Government information systems are big business (costing over 1 per cent of GDP a year). They are critical to all aspects of public policy and governmental operations. Governments spend billions on them - for instance, the UK alone commits GBP14 billion a year to public sector IT operations. Yet governments do not generally develop or run their own systems, instead relying on private sector computer services providers to run large, long-run contracts to provide IT. Some of the biggest companies in the world (IBM, EDS, Lockheed Martin, etc) have made this a core market. The book shows how governments in some countries (the USA, Canada and Netherlands) have maintained much more effective policies than others (in the UK, Japan and Australia). It shows how public managers need to retain and develop their own IT expertise and to carefully maintain well-contested markets if they are to deliver value for money in their dealings with the very powerful global IT industry. This book describes how a critical aspect of the modern state is managed, or in some cases mismanaged.It will be vital reading for public managers, IT professionals, and business executives alike, as well as for students of modern government, business, and information studies.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Information Technology and Public Policymaking; 1. The Theory of Modern Bureaucracy and the Neglected Role of IT; 2. Acquiring and Managing Government IT; 3. The Comparative Performance of Government IT; 4. Explaining Performance I: Government Institutions, New Public Management and Bureaucratic Cultures; 5. Explaining Performance II: Competitive Tension and the Power of the IT Industry; 6. Taxation: Re-Modernizing Legacy IT and Getting Taxpayers Online; 7. Social Security: Managing Mass Payment and Responding to Welfare State Change; 8. Immigration: Technology Changes and Adminstrative Renewal; 9. New Public Management is Dead - Long Live Digital Era Governance; Afterword: Looking Ahead on Technology Trends, Industry Organization, and Government IT