My Department subscribes to the services of the company to which the Deputy refers, which is a globally recognised provider of research and business intelligence in the area of ICT. It is not associated with any software or hardware vendor, and the advice of the company is regarded as totally independent. This is of significant value since it is hard to get truly independent, unbiased information. The company referred to has an extensive team of top class analysts spread across the world. It has a significant bank of research in place to which many new research papers are added each month.
The company also gives significant strategic information on how leading organisations worldwide are using IT to best advantage for service delivery. My Department has a range of large operational activities that depend critically on ICT. This is an integral part of our service delivery and provides the level of operational efficiency, customer service and control appropriate to management of schemes worth some €3 billion. It is important the ICT management keeps fully abreast of developments in the sector and international best practice and for this reason, my Department decided to subscribe to the services provided by the company's executive programme. This programme is aimed at providing a service best suited to large-scale users of ICT.
The programme to which my Department subscribes provides unlimited access for all of the Department's IT managers to the research material and a wide network of researchers and analysts.