ITS-A, Group 7

Ajay Dalal
Gourav Didwania
Harsh Gupta
Pranay Gupta
Saurabh Bansal
Siddhath Chowdhary

What is the current business of DFID? What kind of changes if any does
DFID plan in its business in the near or distant future? What if any is the
vision of DFID?
Current business:
It works along with governments, civil societies, private sectors, multinational institutions, like World
Bank, United Nations and European Commission.
It strives to reduce world poverty by focusing on wealth creation, girls and women, climate change and
conflict affected states.

Changes for future:

Increase in use of efficient information technology to improve outcomes and reduce expenditures.
Use of mobile working tools to increase flexibility of workforce
Increased collaboration across the governments and other development partners
Shift towards using open standards for better interoperability
Improving transparency with related to aid
Increased focus on conflict-affected countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan

Vision
To promote sustainable development and end world poverty.

What are the framework conditions, if any, governing the IT

strategy of DFID? Please comment on whether some of them
are necessary, adequate or redundant?
1) It will adopt the Digital by Default Service Standard 19 for all new or redesigned digital services and will
be designed and operated based on user needs. - ADEQUATE

2) It will operate a Cloud First policy, in line with HMG policy, meaning that we will evaluate cloud solutions
before considering other options. -ADEQUATE
3) Changing the security classification of network data from RESTRICTED to OFFICIAL under the new
Government Security Classification review. - NECCESSARY

4) BSD will consult with staff from across the Department to enable user input into service levels and
priorities by applying agile approaches. REDUNDANT
5) Each DFID System will have a service owner/business owner who will lead on development and
replacement, ensuring approved business cases and governance structures are in place. It will also be
assigned to an Information Asset Owner. - ADEQUATE
6) DFID systems used overseas must deliver acceptable performance as defined by DFID users through a
revised service level agreement. - NECESSARY

7) DFID will retain an in-house IT capability and will manage projects when contractors carry out
the work. BSD will use agile, iterative and user-centred methods. - ADEQUATE
8) When using off-the-shelf software DFID will configure and extend but not customise core
components. - NECESSARY
9) DFID hosted systems will have disaster recovery processes tested on a regular basis. All systems
will run on a virtual infrastructure where this is supported. - ADEQUATE
10) All new DFID systems should aim to meet Level AA accessibility standards. Changes to IT
policies and procedures will require an Equality Impact Assessment. - ADEQUATE
11) DFID will procure, operate and dispose of IT systems in accordance with best environmental
practice and Greening Government 20 targets. - NECESSARY
12) DFID systems will integrate through a central integration layer using Service Oriented
Architecture (SOA) Principles. - ADEQUATE
13) The principles of Digital Continuity will continue to be embedded into key processes to ensure
that important information held digitally is preserved and maintained in an accessible format for
the future. - ADEQUATE
14) DFID will exploit the full potential of existing technologies and carefully consider new
investments for alignment with the IT Strategy and value for money. We will review legacy
systems to make them more sustainable. - REDUNDANT

What should be the expectations of DFID from its IT investments? Do you envisage need for any additional
Investments in IT infrastructure? Are there any critical IT application projects which DFID ought to take up to offer
services which might be critical, yet conspicuous by their absence now? Are there any redundant services, which can
be done away with?

Expectations

Reduce core administrative costs

Increase Efficiency
Helping in successfully delivering govt. wide initiatives.
Increase savings

Yes , additional investments are needed

Like investment is needed in fragile states where infrastructure is poor but still it is
relying on satellite communication which is not only low bandwidth , high latency but also
comes with high costs .So funds can be invested here to solve this issue.
DFID can also look up to projects with business intelligence involved.
There arent any redundant services which can be done away with.

What specific technologies is DFID planning to invest into? Are there any other emerging technologies
which DFID must critically examine for adoption?

Cloud Computing.

Business Intelligence technologies for adoption to help them with better Data analysis ,
information management and information analysis.

