Intellect launches talent and innovation drive

Intellect has announced a series of initiatives to help the Government harness the talent and innovation of UK technology companies.

The programme, launched by the UK information communications (ICT) trade body, is designed to improve public sector commercial and technical skills and will be rolled out by March 2012.

It includes new activities, training and technology tools are being released at a public sector IT supplier conference in London today in support of the government's ICT Strategic Implementation Plan, which was unveiled last month.

Bill McCluggage, the government's deputy chief information officer, stated: "Intellect has played a valuable role in the development of the new Government ICT Strategic Implementation Plan."

Sureyya Cansoy, Intellect public sector director, added that the initiatives would improve the government's understanding of and access to UK technology sector skills and innovation.

"Our aim is to ensure that the government has access to the best ideas and people to support their ICT strategy and deliver improved public services," she said.

"They will also help UK companies of all sizes to share their ideas and feedback directly with government decision makers."

The trade body programme includes the development of a map of UK technology companies to pinpoint current and emerging capabilities and enable government organisations to identify and engage with potential suppliers.

It will develop its partner and supply chain portals to help encourage greater collaboration between IT companies and identify potential business partners for government projects, as well as facilitate knowledge sharing around related supplier problems or issues.

Regular market health checks will also be published in support of the partner portal, which it said would provide a snapshot of inter-company activity, including the percentage of large companies' business being conducted with small to midsized businesses.

From a talent and training perspective, a new talent swap service will be launched for staff from government and technology companies to exchange job roles to gain a better understanding of each other's work environment.

Intellect also plans to offer civil servants free places on its training courses and a programme of technology company site tours and work shadowing. The introduction of a "create a mentor" programme has also been created to help start-up technology companies overcome new business development challenges.

McCluggage added that the Government looked forward to working with Intellect and "to continued improvement in engagement between the government and the ICT industry".

Previous public sector reports have pointed to a lack of IT knowledge and skills as one of the reasons for past large-scale public sector IT project failures, security breaches and procurement issues.