In-house IT systems are becoming a dejected oddity, according to a meaty public sector survey published this month.

The fifth annual Index of Application Software, published by the Society of IT Management (Socitm), is recommended reading for insomniacs, but its 131 Excel tables, referencing 64 types of software used by over 350 public sector organisations, are also a handy guide for IT managers anxious not to misspend tax payers' money.

If popular opinion is a shrewd judge of good sense, then the Socitm survey has settled the age-old debate of in-house versus out-of-house systems – and prominent NHS IT advisors agree: bought in systems are best.

Socitm has plotted a gradual decline in the development of in-house systems, which it thinks will continue, almost to their oblivion. "Most replacement systems will, in the future, be bought in," said the organisation in a statement.

Advice for NHS

Commenting on the survey, Tony Eardley, chair of the Association of IT Professionals in Health and Social Care, and director of the Health Informatics Service for South Staffordshire, said bought-in systems were the wisest option for NHS IT managers facing looming government targets.

"In the NHS, if the government tells us we have to be more joined up, a bespoke in-house system won't necessarily be the best thing when you have to communicate across health authorities," he said.

Also, he said bought-in systems might sometimes be more expensive initially, but in the long run their maintenance and ongoing development is more assured because it is not dependant on one or two in-house developers - and scope for future developments is not restricted by the narrow view of a small user base.

Stuart Rose, director of Harlequin Solutions, said: "IT managers fear buying-in their IT systems in case they get locked into an inflexible system, with extortionate cost for customization. But our systems are developed as open architecture solutions and we can train our customers to do their own customization and integration. So they needn't have any worries about being ripped off."

Domesday of decline

According to the Socitm survey, the proportion of in-house payroll systems fell from 11 per cent in 2001 to 9 per cent in 2002. Some organisations that make greater use of in-house developers, such as the social services for its client systems, are changing their preference for bought in software at a greater pace: the proportion of in-house development for this type of systems was shown to decline from 39 to 31 per cent.

Modern systems that were tracked in the survey for the first time this year have been trusted more to out-of-house developers from the outset. Content management systems and Web sites of the sort NHS organisations will be using to meet their Freedom of Information commitments this summer were bought in last year, respectively, 84 and 77 per cent of the time.

Bob Griffith, international secretary at Socitm, said shopping for an IT system is easier when you can see one already working in a reference site – system specifications for in-house systems simply do not fire users' imaginations.

Moreover, he said: "People haven't got the time or resources to develop in-house systems… [so] the public sector is putting more of its resources into implementation efforts."

Medical colleges jealous of BCOM bombast

The British College of Osteopathic Medicine has become the envy of rivals and peers since it installed a state-of-the-art Punch content management system and Web site, said vice principle Nick Walters.

In the midst of a glowing post implementation review, Walters told how the system BCOM bought from Harlequin Solutions had put it among the "market leaders", given it more control over its public image and a better grip on its burgeoning store of data.

"The system is gaining critical acclaim from competitors and colleagues – to the extent that they've tried to copy what we've done," he said. "And every student who comes for an interview comments on the Web site."

A year ago BCOM had an old fashioned Web site and an unwieldy name. When the then British College of Naturopathy and Osteopathy decided it needed to do something about its image a change of name was just the tip of the ice-berg. And a spangly Web site is just the icing on the cake of its new IT system.

Example for FOI

Behind the Web site is a content management system (CMS) that delivers up the latest information about courses and free places. But the CMS also powers a booking system for the college clinic and a college extranet that allows staff and students to share the hundreds of pages of lecture notes, handouts and study aids that are generated every year.

Stuart Rose, director of Harlequin Solutions, said: "With FOI deadlines creeping up fast, many NHS organizations are using companies like us to get turnkey solutions just like this ready and working today, because they don't have the resources to meet statutory requirements on their own."

The old Web site used static Web pages, which is like buying a Mercedes with a 2CV engine – it might look good, but at 2 brake horse power it will take you ages to get anywhere. The college's static Web pages had to be updated by developers, said Walters, which was "frustrating".

Less hassle

"We wanted the opportunity to manage the content, rather than send the content to a developer and be subject to their timescales and at an hourly charge of £35 to £50 an hour," said Walters.

The result was that the course information was not up to date and staff wasted time on the telephone giving basic information to students when they should have been getting down to nitty gritty.

Harlequin's Punch system makes sure any changes the college makes to its course information, and any changes in its course availability, are reflected on the Web site straight away.

"Punch is a sophisticated, efficient content management system," Walters enthused. "I can be confident that the information, using Punch, isn't out of date – students are getting the information we want them to see. And it frees up more time for discussions with them."