National Audit Office - Cross-Government: Managing the Risks of Legacy ICT to Public Service Delivery - HC 539

Download or read book National Audit Office - Cross-Government: Managing the Risks of Legacy ICT to Public Service Delivery - HC 539 written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-09-11 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Older ICT systems that are critical for the delivery of key public services ('legacy ICT') expose departments to risks which must be understood and managed. A particular risk is that departments dependent on legacy ICT will find it more challenging to achieve the business transformation envisaged by the Government in its digital strategy. Some £480 billion of the government's operating revenues and at least £210 billion of non-staff expenditure such as pensions and entitlements are reliant to some extent on legacy ICT. Good practice in managing legacy ICT as an integrated part of public service delivery is therefore crucial to maintaining the performance of these services. The reliance of government on legacy ICT is highlighted by the NAO in a number of case studies. The common risks seen by the NAO in its case studies include a higher vulnerability of legacy ICT to security problems; being locked in to uncompetitive support arrangements with a single supplier; a shortage of skills to maintain and support legacy ICT; the proliferation of manual processes as legacy ICT systems have to cope with changing business needs; the cost of new business processes to compensate for missing functionality in the legacy ICT system; and increased complexity caused by additional interfaces with other systems, driving up costs.