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7.44 p.m.

Viscount Chelmsford: My Lords, I believe that everyone connected with the agenda for action is to be congratulated on an extremely interesting report. Today we have heard some fascinating speeches in the House. It is of considerable help to have this discussion after the Government's response. It allows us to try to move forward. I have tried to make a kind of swot report to look at strengths and weaknesses and to see where we have got to.

There is no doubt that there has been a step change in the Government's thinking about the importance of what I call ICT (information and communications

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technologies). One finds evidence of this in many places: the ministerial group GEN 37; the formation of CITU with a mission to embrace best practice in electronic government; and, interestingly, the Civil Evidence Act 1995 which for the first time allows electronic hearsay evidence to be rated by judges for its worth. Late last year a joint venture began between the Lord Chancellor's Department and the DTI. It commissioned a working party of the Law Society to try to achieve a situation in which the use of electronic commerce had every bit as much legality as the use of manual commerce. That is an ongoing process.

The merger of the Central Statistical Office, the Office of Population, Censuses and Surveys and the statistics branch of the former Department of Employment to form the Office for National Statistics, together with the collaboration between that office and Ordnance Survey, provides a very good start on integrated databases which are a key part to moving forward on electronic government. Of course, the personal launch of government.direct by four Ministers, one a Cabinet Minister and one in video conference from Scotland, shows considerable personal support from Ministers themselves. All of these are strong indicators of government commitment. I suggest that the real question is how to translate that commitment into effective action.

The Select Committee had concerns to which the Government have now replied. Taking those responses into account, I offer some concerns of my own. Because the Green Paper is the first post-CITU product, it seems clear that the strategy of better service to citizens and business is now a major priority for the public sector. But who, I wonder, is the Green Paper's audience? Who will actually read it? When I first read it I thought that it was aimed at the kind of people who would support it anyway. I then played the disc and somehow the layout made exactly the same language appear more understandable to the citizen at large. But will that citizen have a PC with a disc? I wonder who will actually pick it up and read it. If, as I believe, government.direct is a real attempt to reduce the gap between the ICT haves and have-nots I doubt whether the Green Paper will ever be read by the have-nots. I question whether this kind of consultation will work. I believe that a White Paper would have been a better option.

Achievement of this better public service requires a massive culture change. It requires departments to co-operate to achieve a single point of entry for the citizen to a government-integrated database or help desk as envisaged in government.direct. This will be very hard to achieve. It will require very firm management to end inter-departmental turf wars. The comment by the Government in 6.14 that what is placed on line is best left to departments seems to me to ignore the co-ordination that is necessary for an integrated database.

I worry about the long-term role of CCTA. I am pleased to learn that it is to improve co-ordination across Government and to facilitate effective delivery of services to the public. I also understand that in due course it must pay its way by charging departments for

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services which such departments may well feel are being imposed upon them. If departments are free to reject CCTA services but CCTA can sell only government-directed products, then CCTA staff are in an unenviable position. I should have thought that the Government could achieve much more by giving CCTA a guaranteed period of, say, not less than three years.

I turn to specific sectors. I focus upon transport, education, training and health. I thought that transport would not be mentioned until the noble and gallant Lord spoke just now. I do not believe that the Government's current transport strategy takes proper account of the power of the new technologies now available to improve congestion, reduce pollution and improve health and safety. Here, I declare an interest as president of ITS Focus. That is how I know that ITS (intelligent transport systems) can help. That view is supported in a recent EU communication:

"by way of example, telematic applications can help to reduce the requirement for transport infrastructure investment, urban congestion and pollution."

I am not the only person saying that.

Three Foresight Technology proposals were approved for transport: the intelligent vehicle, the informed traveller and clear zones. The first of those is moving forward strongly. The second already had much work ongoing. However, I do not see any evidence that the environment project has begun, yet I read that the second round of proposals is beginning. Can the Minister say who monitors progress on the implementation of existing proposals in round one?

In relation to schools, I was very impressed by the speech of my noble friend Lord Butterworth. The real ICT needs for schools are not only those of infrastructure, which in any event is heavily subsidised by British Telecom and cable companies, and not necessarily the equipment because with a little effort schools can get support from corporates in the vicinity of their school, but the real question is what use the school makes of that largesse.

The role of the teacher is changing, and that is the crucial need. I should like to quote from an interesting speech by Sir Geoffrey Holland KCB, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Exeter. He stated:

"The new technologies transform access to learning; they make it possible for the student to study at a time, place and pace of his or her choosing. They make learning student-centred and call for a redesigned role for the teacher as a supporter of the learner rather than as the fount from whom all wisdom flows. They dramatically reduce the unit costs of learning and can make learning fun and an adventure."

I quote from the same Commission document:

"Education in the information society must move away from a system centred solely around teachers to focus more on learners. It must be built around learning and less around teaching."

That is a major culture change for teachers.

I am concerned about the lack of IT skills. I am president of IDPM, the Institute for the Management of Information Systems. In this year's annual skills report so much concern was expressed about the crisis in professional IT skills that we wrote to the Prime Minister to flag our anxiety.

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The IT industry lead body is ITITO. My institute is a member. We anxiously await government support for a national campaign to increase IT skills through ITITO. Here is an institute which is teaching IT skills and there are many schools that do not have such skills, and obviously the two sectors must get together.

I doubt whether the National Health Service is moving forward fast enough in ICT. It now has much of its NHS network in place although I note that the Government are exhorting it to move forward faster. I recollect that a 1993 award finalist for innovation was the Oxfordshire Health Authority which had then achieved electronic pathology reports with 300 GPs in 47 practices. Results of blood tests were reaching GPs within 24 hours. In Northampton Hospital waiting times were also being sent electronically to 20 places and both waiting times and worrying times were reduced by that use of electronic trading.

That was in 1993, yet when I asked a National Health Service manager what had happened subsequently to build on that I was told that once the NHS network was in place it was for local authorities to do their own thing. Oxfordshire had shown what could be done but since it preceded the network it apparently received no support. If that is true, it shows that the National Health Service management was short sighted.

As a private sector enthusiast I was taught that the way forward was to build on the work of champions. Oxfordshire health authority was a 1993 champion which could have been a role model for nationwide improvements in customer service. I am all for infrastructure, but surely we can support innovative applications simultaneously.

Last week an elderly friend of mine was rushed into hospital for tests. She reported that she had had her entire life history written down manually by three separate departments over 10 days. We have got a long way to go.

I hope that by relating these fears and concerns I am drawing the Minister's attention to areas that need a helping hand to move forward. They do not detract from the very considerable advance in the strategic vision of ICT which the Government have embraced; rather they are about how the current vision gets translated into benefits.

I would not like to give the impression that all of us are perfect and that if anything goes wrong it must be the Government's fault. Let me draw attention to the great irony in information technology, which is best expressed in verse:

Reducing paper is our aim, we hear the IT men proclaim;


Yet when they put this into prose their use of paper is verbose;


Instead of halving what is used, the tree gets doubly abused.


Oh, for the skilful written brief on two short pages--for relief!

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