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The article informs that the government of Great Britain does not plan to review rules on the use of computer evidence in court, despite its link to the Post Office Horizon scandal. It is noted that the subpostmasters were convicted based on evidence from the Horizon computer system used in Post Office branches, but this evidence was later proved to be unsafe because of errors in the information technology system.

The article reports that the British economy could be damaged within a decade unless employers and educators act now to create a new breed of IT professionals. The study, based on interviews with more than 3,200 employers, found that, with the recovery in the jobs market in its infancy, employers are already finding it difficult to fill vacancies. Over the next decade, businesses in Great Britain will need between 156,000 and 197,000 new entrants into the IT profession each year. There are few signs that employers, universities and the further education system are prepared to meet this challenge. It has become increasingly clear that the growth of offshore outsourcing and the trend for businesses to demand off-the-shelf rather than bespoke software will radically change the nature of the IT profession. There will be growing demand for IT professionals with the ability to integrate pre-packaged components into complete systems. It has been predicted that the distinction between IT professionals and general business managers will blur and disappear. If the IT profession is to rise to these challenges there will need to be a radical reform in the way employers and the educational system develops and trains IT professionals. INSETS: The changing nature of IT: skills for the future;IT staffing: what the future holds.

The article reports on the study conducted by Forrester Consulting for Borland Software Corp. in Great Britain which reveals that application developers rely on subjective estimates than hard metrics in evaluating the success of information technology (IT) projects. According to Marc Brown, vice-president of product marketing at Borland, IT needs to enhance its performance, understand delivery capacity and respond to changing business demands. Moreover, the firm has planed to launch products and services that aim to offer business intelligence for software developers.

The article offers career advice for information technology (IT) professionals in Great Britain. In this article, one IT professional asked for an advice on how can he move away from his area as a software engineer considering that he wants to look for other opportunities in the IT administration. This IT professional is working for a company building software and helping to administrate IBM Rational Clearcase, a software configuration tool. He also writes Perl scripts to assist with Clearcase activities. He states that he enjoys his two areas of work, but not the former.

The article discusses the views of the National Health Services Trust at Royal United Hospital Bath regarding the failures in the implementation of patient administration software at Milton Keynes General Hospital in Great Britain. It is stated that the software problems at Milton Keynes Hospital has prompted complaints from 79 system users related to the software failures. It is reported that Royal United Hospital Bath NHS Trust had been installing with the IDX systems from the national IT project for health services, but it was dropped by the providers. The article mentions that the Royal United Hospital Bath NHS Trust is planning to implement a new patient administration system in the hospital.

The article reports that Martyn Thomas, a leading campaigner for an independent review of the British National Health Service's £12.4bn National Programme for IT, has been made a Commander of the Order of British Empire in the New Year Honours List. Thomas, professor of software engineering, has long pushed for the adoption of formal methods for writing software to improve its dependability.

This article presents information on several events related to high technology industries in Great Britain in the month of January. Some of the events are convention on "High-availability systems and networks" at Hawthorns Hotel, Clifton, convention on "Offshoring" at Nabarro Nathanson, Lacon House, Theobalds Road, London, Forums on "Database security" at London on 18 January, "Public key cryptography" at De Montfort University, Leicester on 18 January, forum on "A framework for e-government," at Beaconside, Stafford, "Indian outsourcing" Palmer Building, Reading University, Berkshire, "Grid computing in the enterprise" at Renold Building, Manchester on 19 January and "Forensic software engineering" at BT Delta Point, Wellesley Road, Croydon.

This article reports that offshore outsourcing has already changed the skills sought in the jobs market in Great Britain, according to Paul Smith, group marketing director of recruitment consultancy Harvey Nash. When it comes to skills and training, British companies could learn from offshore suppliers, many of whom have accreditation to demonstrate their expertise, he added. A world-class offshore supplier will have level five but there are not many companies in Great Britain that have level three, let alone level five. The IT jobs most at risk from offshore outsourcing include straightforward coding and software development work, which can be done anywhere in the world much more cheaply than in Great Britain.

Fewer than one in five of all Information Technology (IT) projects in Great Britain can be considered truly successful, and failed projects lead to billions of pounds being wasted on IT systems, according to research from the Royal Academy of Engineering and the British Computer Society (BCS). The report, released last week, said Great Britain is failing to produce software engineers and managers with the project management skills to execute complex projects. Despite many examples of good practice, there is still a lack of professionalism in software engineering that could be dangerous in safety-critical systems, the report warned. The report recommended that all senior IT practitioners designing and delivering high-consequence systems should be either chartered IT professionals, a new qualification launched by BCS, or chartered engineers. It is time for the IT industry to recognize the engineering content of their work and to embrace the discipline and professionalism associated with traditional branches of engineering," said John McDermid, professor of software engineering at the University of York and a member of the working group.