RICHARD STEEL, CIO of Newham was shaken by his recent dealings with the INQUIRER that he asked in his blog whether he should ever trust the press again?" Here is our response.

The salutary lesson to draw from our dealings, Richard, is not whether you can trust the press. It is rather a lesson in managing expectations, a process every CIO should know well.

The expectations you invested in your 2004 deal with Microsoft, as enshrined in the memorandum of understanding, were also unrealistic.

To recap, the original MOU said the use of Microsoft software would "improve Common Performance Assessment results and Star Ratings" measured by the Audit Commission.

The analysis presented in the INQUIRER on Friday demonstrated that this expectation had not been met.

When we asked you about this on Friday you told us there was a new MOU. Now you accuse us of twisting your words.

How would you prefer to describe what happened to the original agreement? If it has not been scrapped, perhaps it has been decommissioned, recycled, sold on eBay?

Having been told you had drawn up a second MOU with Microsoft, we were clearly interested to learn what new terms you had agreed in the public interest. You said it was confidential. But the first MOU was deemed fit for publication under FOI rules.

You also said the first MOU was only ever a three year deal. But the document was accepted by a Council vote as part of a 10-year deal.

Now four years since you signed the original agreement it is proper for us to ask how well the public money you are giving Microsoft is spent.

Had elected Council members not been assured in 2004 that this 10-year deal would have been of direct benefit to their Audit Commission ratings, would they have endorsed it?

It was telling that the independent consultants commenting in Computer Weekly's article on the problems with your Vista roll-out advised that 10-year mega-deals were not all they were cracked up to be after all.

Indeed, have the expectations enshrined in your new MOU been tempered by experience? Can we still expect an infrastructure deal to deliver direct benefits to a council's CPA rating?

But let's step back a little. I have no doubt of your dedication to public sector IT, a function that grows more complex and demanding every year. The question here is not your performance, it is the performance of the pioneering and controversial 10-year deal you signed with Microsoft in 2004.

If in hindsight your council's expectations were unrealistic, you would do your office as vice president of Socitm proud by telling other local government CIOs what lessons they should draw from this - lessons about public sector IT, that is, not lessons about how weaselly you think the press are, because that just sound like chaff. µ

See Also
London council unimpressed with Microsoft MOU
Newham: more MOU cows tip up