Gartner revises down global government IT spending forecast

Market watcher Gartner has revised down its worldwide government IT spending forecast, as the era of austerity continues to hit the public sector hard.

The analyst predicts the amount spent on IT by governments across the globe will top $449.5 billion this year, which is down by 0.1 per cent on 2012.

Previously, the firm had predicted 0.2 per cent growth in government IT spend this year, but said it has been forced to revise this because of the continued economic uncertainty many public sector organisations are currently facing.

Despite this, Gartner claims mobile, cloud computing and IT refreshes will be the top spending priorities for government CIOs, followed closely by professional services and big data.

This is based on the findings of a recent government IT spending survey the firm carried out.

Christine Arcaris, research director at Gartner, said the economic difficulties many public sector organisations are facing make cloud computing a good technology fit for them.

"Cloud computing, in particular, continues to increase compared with prior years, driven by economic conditions and a shift from capital expenditure to operational expenditure, as well as potentially more important factors such as faster deployment and reduced risk," she added.

The Gartner study suggests private and public cloud uptake is continuing at pace, with Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) adoption leading to more interest in Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) deployments.

The survey's findings also flagged mobility as an area of spending priority for government agencies that rely on a high number of field workers, such as social care and border control departments.

Big data, on the other hand, is less of an investment priority for government IT buyers, but interest in the technology is growing.

"Government organisations have increased big data spending for improper payment systems, indicating the desire to tackle fraud, waste and abuse within agencies, as well as target upfront errors in revenue collection," explained Arcaris.

"While agencies are assessing how to manage, leverage and store big data, not many have addressed the challenges associated with the utilisation of content and the issues associated with merging large amounts of data onto a single platform," she added.