Any article like this must necessarily start with a warning. It is notoriously difficult to predict the way technology will develop. Even more difficult to predict is the impact of new technologies on the way we live and work, and the wider implications for individuals and society.

Anyone who doubts this should remember the man from Western Union who said confidently that the telephone would “never catch on”, or Bill Gates’ 1981 assertion that 640Kb of computer memory “should be enough for anybody”.

With this in mind, there are three key consequences of current advances in information and communications technology (ICT) that leaders and policy-makers in the public sector should be watching closely.
First, over the next decade technological advances will move us into a world that is increasingly ‘wireless’.

Inexpensive embedded sensors, processors and wireless networks will ensure that people will be able to access information wherever they are, whenever they want.

This has already enabled a significant increase in the growth of mobile working, which is discussed in more detail below, but there are many other implications. One obvious example concerns travel and transport.

The ability of travellers to access easily up-to-date information about disruptions to public transport, or traffic congestion on the roads, will not just help travellers, but will open up significant new areas for traffic management and control.

Second, a wireless world will further accelerate a move to mobile working that is already here. Laptop and hand-held computers which allow employees to access and update files held centrally by their organisation frees them from “dependence on the office”, with massive implications for efficiency, productivity and customer service.

 Halton Borough Council’s Benefits Express mobile office links together employee laptops and digital cameras via GPRS communications, enabling benefits officers visiting residents to access all the information required to process claims – which can now be turned around in 48 hours.

Over 50 per cent of benefit customers now receive a home visit, ensuring that rightful claims are taken up and fraudulent claims do not enter the system.

Elsewhere, significant productivity gains are being made by local authorities using mobile technologies to remove the need for social workers, planners and other staff who do much of their work in the field to spend time physically collecting and returning files from the office.

Even larger efficiency gains will be available to the growing number of local authorities looking to enable a significant proportion of their employees to work from home, dramatically reducing their accommodation and facilities costs. ICT future-watchers Gartner Group have predicted that by 2014, the majority of the information workers in the US and Europe will only visit their organisation’s premises once a week or less.

Third, privacy used to be akin to anonymity or obscurity. Other people didn’t – couldn’t – know things about you unless you chose to tell them. But we are moving towards a world of smart objects, intelligent sensors and ubiquitous connectivity. With everything connected all the time, everything is recorded and nothing is forgotten.

Citizens’ movements are caught on cameras, their car journeys logged, their payments, receipts and cash withdrawals tracked, and their phone calls recorded.

Collection and storage of such information is cheap and easy, and consequently, says Gartner, privacy is no longer a question of what is known about us by whom, but rather a question of who can use the information, and for what.

And yet, despite the obvious ‘Big Brother’ connotations, all this monitoring can be a force for good. West Lothian Council is wiring up the homes of the elderly, linking them to their families and to health and social services, so that help can be on hand in time, in the case of fire or water taps left running, or if the elderly person has a fall or experiences other medical problems.

Use of this technology is enabling the elderly to stay significantly longer in their own homes, improving their quality of life, and at the same time reducing the council’s spend on care home fees.

The Society of Information Technology Management remains keen to ensure that members are involved in and informed about the development of policies around technology as well as its implementation.