Department for Internal Development-IT

Strategy 2011-15
(2013 Revision)
By:
Prateek Kumar
Business Context
Current Business
Opportunity as well objective world poverty
Fosters healthy partnership with the governments, civil society, private sector as well as others
Focuses on output and result with greater emphasizes laid on wealth generation, climate change
and girls and women
Target Pakistan and Afghanistan to reshape the way these countries and their governments operate
achieve the historic 0.7% ODA/GNI ratio in 2013
Change Plans
Expects to have more flexible and influential workforce which is self dependent with key skills of the
Information Age
Main aim is to reduce the core administration expenditure and maintaining the front line delivery
expenses
Planned reduction in number of overseas DFID offices and travels by use of video conferencing
Framework of DFID IT Strategy


Framework governing the IT strategy
Business Solutions Department (BSD) Key contributor and tech leader in DFID
Access to business architecture ,knowledge and information management
Remote, flexible and mobile working
Use of BYOD devices
Satellite communication o maximize the reach and convenience of communication
Humanitarian response
shift to digital channels for communications and cloud solutions
Good level of IT and digital competence
Collaboration across the departments with minimal infrastructure
Necessary, Adequate or Redundant?
Necessary keeping in mind the wide scale spread of the initiative requiring independency and efficiency
Future, needs to exploit and keep pace with the emerging technologies as well as make a cost benefit value
analysis before developing on that
Expectations from IT for DFID
Reduce administrative costs (Drive cost savings)
Increase efficiency and delivery of initiatives
Identification and management of information risks by BSD
Appropriate access to systems and information by the end user
Maintain a balance between security and sharing
Remote, flexible and mobility in working with minimum dependency on hardware and equipment
Access to info as and when users need it
Maintaining the Global Communications network and reduce its delivery cost
Satellite communications for fragile states with poor infrastructure
Office in a box
Digital Strategy:
Reduction in IT contractors and suppliers
Building IT Capability for betters results and transparency
Reduce carbon footprint
Collaboration between various partners

Specific Technologies to be Invested Into
Cloud Solutions
Maintain adequate Standards for Digital strategy to bring more and more people to the use of
digital media platforms
Cost savings
make them smoother and more reliable
Enable transfer of technology across multiple user devices leveraging the use of mobile
devices and apps to reduce paper work E.g.: Driving license applications
Common framework for all government systems to remove redundancy
Equality Impact assessment
Central Integration Layer using SOA principles


IT Governance- Finance and Approval
Corporate Body/Unit Responsibilities
Chief Information Officer IT delivery ,development and support
Corporate Performance Group Managing investment of admin capital
Change Projects
Decisions on projects more than 0.5 million investment.

BSD Board Take decisions on projects less than 0.5 million investment.
Monitor progress against plan
Risk management and cost benefit analysis

DFID & Cabinet Office
Spending Controls
Financing the expenses.
Final call by ministers
1. To much government dependent
2. Bureaucratic structure might result in delays and lack of efficiency
3. Agile approach is not the success mantra always.
4. Has not been success in all historic cases
IT Governance- Information Assurance
Corporate Body/Unit Responsibilities
Chief Information Officer Deputy Senior Information Risk Owner
DG of Corporate Performance Group Senior Information Risk Owner.
Information Security Management Group Advisory to CIO
IT Security Officer Accreditation of IT systems
Independent of CIO
Architecture & Design Review Board Ensuring new systems conform to standards.
Any deviation to get approval from Head of Business
Innovation Team.
Change Agreement Board Approve the deployment of all systems into live
environment.
Ensuring all stakeholders are satisfied.
1. Separate Risk Assessment Team.
2. Security standards should be updated to new 2013
3. Head of Business Innovation Team has influence of Government.

Charge back versus Show back Model
Charge back Model
Bills are send to different department based on their demand as well as usage of resources.
Disadvantages:
If each department has its own resources then utilization is not efficient.
Accounting becomes a problem in case of sharing of resources among the departments
Conflict of interest bound to arise
Show back Model:
Bills are not send just the notifications of the usage to keep a track and be awareness on effective
resource utilization.
Financial purpose it is serving:
Encourages better transparency and efficiency in use of resources
makes accountability easier
Resource sharing is easy to track
Metrics to measure contribution of IT
Informational and operational risk management through BSD governance framework
UYOD and BYOD policy to ensure flexible working
Strengthening of network monitoring tools to improve planning bandwidth capacity
Satellite Communication
Unifies conferencing to DFID sites
Improving the existing systems to improve reporting capabilities and flexibility
Publishing the open data to make it more transparent
Creation of Digital Advisory Panel
More emphasis on staff self help and self service
virtual server technology to monitor performances
Management information project in early 2014 to capture information, perform analysis for decision
making
Required Skill set for IT Implementation of DFID
Skill development Initiative: Engagement of Private
Sector
Vocational training programmes
Inculcation of youth
Target women
Training market trough competitive contracting
Public and private training based institutes
Introduction of required certification programmes for rightful recruitment
Prime purpose was to non-staff IT spend by 50% while meeting ICTs needs
Focus on in-house and open source packages to drive cost cutting
Use of Government framework contracts including G-Cloud and Digital Services Framework to procure
cost and services at right price
Internal training to generate talent pool
Centralized procurement of IT Goods and Services through BSD to ensure the fit for purpose and
consistency

IT Sourcing Policies of DFID
Comprehensiveness of IT Risk
Not customizing the systems will lead to changing the business processes around the application. This
can increase the complexity of the process
Using in-house or COTS solutions could significantly increase the testing efforts of the team
Risk related to using open source software are also downplayed

Comprehensiveness of IT Road map
Financial
Cost savings through increased reliance on efficient IT processes. Showback cost model to account more
accurately the IT expenses of each department. Reduction in non-staff and staff costs.
Technological
Sharing and interoperability of systems; Digitization of communication channels; satellite channels for fragile
states; global communication networks. Feedback mechanism
Human
Remote, flexible and mobile working of employees; Training staff and promoting self service
Social/Cultural/Environmental
Reduce poverty; focussing on wealth creation, girls and women; Humanitarian, Emergency response review;
reducing carbon footprint. Open and transparent operation
Collaboration
Between governments, civil societies, private sectors and multilateral institutions