Analyst Argues Election Results Are Good For ICT Sector

The certainty of a majority government will bring benefits for suppliers to the public sector software and IT services (SITS) market, an analyst at TechMarketView has claimed.

According to Georgina O’Toole, a lack of a majority government would have led to weeks of uncertainty and so delays in decisions around major government projects.

TechMarketView as a whole predicted that 2015’s General Election would have very little impact on the direction of travel of the UK public sector SITS markets.

This is because the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats were united by policies around health and social care integration, investment in mental health and tightening up immigration controls, as well as other pledges that are likely to impact IT investment.

 O’Toole also claims that now we have a certain government, we can be more sure of a future that includes a digital tax account, the abolishment of self assessment returns and a focus on public spending cuts to eliminate the national deficit.

“We can now expect an event greater focus on driving efficiency savings; that will be the only option if the Conservatives can hope to meet their spending commitments,” the analyst claimed.

“During the Election campaign period, all parties, including the Conservatives, have highlighted the important of ‘digitising government.’

“Now, in Whitehall and beyond, all eyes will be on the Government Digital Service and, in particular, what will become of the Government as a Platform (GaaP) initiative.

“Already some pilots are underway, for example a cross-government ‘payments platform.’ But we will now await the result of a McKinsey review of the potential savings that could be achieved through the approach,” she added.

Innovation To Cut Deficit

In her blog post, O’Toole noted that GaaP is all about cutting the ICT budget and so the real benefits this holds for SITS suppliers, and the national deficit, will come from the government’s decision to save money by investing in more innovative technology.

“Unfortunately, there remains huge scepticism over the ability of ICT projects to deliver results, for example Rural Payments, Universal Credit, Smart Meters, perhaps we should be surprised,” she concluded.

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