Brown questioned over job cut claim

Unions
and IT experts have questioned the chancellor of the exchequer’s claim that
better use of technology will allow the Government to cut more than 100,000
jobs in the Civil Service.

In
the recent public spending review, Gordon Brown said the job losses would have
little impact on services “precisely because the public sector has invested
£6bn in new technology, modernising our ability to provide back-office and
transactional services”.

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However,
John McReadie, national officer at Public and Commercial Services union, said:
“The experience in the Civil Service is not a good one. The past is littered
with billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money wasted on ill-conceived, badly
managed and ill-prepared computer systems.”

Eric
Woods, an analyst at IT research company Ovum, said: “Our main concern is that
the emphasis may be too much on potential savings and not enough on the
transformative power of IT investment when coupled with a business change
programme.”