While there have been many notable successes, there have also been some very high-profile failures. Public sector managers need to find implementation partners who understand the potential pitfalls and can help deliver lasting value.

Both citizens and politicians are exerting pressure on local government and other parts of public sector to raise standards while cutting costs. Information is critical to the smooth delivery of all government services, whether on the front line or in the back office. Yet the public sector faces a number of challenges:

• a shortage of public sector IT workers;
• a multiplicity of applications and technologies, inherited as the result of decentralisation or reorganisation;
• the need to share sensitive personal data in a secure way with authorised staff;
• a continuous slew of legislation and performance improvement initiatives that require processes to be constantly reorganised; and
• intense scrutiny of spending on change and technology programmes from the media, citizens and central government.

The public sector needs agile IT infrastructures that can be quickly reconfigured to meet changing needs. They should look to deliver robust, high-quality solutions to support critical front-line processes. To make the most of limited budgets, they need to make best use of existing resources, and create infrastructures that are easy and cost-effective to manage on an ongoing basis. And they need to be able to make successful use of outsourcing and managed services to cut costs or provide access to scarce skills.

We help our clients in the public sector develop efficient, flexible IT architectures, that allow them to reduce costs, streamline processes and adapt quickly to meet the changing needs of the organisation. We have extensive experience in consolidating or virtualising existing IT infrastructures and simplifying their management. We also work with clients to get them in the right shape for successful outsourcing, and help them build the right skills in house to manage outsourcing contracts. Our proven approach to change management enables us to deliver significant improvements in performance for our clients.