by senators including New Hampshire's Maggie Hassan, who said in March: "Updating government technology will save taxpayer dollars, strengthen cybersecurity and improve Americans' interaction with Federal agencies."
"This commonsense bill will help ensure that the Federal government isn't wasting taxpayer dollars or risking cyber attack simply because it hasn't updated the necessary technology systems and equipment," she added.
Gartner says it anticipates government IT spending to increase pretty much across the board – devices being the exception – in terms of product segments. The biggest jumps are tipped to come from IT services and software, which are forecast to grow 7.9 percent and 12.5 percent respectively.
Priorities for public sector CIOs are said to include digital transformation, modernizing applications, fortifying security, and making better use of data. ®
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[4] https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/13/mckinsey_awarded_3m_8_week_contract/
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[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/09/inadequate_it_systems_contribute_to/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y5deMk5bLmKIIa5Bwj8KigAAAAw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-524t
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/10/uk_government_legacy_systems/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/21/dwp_1bn_pension_shortfall/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/10/opinion_infosec/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/27/iss_dodges_space_junk/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2019/07/18/banking_it_bods_warn_of_exit_plan_in_shift_to_public_cloud/
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
According to forecasts conjured by the mystics at Gartner, an estimated $588.9 billion will be spent on technology next year, which if correct – and it's a big if – would equate to a 6.8 percent jump year on year.
Daniel Snyder, director analyst at the market researcher, said:
[1]
"Government organizations are continuing to modernize legacy IT and invest in initiatives that improve access to digital services as constituents increasingly demand experiences that are equivalent to online customers interactions in the private sector."
[2]
[3]
"The total experience framework, which helps agencies manage employee and citizen interactions, is enabling transformation and will remain among the main driver of IT spend in 2023," Snyder added.
According to a paper by Britain's Digital Economy Council titled Organizing for Digital Delivery, in 2019 the UK public sector spent nearly half of its annual £4.7 billion ($5.76 billion) IT budget on [4]keeping the lights on activities on outdated systems. And the authors warned this could cost could have expanded to more than £20 billion ($24.5 billion) over the following five years.
[5]
"The challenge is by no means limited to government services as there is a universal temptation to invest in new feature development vs the 'worthy but dull' task of ensuring security and stability in the underlying platforms," the paper states.
UK government began to organize a contracting agreement in August 2022 said to be worth $4.5 billion for application software services for the local tax collection agency, HMRC, with the aim to "become less dependent upon legacy technologies."
Just last week, inadequate IT systems and kit were blamed for Britain's [6]doctors collectively losing 13.5 million working hours annually in the health sector, according to the British Medical Association.
[7]
Meanwhile, a study by the [8]Government Accountability Office in the US found the majority of the $100 billon government spent on technology in 2021 went towards operating and maintaining legacy tech. Efforts to bring systems into the 21st century are [9]gaining steam via the Legacy IT Reduction Act of 2022.
CIOs are required to collate legacy inventory – systems and software – used at their departments or agencies, including expected retirement dates, the cost of replacing them and so on.
[10]You might want to consider the cost of not upgrading legacy tech, UK's Department for Work and Pensions told
[11]How do you protect your online systems? Cultivate an insider threat
[12]ISS dodges space junk from satellite Russia blew up
[13]Banks bid legacy tech farewell as they sail to the cloud – but now all that infrastructure is in hands of the big three
The legislation was sponsored by senators including New Hampshire's Maggie Hassan, who said in March: "Updating government technology will save taxpayer dollars, strengthen cybersecurity and improve Americans' interaction with Federal agencies."
"This commonsense bill will help ensure that the Federal government isn't wasting taxpayer dollars or risking cyber attack simply because it hasn't updated the necessary technology systems and equipment," she added.
Gartner says it anticipates government IT spending to increase pretty much across the board – devices being the exception – in terms of product segments. The biggest jumps are tipped to come from IT services and software, which are forecast to grow 7.9 percent and 12.5 percent respectively.
Priorities for public sector CIOs are said to include digital transformation, modernizing applications, fortifying security, and making better use of data. ®
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Y5deMk5bLmKIIa5Bwj8KigAAAAw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[4] https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/13/mckinsey_awarded_3m_8_week_contract/
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y5deMk5bLmKIIa5Bwj8KigAAAAw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/09/inadequate_it_systems_contribute_to/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y5deMk5bLmKIIa5Bwj8KigAAAAw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-524t
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/10/uk_government_legacy_systems/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/21/dwp_1bn_pension_shortfall/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/10/opinion_infosec/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/27/iss_dodges_space_junk/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2019/07/18/banking_it_bods_warn_of_exit_plan_in_shift_to_public_cloud/
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Government IT and technical debt
We can't read computer data from 30 years ago unless we keep spending to update hardware and software. I know people out there, including myself, still have old hardware sitting around. But this is government IT we're talking about. Data on Bernoulli drives for instance (remember them?), you had to migrate = buy something else to store the data on. Perhaps you bought CDs or DVDs, and they too are well into the legacy era. They will still be available and around for years, but they are well on their way out. Hard drives are cheaper today, they say. True. But they still have technical debt.
Meanwhile paper records from 100 years ago, even 500 years ago, are still readable. The cost? Storage, sometimes with specially controlled atmosphere. Dare I say it, perhaps it is about time that more records were kept on acid-free paper instead of computers in the first place. It's less convenient but also has practically zero technical debt.
-> Updating government technology will save taxpayer dollars
That old chestnut. Spend more to save more. But it is still spending.