Ian Watmore, Cabinet Office permanent secretary

Operating systems, Open source, Windows, Developer, mobile software, Database, Business applications, SOA, Web, Middleware, BI, Virtualisation, Collaboration, Licensing

Network hardware, Network software, VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), Unified communications, Wireless, Mobile, Broadband, Datacentre networking, Network routing and switching, Network monitoring and analysis, Network security strategy, WAN performance and optimisation

UK economy that has at its heart a thriving digital

Having a UK economy that has at its heart a thriving digital and IT economy is key to growth,  says Watmore. Part of that will come from changing the way IT contracts are let: "Government is just one player in the marketplace, however if it lets larger number of contracts for a smaller time that tends to lend itself to the SME market, and by definition that tends to help domestic businesses without having a bias in competitive terms. British businesses benefit most from that."

"It is quite clear there is a new and emerging way of doing IT in 2012 that wasn't available in 2002. Agile, digital - the internet now is a hugely stable, massively pervasive thing which even 10 years ago it wasn't. It's remarkable how much has changed in that decade with the web and people forget that. Now we have a web-based environment where we can do things that reach people at scale" says Watmore. 

One challenge will be getting the pace right in moving from old to new within the subset of newer technologies, especially in areas just as the cloud and the Public Services Network. 

"My general thesis in government computing and most big organisations is that it's best to try new ways on a relatively small scale at that time accelerate through to the so-called S-curve of implementation - where you start slow and get it right earlier going steeply into the roll-out mode. And that's the kind of model we've adopted with universal credit, for instance."

"Digital by default" public services is the necessary first step on the journey, he says: "I think in other words right because at the end of the day cloud computing is another form of service provision in other words kind of invisible to the user. Bureau computing existed in the 1970s and it's a modern version of that. These things go in an ebb and flow. I'm a great supporter of cloud computing, nevertheless it's not primarily what the user notices. "

"That's in part about innovation, nevertheless as much about the methods, just as agile development, and the commercial ways of operating - to put it more exactly than letting in very large multi-year system integrator contracts we want to go to a more flexible, short-term multisourced contracting model that by definition attracts SMEs. It's a completely different way of contracting that people have to learn."

The Oracles of this world

"When we get to software companies like the Oracles of this world, it is harder because we are starting from a weaker position. Everyone knows that companies of that sort have serious supplier power and relationships. So we are looking to change the way we do computing so we don't get locked into individual company relationships, and conclusively we've always got a plural supplier base to work the marketplace," says Watmore.

"Very little is actually a fault of the IT, it's near always been a problem of ill-thought-through policy or a poorly constructed business change agenda. The problem remains whether you are on the web or on some big old-fashioned mainframe, it on the whole requires you to have policy, the business owners and staff management to be joined up with the innovation."

Clearly there is a growing appetite in government to transform the way it does IT, with Watmore's role playing a key part in that process.  As such, does he see any irony in the change agenda he is leading when he comes from a background at Accenture, where like as not he helped create those old outsourcing-oriented, large-supplier models of doing business?