To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the Government information technology budget for 2008–09 being spent on; and what Government projects are being undertaken. [HL1415]

HM Treasury sets overall budgets for departments but does not set specific budgets for information technology. It is for departments to allocate resources appropriately within their existing budgets and to ensure that their spending represents value for money. Departments are therefore responsible for recording their portfolio of projects.

The operational efficiency programme is currently reviewing how the Government could get more value from back office and IT. The IT part of this workstrand will be examining the total public sector expenditure on IT, including IT-enabled business change projects. This work will assess the level of efficiency savings that can be achieved in the use of IT and will make recommendations at Budget 2009 for how they should be achieved.

The Chief Informational Officer (CIO) Council acts as a focus for partnership between IT professionals across Government and has a membership drawn from the wider public sector—central government, local government, and agencies in fields such as health and policing. The CIO Council is charged with creating and delivering a government-wide CIO agenda to support the transformation of government and to build capacity and capability in IT-enabled business change.

The CIO Council produces a Transformational Government annual report. This report aims to set out a six-year improvement plan for public services by ensuring IT supports the business transformation of Government themselves, in order to provide better, more efficient, public services. Transformational Government Annual Report 2007 stated that IT expenditure of the CIO Council was £13.2 billion in 2006-07. This report provides a breakdown of this spend by department and by some major projects. A copy of the Transformational Government Annual Report 2007 has been laid in the Library of the House.