Mobile working Toolkit

Government criticised for post-election IT shambles

Kablenet.com

Published: 10 Jan 2006 12:15 GMT

MPs entering the House of Commons after the last general election were often unable to work due to poor provision of IT, according to a parliamentary report issued on 9 January, 2005.

One MP looking for wireless Internet access had to spend afternoons sitting on the steps outside Parliament so that he could get a signal.

Giving evidence to the inquiry, Windsor MP Adam Afriyie said: "I can work anywhere in the country — in coffee shops, in any building, most Conservative associations — if there is a coffee shop next door with a wireless LAN. The only place I was unable to work is here…I used to spend afternoons sitting on the steps outside Portcullis House so that I could get a signal from what I think is Caffe Nero next door."

The Administration Committee report says that parliament's IT infrastructure is "simply not suited to a mobile member without an office".

"For many new members, adequate wireless Internet access would have made working without an office much more manageable," it says.

The committee is disappointed that the administration service failed to anticipate new MPs arriving with a need to use their own equipment.

"We appreciate the security and viability issues around wireless Internet access, but believe that it should be possible to overcome these difficulties," says the committee.

"We recommend that wireless Internet access should be provided in those areas likely to be of most use to members — the atrium of Portcullis House, the library and the new members' temporary accommodation areas — and that a way should be found of securely providing wireless functionality on centrally supplied laptop computers."

It also points out that a new MPs' voicemail system got "rapidly clogged up" and recommends that additional capacity would be worth extra expense.

Services for defeated MPs were also criticised. Outgoing MPs, according to official guidance, should retain a phone line for four working days after the election. But at least one member could not accept incoming calls. Email accounts belonging to defeated MPs were disabled entirely after losing their seats with no automatic reply function available.

The committee calls for an automatic response service to be available "as a matter of course in future" and recommends that a telephone advice point for former MPs' staff would be a "sensible development".