Goodbye Gordon: The Labour Tech Legacy

7. Open source government

Brown’s government was one of the first to use open source tech to help the public sector cut IT costs during the economic downturn. The decision to encourage greater use of open source was based on the need for greater support for community development by IT vendors, and some commentators claimed savings could be as much as £600 million a year.

However, Britain has been found to be lagging behind many other countries when it comes to open source, and many open source vendors have criticised the policy as toothless. Meanwhile, the European Commission has warned that any progress in using open source and open standards will have to be tempered against the possibility that the software could have downsides in terms of security.

8. Institutes for tech innovation

At TEDglobal 2009 – an elite international conference for entrepreneurs, academics and preforming artists – Brown called for the setting up of global institutions to handle international issues such as the environment and the financial crisis. He said that modern communications gave us the first opportunity to fundamentally change the world, and that foreign policy would never be the same again.

Then in March 2010, the government launched a new Institute for Web Science, as part of wider plans to make the UK a leader in digital services and content. Headed by web pioneer Sir Tim Berners Lee and web science expert Professor Nigel Shadbolt, the institute aims to bridge the gap between research and business and to commercialise web technologies.

9. Online public services

Gordon Brown’s government took great pains to push the ability of the web to provide citizens with more efficient access to public services. Online access to NHS records, Ordnance Survey maps and e-voting were among some of Labour’s projects. However, in January this year, an investigation by the Independent newspaper revealed that British taxpayers had been saddled with a bill of more than £26 billion for computer systems that had either suffered severe delays, run over budget, or been cancelled altogether.

Most notably it was discovered that the government’s £12.7 billion National Programme for IT project (NPfIT) for the NHS had enabled just 160 health organisations to set up electronic patient records, out of an estimated 9,000. The NHS Trust has since decided to go ahead with its own patient record system, which it expects will save £3.2 million.

10. CEOP

In February the government launched a nationwide campaign to encourage parents to help their children stay safe online. The scheme also involved developing a child-friendly browser, together with the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), which included a “panic button” on the screen at all times, giving users the ability to flag up or to report inappropriate or sexual content.

While the CEOP button received widespread support from child protection agencies, the project received a setback when one of the world’s biggest social networks – Facebook – refused to implement it. After meeting with Home Secretary Alan Johnson, Facebook finally agreed to link to CEOP on its reporting pages. However, the company’s refusal to install the button on every page was viewed as a political defeat.

What next for the Conservative/Liberal government?

The tech landscape that Cameron is walking into as the new Prime Minister is one pitted with disappointments and failures, and the Labour tech history combines a fair amount of success and failure.

The intentions behind most of Labour’s projects were sound, but they will be difficult to continue or emulate now that funds are much tighter. In the short-to-medium term, in Cameron’s plans, IT is much more likely to figure as an agent of efficiency savings.

However, after a long season in office, Labour has produced a tech legacy, and if the Tories manage to play the situation to their advantage, they could find themselves in a good position to build on its foundations.