Sometimes you have to look back to look forward ­ and so it is in the case of the IT profession, particularly when it comes to the development of local government and higher education technology careers.

In February 2004, in my role of president of local government user group Socitm, I called a breakfast meeting of heads of professional IT organisations and senior figures in the technology industry, organised and co-chaired by William Heath, chairman of research firm Kable.

The get-together included the e-Envoy, the deputy chief executive of the BCS and representatives of the NCC, the NHS and a dozen or so other leading organisations. Over Conran Café’s bacon and eggs, an agenda of items was put up for discussion:

*What is an IT career and who is the UK’s head of the technology profession?
*Is IT punching its weight compared with other professions, such as accountancy, law and medicine, especially in terms of influencing government policy?
*Why are women continuing to walk away from the IT profession?

Discussion was lively for a breakfast meeting, with a debate about whether each sector should have a separate professional development structure, or if the industry should create a generic formula.

There was broad agreement that technology is not like traditional professions, where passing an exam in their early 20s qualifies an individual to participate in that trade for life.

Disappointingly, some participants were in denial about the problem of the shrinking presence of women in IT.

At the time, the e-Envoy’s departure had already been announced ­ and he was drawing up a job description for the proposed head of e-government.

Ian Watmore, who was eventually appointed to the role, was a breath of fresh air for the technology profession.

Here was someone who believed in IT managers and could help transform public service organisations, rather than concentrate on chasing after chief executives for all the answers.

Watmore established the chief information officer (CIO) Council, which is still going strong. Within the Cabinet Office, a number of key structures have already been put in place, such as the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA), the Government IT Competency Framework and the Government IT Academy.

But are any of Watmore’s initiatives making a difference? If we look at local government, momentum for change existed before the CIO Council was created, and has been continued since it began.

Programmes such as continuing professional development and soft skills training are helping encourage IT development for staff at all levels.

Increasing numbers of IT directors are moving into CIO or transformation management positions. The shift is more prevalent in larger organisations such as Birmingham City Council, where technology is a recognised driver for radical change through business process re-engineering.

As a member of UCISA, the UK representative body for higher education IT staff, I can see the progress that has been made regarding these issues.

The activities of IT workers are particularly fragmented and dispersed across each institution, and there are specific problems with professional leadership.

Staff will often complain that they receive little guidance about professional development, especially if they report to academics who have little or no knowledge of technology.

While centralised IT departments at least understand the issues and often support training and development, it is not unknown for some IT staff within faculties to have received no formal technology training for many years.

As for CIO roles, higher education is seeing more business-related areas such as library and registry functions being managed by directors from a technology background, but such operational functionality is still relatively rare.

Curiously, there are still senior librarians who also manage IT, a proposition that would be met with incredulity by any sector outside higher education.

To be fair, UCISA is very keen to pursue the professionalism and CIO agendas, and to ensure that institutional strategies pay due attention to the importance of IT.

A wide range of other activities are also being planned, including a review of SFIA within the context of higher education and a commitment to the development of people skills.

At the same time, higher education agency Jisc is overseeing the development of a number of models that will improve professionalism through the improved collaboration and sharing of best practice between universities, which so far have operated largely in isolation.

Going back to my three breakfast questions, it is clear that the industry has progressed substantially since 2004 ­ but we still have a long way to go to raise IT to the profile it deserves at board level, particularly in comparison with other countries in northern Europe and the US.

Each organisation needs to recognise that IT is not static and that staff need to be trained continuously to keep up-to-date with the demands of the job.

As far as professional institutions are concerned, there is a need for greater levels of collaboration to ensure that agreed frameworks are relevant and that skills are transferable between sectors.

Such collaboration will make IT ­ the newest, and possibly the most exciting of all professions ­ an enduring success.

Fahri Zihni is director of ICT at Aston University and a past president of Socitm

What does professionalism mean to the higher education sector?
*Alignment of institutional and IT strategies to support universities in providing the highest standards of education and research, so that the UK retains its premier position for international students.

*Using IT as a catalyst for organisational transformation, so that administrative processes can be rationalised and costs cut, through joined-up information systems.

*Unity of purpose in the development of IT facilities; ensuring that money is not wasted on duplicated and incompatible systems.

*Professional and rigorous management of projects and programmes to provide successful outcomes.

*Maximising productivity through widening skills, so that IT staff can turn their hand to multiple areas of technology support and be deployed where they are most needed.

*Optimising deployment of available IT staff by greater ease of movement between sectors, underpinned by a common competency framework.