The PMF community met the authors of Digital Britain Final Report

Professional Managers of the Future (PMF) community, which had already been operating for several months, initiated a meeting with the authors of the Digital Britain Final Report to discuss the digital economy and cybersecurity.
Leader of the PMF community, George Wharton, brought up the following questions for discussion at the 2009 gathering, which were addressed to the authors of the report:
- Why the authors explored the issue of piracy when the world is in the middle of an economic crisis?
- Why the report does not include the issues of cybersecurity?
- Why the report does not include the issue of regulating the digital economy from a broader perspective and is limited only to piracy?
- Whether the task to install a broadband Internet cable in the country incorporates the expenses related to acquiring IT skills by specialists?
According to Mr Wharton: “We established the community just several months ago. We soon realised the need to set high standards for our work to avoid diverting our focus on small tasks, rather to concentrate on the larger quest to make ourselves known to the government and society. The report issued by our government has, in our opinion, several significant shortcomings. My colleagues and I hosted this meeting to focus on these shortcomings and together find solutions to them .”
One of the authors of the report, Peter Black, a network technology specialist, speaking to the delgates stated: “Digital evolution has a huge potential for improving the services provided by the government and for cutting costs. It violates the issue of data security and the fact that the government, being the main buyer of services in health care and education, can encourage British research and developments, open up higher standards and seek collaboration at all levels.
The report detailed how government services were to be offered on the Internet and electronically, which will make them faster and more sensitive to the public and actually save taxpayers’ money . The report will help accelerate Britain’s recovery from the biggest economic shock since the Second World War and will form a central part of the PMF’s industrial strategy. Decisions made from it will be crucial for economic growth, social cohesion, and the well-being of the nation.
Said Mr Black: “I am glad that active business representatives can voice their opinion on the report as this provides priceless help to our work.”
The following conclusions were reached:
- The government should focus not only on digitalisation of UK businesses but also on the professional training of specialists to be able to work in the ever changing conditions of digitalization.
- It is necessary to include cybersecurity in all commercial plans.
- An effective program of partnership with business representatives should be created to effectively transform Britain’s digitalisation plans.
- Consultants who specialise in IT and finance should be involved in the revision of the report.