Governance Structure for IT

Headed by CIO
If Investment required < 0.5 Million; BSD board takes decision

else Director General for Corporate Performance

For Information Insurance:

DG for Corporate Performance plays the role of Senior Information Risk Owner
CIO plays the role of Deputy SIRO

Governance Structure for IT

BSD Management Team: Endorses the basis for the design and operation of IT systems in DIFD

Architecture and Design Review Board: Ensures the systems conform to agreed standards.
Any deviation must be approved by Head of Business Innovation Team

Change Agreement Board: Ensures all stakeholders are satisfied. Approves the deployment of all
systems into live environment.

Objectives of Showback Model

Analysis of IT cost due to each departments without actually cross-charging those costs.
Pressure on the departments to limit their usage is less direct.
Helps in Awareness of spending across departments

What kind of IT skills would be critical for successful implementation of IT Strategy of DFID?
What skill development initiatives would you recommend?
The IT skills in the field of Big data, cloud computing and business intelligence would be critical for
successful implementation of the IT strategy of the DFID. Expertise in these fields will lead to
significant cost reductions for DFID. Implementing the change would also be a critical skill that
would be required by the employees.
The skills in these areas could be developed by taking online courses . Many courses in the field
of Data science are available on the internet for free. One example would be :Online course on www.coursera.org on Data Science By John Hopkins Bloomberg School.
These type of courses provide certifications also upon completion and there is continues
evaluation on the topics. This would ensure that the the skill gap is reduced by these sessions.
Video sessions could also be given on various tools that can be used in Data analysis. These type
of skill development exercises will not be costly and thus aligned with the strategy of DFID.

Comment on the metrics being adopted and proposed to be adopted by DFID for measuring
the contribution of IT to the business of DFI
The contribution of IT to the DFID is to be measured using the value for money .
Business solutions Department (BSD) identifies all the costs associated with the services it
offers.
It develops the cost models and then compares itself with the similar organisations providing
the services.
The proposal is to benchmark it using cross government ICT strategy metrics.
They will also continuously evaluate emerging technologies and developments in the existing
technologies and will see where they can improve ensuring value for money .

IT Sourcing Policy
DFID spends around 13 million pounds on ICT goods and services
Desktops, Servers, Cloud Services, etc required for better delivery and performance
Disaster Recovery processes as data is high value in todays world

Reducing non staff IT cost by half from 2010/11

There will be reduction in administration cost

Internal Training and commercial awareness program for technical staff

New solution through in-house or open source packages
All the solution will be reviewed based on cost, value and performance
Also finding solution through this way is cheaper and compatible to the legacy systems

BSD responsible for procurement of IT goods and services

Will consult employees and find out what is actually needed and obtain feedback on the same

Additional Risk
Time taken
Time required to build a robust IT system is high
Proper planning needs to be prepared well in advance so that it doesnt affect the performance

Security system

As open data strategy and shared services are being implemented, security breach is one major
risk
Additional focus on security systems specially related to sensitive data like Finance, data of other
departments etc

Finding the right staff for oversea offices

Difficult to find in countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan

Staff with same level of technical competence should be hired with knowledge of the latest
system implemented

Does the document, in your opinion, provide a comprehensive IT Roadmap for DFID which is well
aligned with the business strategy of DFID?

Business Strategy
Reducing world poverty, focusing on wealth creation, girls and women, climate change.

Focus more on conflict affected areas like Pakistan, Afghanistan.

Open and transparent working.
Reduction in administrative costs by use of IT.

More flexible and influential workforce.

Document Review
IT decreases costs, increasing efficiency helping Govt. successfully complete its
initiatives .
Remote, flexible, mobile working and satellite communications for conflict and
unknown areas.
Humanitarian response for effective communication in conflict prone areas.

Carbon reduction targets for sustainability and use of faster medium of communication
to reduce the amount of travel needed and improve collaborative working tools.