Budgets the biggest barrier to technology adoption

A new survey has revealed that the biggest barrier to adopting new technologies for the public sector is restricted budgets, followed by cultural resistance within organisations.

Park Place Technologies surveyed workers from across 219 public sector organisations and found that 83 per cent of IT departments polled deemed restricted budgets as the main obstacle to the adoption of new technology, with access to finance also having an impact when it comes to the existing IT with 81 per cent claiming budget restraints is the number one issue here too.

The research found that, following restricted budgets, the main challenges are cultural resistance (53 per cent), technology skills gap across the sector (52 per cent) and compliance and security concerns (41 per cent).

More than half of respondents struggle with the issue of legacy technology and a lack of in-house skills or experience in new technologies, while a further 52 per cent believe there is a skills gap that will impact the sector’s ability to adopt new technologies. In fact, the research found that, of the businesses that have a designated plan in place to address these challenges, upskilling new employees (77 per cent) is a top priority. This is supported by a further 44 per cent of organisations that are actively recruiting new skills to address the challenges.

Darren Ellis, director of Public Sector Sales, Park Place Technologies, said: “Public sector organisations are clearly feeling the pinch. For too long now budgets in the public sector have been cut, stretched and redirected. IT teams have done well to keep the plates spinning but we’re very quickly coming to a junction whereby any more budget restrictions could have a considerable impact on service delivery, performance and security.”