Value for money review

The Isle of Man Government (IoMG) now has a comprehensive understanding of the value-for-money it obtains from its IT services thanks to expert support from Socitm Consulting.

The extent to which the IoMG’s Information Services Division (ISD) was providing good value for the money being spent was not well understood. This was tending, at some levels of the government, to undermine confidence in ISD’s ability to sponsor and drive through innovative technology solutions. These solutions underpinned the government’s desire to provide services for citizens and business that are customer focussed, relevant and best practice.

Socitm Consulting was asked to provide an independent analysis of levels of investment in IT across the government. The anticipated outcome would then help to build confidence in the capacity and capability of the ISD to deliver the IoMG’s wider strategies such as a one-stop shop for customers to use.

In order to ensure that we considered all aspects of the value for money equation we used a combination of benchmarking, research and interviews to examine five major lines of enquiry:

• how did IoMG compare with other organisations in terms of its level of spend on ICT services and the value it obtains from them ?
• did the ISD annual revenue budget covering day-to-day ICT services provide good value for money?
• did Departments and Agencies get good value for money for the price they pay for day-to-day ICT services?
• did the way that ISD delivers its ICT services provide good value (in comparison with best practice)?
• did IoMG’s investments in new technology in general, and e-services in particular, represent good value for money ?

The picture that emerged was one of a very strong core IT function delivering an ambitious portfolio of change projects. Our independent view of the Value For Money (VFM) of the IT service, along with an assessment of some of the barriers that the IoMG’s wider business strategy had to face, has resulted in a plan of action to further improve day-to-day management of, and communication about, the IT service which in turn is leading towards improved governance capacity planning for the Government’s wider customer services strategy.

Caldric Randall, Chief Internal Auditor, Isle of Man Government commented, “Socitm Consulting provided the expertise, the external benchmarking and, most of all, the independent view about Government’s levels of investment in IT. Socitm’s consultants demonstrated a good grasp of the issues we were facing and how to practically resolve them and were very attentive to our needs throughout the assignment.”

Project Identification:
Client organisation: Isle of Man Government
Client contact: Caldric Randall, 01624 686588, caldric.randall@gov.im
Lead consultant: Niall Perry
Project no: 7239