Pinder satisfied with UK's progress
Kablenet.com
Published: 26 Jul 2004 15:00 BST
Departing e-envoy Andrew Pinder has told ministers and senior officials that he has achieved the aims he was assigned when he took up his post, having moved the UK to become a "world leader" in IT.
Pinder has delivered a final report to the cabinet committee on electronic services delivery in which he appraised the UK's e-government and e-commerce efforts over the past five years.
In an upbeat assessment, he told ministers that three-quarters of government services are now online, with the UK's IT sector now "the largest and most productive" in the G7. Pinder also said that, according to the latest benchmarking surveys, the UK is one of the world leaders in broadband provision.
Speaking exclusively to Government Computing News after the committee meeting, Pinder said that he had "no disappointments" during his four years as e-envoy, although there were times when he was "professionally frustrated".
"Frustrated is a word I try not to use very much," he said. "Things can always move faster and my job has been to be impatient and to push people along. So I'm professionally frustrated in the sense that it's my job to be that way, but I'm not really frustrated, just anxious to get things moving faster, and I've had to prod people all the time."
Pinder said that he had changed the remit of the Office of the e-Envoy (OeE) from being "a campaigning and coordinating organisation" to one that now has "a lot more clout" throughout government.
In setting up Directgov, a central website offering government services and information, the OeE has worked hard to gain cooperation from areas of Whitehall that do not usually work together. He said it was delivered "on time and on budget", a feat that required "brutal project management" at times.
"It takes longer to win hearts and minds than is ideal," Pinder said. "I've been described in the past as an enthusiast -- 'the problem with Andrew is that he's an enthusiast', people say -- and that means I always expect things to be done quickly, and people to be swung more easily to my point of view, than sometimes people of different temperaments take.
"The thing that has taken longer is that people haven't got it quite as quickly as I might have liked from my enthusiast's point of view. But now I believe that they have got it."
Commenting on the government's efficiency agenda, Pinder acknowledged that he was first to raise the issue of public sector staff cuts through IT, two years ago. He said that at the time, his comments were "misreported" but that "everybody knew there were possibilities" for an efficiency agenda.
"It has to be delivered, of course, and there's going to be a lot of hard work to make sure it is delivered, but we've got a determined chancellor and the government is committed to make these sorts of changes. I'm sure that it will happen, but it will be hard."
Pinder's successor, Ian Watmore, is to play a "leading role" in bringing about the efficiency programme, and will be tasked with ensuring that benefits are delivered following the Treasury's investment in e-government.
Pinder is confident that Watmore will do a good job.
"I'm not going to do what a famous former prime minister is reputed to have done and to be a back seat driver, occasionally making mad lunges for the steering wheel," he said. "Ian is his own man, will no doubt be true to himself and will go hard to get what he thinks is the right thing, and I'm not going to be sitting on the sidelines criticising him."
Pinder says that being e-envoy is the "best job I've ever done" and that he's "proud" of his record and the people he's worked with.
"I'm sure there are suppliers and people in government who will not be sorry to see me go and think it is time for a fresh face. I would be disappointed if that wasn't the case because, if I was so emollient as to have not offended anybody, I wouldn't have been doing my job properly."
The full interview with Andrew Pinder will appear in the September edition of Government Computing magazine.
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