Earlier this year I had the chance to question prime minister Tony Blair in a parliamentary committee. I asked him if he deserved his reputation as a technophobe and he replied yes, he did. I then asked if he had ever visited the government’s website portal, www.direct.gov.uk, and he said no. So, I pressed him on whether he knew the name of the site which has cost the government millions of pounds and he said he could not tell me.

There was a serious point behind this. The government’s entire spending plans depend on savings identified in the Gershon review, which in turn depend on increased and better use of information technology. The prime minister is effectively the chief executive of an organisation going through a massive business-change programme with a large technology component to achieve significant cost reductions.

It is therefore reasonable to ask about the extent to which senior directors, ie government ministers, understand about the process which they are supposed to be overseeing. And it should be unacceptable for anyone in a senior position with these responsibilities to say they are a technophobe and leave it at that.

In many of the public sector professions we have staff who are not naturally comfortable with technology but they have to learn about it and use it for the benefit of the service they offer. Teachers, doctors, nurses and police officers cannot ‘opt out’ of technology use on the grounds of personal preference. And senior decision-makers in government who introduce this technology need to opt in to understanding it to a certain degree if they are to do their jobs effectively.

This does not mean crash courses in C++ programming or network router maintenance workshops for cabinet ministers, but it does mean gaining a basic understanding of how computer systems work and are developed, so they can properly assess information that is given to them by technologists.

It should be no more acceptable to profess a lack of understanding of a technology options paper than it would be to demonstrate a failure to comprehend decisions on the departmental budget. You do not need to be a trained accountant to look at budgets, but a working knowledge of balance sheets and reasonable numeracy skills are required.

The problems with the introduction of the new tax credits system are a good example of where such greater knowledge might have been applied. This system caused serious problems for many thousands of people who depend on government support to meet their family outgoings.

An enquiry by the public accounts committee revealed that the difficulties stemmed from a late decision to shorten the testing cycle. This meant the system going live without a problem being picked up that would cause excessive delays on system access in a live environment.

We were told that the decision to go ahead in spite of the shortened testing cycle was made at senior ministerial level. But you are left wondering whether that decision was taken in a fully informed way, or whether a lack of real understanding of the systems life cycle and importance of testing meant instead that it was nodded through a committee as a “minor technical issue”.

Decisions like this on whether to proceed with a system as planned, postpone its implementation, or abandon it will increasingly be the stuff of ministerial committees. At an earlier stage in the development cycle there will be important decisions on project scope, specification and timetable.

There will be different approaches presented by contractors and assessments made of their ability to deliver. And any large-scale project will have some hiccups along the way that require urgent decisions at a senior level.

These may involve technical details but they are matters which have the potential to affect service delivery to millions of people if they are got wrong. Ministers should worry more about this aspect of their work and spend time developing the skills they need to deal with it.