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Timetable for Change

52.  A detailed action plan to implement the strategy will be approved by the CIO Council and the Service Transformation Board, and then published before the end of the current financial year. However the broad timing will be as follows.

53.  2005 & 2006 The current volume of change is stretching the capacity and capability of the government teams and their suppliers to deliver. Major new programmes are already in the pipeline, such as the Olympics, the Census and identity cards. So the next eighteen months must focus on:

1. Delivering the massive programmes of change commissioned under the last spending review and already underway, including Connecting for Health, reform of the Criminal Justice System, the Harnessing Technology strategy in education and modernisation of the Defence Information Infrastructure.
2. Driving the Connecting Britain - the Digital Strategy programme (of which this strategy is a part) to tackle overall issues of digital inclusion and service provision.
3. Mobilising the professionalism agenda - not least so that early action can help assure delivery of the current programme.
4. Putting in place the key roles and structures to lead the transformations needed beyond 2006.
5. Using the Comprehensive Spending Review to challenge existing delivery models and set clear plans and targets for improving services and realising efficiency benefits through a citizen-centric, shared services approach.
6. Working with government and public services at all levels - central government, devolved administrations, local government and other public services - to identify areas of common purpose and opportunities for specific shared actions.

54.  Between 2007 and 2011 the priority for technology investment and business change must be transforming delivery into public services centred round citizens and businesses, and transforming support into a shared services framework. During this period it will also be important to realise the financial and service benefits of current and planned investments. The goal should be to have made the key changes, to have embedded the new cultures, and to have made the process irreversible, by 2011.

55.  Beyond 2011 should be a period of further radical change in the delivery of public services, enabled by technology. The cycle of technological advancement is rapid and hard to predict. But if the broad themes of this strategy over the next five years are achieved in practice, strong foundations will be in place. In particular:

1. The focus on delivery and professionalism will have generated confidence in government's ability to transform itself in radical ways.
2. The switchover to new channels, supported by common infrastructure and the digital home will enable radical new service delivery options to be implemented.
3. Some of the newer technologies today will be mainstream by 2011 and the time will be right to roll out their widespread exploitation.
4. The culture of government will have changed to one which embraces -rather than shuns - sharing, which will continue to breakdown the silos perceived today.
5. The market and other governments will have set new citizen expectations and created new opportunities for government in the UK to exploit.

56.  It is likely therefore that the planning for this era will be based upon a vision that sees citizens and businesses increasingly serving themselves - at home, in work and public places and on the move; public servants truly dependent on technology to discharge their professional roles; policy makers regarding technology as crucial to designing policy and achieving policy outcomes; and backed by a government delivery network in which the boundaries between departments, between central and local government, and between public, private and voluntary sectors continue to be less important and less visible to the citizens and businesses. This may seem very radical by today's standards. But with strong foundations laid in the next few years it should be entirely achievable.