Only 48 per cent of 101 central government IT leaders responding to a survey from Pure Storage believe their current data infrastructure can help them meet their strategic transformation objectives.

The data solutions company commissioned consultancy Insight Avenue to poll the civil servants earlier this year, finding that 85 per cent think their infrastructure can compromise operational agility, while 83 per cent believe it increases operational costs, 82 per cent reckon it creates compliance challenges and 80 per cent believe it reduces the ability to meet citizen expectations.

The research also revealed that 49 per cent said data was important to deliver a time-efficient service for citizens, while 43 per cent think it is necessary to drive reliable and mobile optimised services, and 42 per cent responded that it can help create a simple experience for users.

Over half (54 per cent) of central government IT leaders said they believe they could be making better use of data and analytics for cost savings and to derive more value, while 42 per cent said it would enable better real-time decision making.

There are plans to overhaul data strategy and infrastructure among 49 per cent of the respondents over the next two years, but 89 per cent cited barriers in the need for investment in data infrastructure, 80 per cent for spending on applications, 78 per cent in legacy processes and 77 per cent in the lack of digital skills.

Shaun Collings, Pure Storage’s UK director for public sector, said: “The legacy architecture that many departments have in place does not fully support the efforts to obtain greater value from data.

“A modern IT environment is needed that can scale up on demand, align application workloads with the most effective infrastructure and promise 100 per cent non-disruption so that the government can truly achieve its digital transformation goals.”

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