The Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO) is working on a common legacy IT framework to develop a consistent view of the costs and risks of legacy systems across government.
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Steve Barclay MP has outlined the effort as one of a series of measures aimed at improving the digital, data and technology (DDaT) function in government in a letter to Parliament’s Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee.
He related the move to an effort to assess the costs of maintaining legacy IT in central government, which was estimated at £2.3 billion per year by the Digital Economic Council, based on analysis by Government Security in 2019.
“There is currently no central assessment of the total cost of replacing all legacy IT systems cross-government,” Barclay said. “However, the CCDO is working across government to develop a consistent view of the costs and risks of legacy systems through the roll out of a common legacy IT framework and regular discussions with departments at quarterly business reviews.
“The Government demonstrated its strong commitment to replacing legacy IT and driving interoperability at the last Spending Review by investing £2.6 billion in cyber and legacy IT, to go with £600 million invested in legacy IT at the previous year’s Spending Review.”
Co-ordination role
This reflects the responsibility of the CDDO for central co-ordination of legacy IT. An annex to the letter says that over the medium to long term it hopes a common approach in the framework will help to deal with the significant financial and security risks.
Barclay also said the work by the Government Digital Service on the One Login system – for users to access government services through a single portal – is on track to deliver a single viable product for public testing by the end of this month, with further features and services to be added over the next three years.
Near the end of last year it was announced that the Disclosure and Barring Service should be the first to use One Login from April.
