Please see the article below that has been published by a journalist here in the UK. Some of us have been interviewed by this guy in the last few days but he clearly hasn’t listened to a word that we have said and just chosen to write the headlines he wanted to. Will you please not respond to his blog or to any requests from him for further information. Any approach should be referred to Carol Geyer, the OASIS Director of Communications.
If anyone has any concerns over this article we can discuss them on our next TC call.
Regards
John Borras
Chair OASIS TGF Technical Committee
m. +(0)44 7976 157745
Skype: gov3john
www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=tgf
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http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/public-sector/
Labour IT mandarins make comeback bid for global transformation
By Mark Ballard on April 24, 2012 4:49 PM
The last Labour government's "Transformational Government" project has been rebirthed in California as a plan for world-wide reform of seismic proportions.
Four leading emissaries of the initiative teamed up in London last week to argue against the UK's open standards policy and have tried to persuade the Cabinet Office to adopt their policy instead.
The group, convened as the Transformation Government Framework Technical Committee of the OASIS standards organisation, was formed in collaboration with Microsoft by members of a government that became synonymous with IT disasters. It has recruited the World Bank and other international institutions to persuade governments around the world to adopt its transformational policy.
The TGF Committee has told governments they should drop policies that address technology directly - policies like the UK's open standards policy. It has discussed instead a plan for a world-wide technical standards body and its members have expressed a preference for the controversial FRAND standards the UK has been trying to purge from its computing infrastructure.
Having been launched at a December 2010 World Bank meeting on the premise that the market had already settled all standards dilemmas of any importance, the OASIS TGF proposed in its first official publications this Spring a reform programme of that incorporated privatization, civil service job cuts and a hegemonous computing architecture that all governments must follow.
Former deputy e-Envoy Chris Parker formulated the plan in collaboration with the help of Microsoft worldwide policy director Steve Mutkoski. It was published by his company CS Transform, which had been paid by Microsoft to do work on the theme.
John Borras, a consultant for CS Transform and a senior member of OASIS, convened the OASIS TGF committee around the CS Transform plans. Borras had worked under Parker in Labour's Cabinet Office as director of technology. Other founding members of the committee included Peter Brown, managing director of a Brussels-based software consultancy called Pensive SA, where Borras also worked as chairman, and Andy Hopkirk, who as a director of the UK National Computing Centre in 2000 had helped Borras and Parker implement Labour government's IT strategy.
Brown, Hopkirk, Mutkoski and Parker argued against the UK coalition government's policy at the first meeting of the Cabinet Office's open standards consultation on 4 April. Ajit Joakar, another opponent of government policy at the meeting, was notable for support he gave Mutkoski and Parker when they first elaborated early ideas for the TGF committee in 2009. Linda Humphries, the Cabinet Office policy official who convened the policy meeting, was a junior official when Borras, Parker and Hopkirk held their senior positions.
Borras told Computer Weekly the World Bank, European Commission and the European Regional Information Society Association were all "keen" to implement the committee's plans. The World Bank is currently formulating an ICT strategy for developing countries, while ERISA represents local governments across Europe.
He denied the plans had been formulated from narrow interests. "There's no chumminess," he said. The OASIS committee was "open and transparent".
"I've worked with many of these people over the years. Working for the UK government, I built a network of contacts around the world.
"We feel technology is not a barrier anymore. So the focus has moved to business change. Governments are not organised in a way that is conducive to delivering online services. They need to restructure the way they do business. We are trying to help them on the best way of doing that," said Borras.
He denied his group was promoting a political agenda. He said TGF had not proposed privatisation and job cuts, described in his committee's Framework as "mixed economy service provision" and "restructuring of the public labour market". He said the plan was for "restructuring of operations to maximise the delivery of services...in the most efficient way."
Chris Parker told Computer Weekly Borras had known nothing about the Transformational Government plans being formulated at CS Transform until they were sent to him in 2010. He said Borras had merely been a consultant at CS Transform on a project basis. Parker said the original transformation plan had been formulated by Parker himself and Bill Edwardes, a CS Transform director who also worked with Borras and Parker at the Labour e-Envoy Office as director of e-Communications, and also as managing director of Directgov. Edwardes also joined their OASIS TGF committee.
Parker also played down Microsoft's involvement. He said CS Transform earned most of its income from governments. It had been paid by Microsoft but not specifically to produce the TGF proposals.
The TGF proposals were however formulated in collaboration Microsoft and CS Transform has co-branded a Microsoft brochure on the topic. Parker refused to discuss specific work CS Transform had done for Microsoft and whether the work had been supplied by Mutkoski, his colleague on the OASIS TGF.
Borras had in fact also worked for Parker at Gov3, the consulting firm the latter formed with Edwardes on leaving the Labour Cabinet Office in 2004. Andrew Pinder, who as UK e-Envoy had been their ultimate boss in Labour's Cabinet Office, had launched Gov3 with them. Their work at the Cabinet Office had controversially produced a government system that forced people to use Microsoft technology.
Gov3 had similar proposals to those CS Transform adapted with the help of Microsoft to form the OASIS TGF committee. It was similar to their work at the Cabinet Office. Borras said it was in fact a continuation of their work at the Labour Cabinet Office. The Gov3 work was also supported by the World Bank, where Borras, Edwardes and Parker are official e-government advisers.
Borras said the OASIS TGF proposals did not require governments to adopt specific standards. But it was a topic the committee would address. It currently required government's to implement their computing infrastructure using the OASIS Service Oriented Architecture Reference Model.