Project delays cause uncertainty in IT.
Planning the recruitment of IT staff is proving difficult in the public sector, due to the continuing uncertainty over the future of some projects caused by budget cuts and re-organisations as seen in the Home Office and the NHS.
Project slippage has been a major problem within the NHS especially and being able to afford the best candidates on the market is something the health service struggles to contend with.
While technical developers are always needed, demand for IT staff in the public sector is largely focused on the project management side of things, with popular roles including project support officers, technical architects and business analysts.
IT candidates who have current government security clearance are finding favour – particularly on central government projects - as the employer can get them started quicker than someone who needs to go through the screening process from scratch.
However, in certain areas, these candidates are hard to find and the projects get delayed as it can take some months for candidates to achieve the required level of clearance.
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One Response to “Project delays cause uncertainty in IT.”
Since the 3rd Quarter of 2007/08 the Public Sector IT contract environment, particularly in respect of Project managemnt roles, has been unsettled.
Many agencies ahve issued invitations to bid that have failed to reach fruition, and this has caused contract staff and agencies some problems. Perhaps public sector (Catalist ?) procurement departments should consider carefully if they have funding committment or are expecting to obtain same, before putting prospective contractors and agency staff through the often resource intensive bidding process. No-one minds loosing to another contractor or agency, but to find that (perhaps for the third time) a prospective ITB has failed to go the distance is particularly frustarting and perhaps encourages contarctors and agency to consider whether they wish to bid with that department next time around !!