Tomorrow afternoon in a building designed by Scottish neo-classical architect Robert Adam, close to Charing Cross railway station, Lord Carter of Barnes will rise to his feet and deliver the final Digital Britain report.

RSA House is the venue for the report's final disclosure. However, Lord Carter is still working on the implementation plan which will fill in the detail about exactly how all the mission statements will be delivered – the who and when – and hopefully the how much.

I'll be at the event, and I would like to think I'm going to hear something amazing tomorrow, that Carter will blow everybody out of the water with a succession of stunning announcements designed to move the UK's communications infrastructure into the 21st century. So, are we going to get visionary thinking from Lord Carter - or a point release of January's interim Digital Britain report plus small tinkerings at the edge?

The big problem for Carter is that he's hamstrung by the government's aversion to stumping up a serious amount of folding drink vouchers to deliver the proper digital IT infrastructure needed by the UK to compete effectively with our global competitors.

At the last forum organised to discuss Digital Britain, Gordon Brown took the stage and said: "We can't leave this to chance." Unfortunately I suspect that is precisely what will happen after tomorrow's announcement - Brown will be leaving the country at the mercy of Lady Luck, and if his recent luck is anything to go by, that doesn't bode well for the digital future of the UK.

By Dave Bailey

Several years ago, there was an unfortunate incident around the Morgan family Christmas dinner table. I nearly choked on my lunch.

I should point out ­ for fear of incurring my mother’s wrath ­ that the cooking was not to blame. Instead, my gagging resulted from the chutzpah of my sister’s then beau, a merchant banker, who had stormed into the room, sulking like a child denied a top-of-the-range Transformer. The reason for his anguish? His Christmas bonus wasn’t what he’d hoped ­ what with it being a paltry four times my entire income for that year.

So for all those who argue that the latest storm over bankers’ bonuses has all the hallmarks of naked envy, I think back to that Christmas dinner, and am reminded of the divisive nature of wages.

Few subjects create friction as readily as pay, and the reasons are fairly clear. Employment is one of the few areas where we are given explicit statements concerning our worth to another party.

The link between pay and employee morale should not be underestimated. Because although some workers will complain about the unfairness of the eye-watering bonuses being paid to bankers, it is fundamentally an issue that does not affect people’s day-to-day life. Start messing with their take-home pay and you’ll see a real fuss.

Take, for example, technology vendor HP. On the back of some disappointing financial results, it announced an across-the-board pay cut for all its staff ­ or at least all its staff working in countries with labour laws that allowed them to do it. In other places, such as the UK, staff are being consulted about the proposal.

There is some sense in HP’s approach ­ though I would suggest that cutting wages is a last resort, and find it difficult to conceive that HP could not have devised other cost-saving measures first.

Nevertheless, for better or worse, its management looked at the options of redundancies or pay cuts and thought the latter was the better option.

And it is not just HP that is trimming wage bills. BP recently emailed its employment agencies to let them know that from March it would be paying IT contractors 10 per cent less for their work.

These examples might not be indicative of a widespread trend, but they are worth taking note of. With the economy in turmoil, the prospect of a significant period of deflation looms, and that could make salary cuts a reality for many.

Faced with falling prices for goods and services, business leaders may conclude that staff numbers cannot be reduced further and have to consider cutting wages. I suspect many firms would take BP’s approach, at least initially, where any pay cuts are targeted at contractors and not employees. But ­ on the ultra-gloomy side ­ all staff could ultimately be affected.

That is likely to be a bitter pill for staff to swallow. And managers would do well to consider the psychological impact ­ staff would effectively be told their work is no longer as highly valued as it once was. That need not be calamitous, but it needs careful handling.

The HP example provides a lesson in how not to go about it. When making painful decisions, it can be useful to convey the message that the team is in this together. HP tried to do that by announcing that its chief executive, Mark Hurd, would take a 20 per cent cut in his basic salary, compared to his staff who were taking a five per cent cut.

That gesture looked less laudable when bloggers drew attention to Hurd’s remuneration package. The announced cut equates to about $290,000 off a basic salary of $1.45m ­ but Hurd’s complete package last year was worth $42.5m. Suddenly, that looks less like taking one for the team.

And there’s the rub ­ sensitivities about pay really become inflamed when people start feeling they are being treated inequitably.

By Gareth Morgan

A recent survey of global executives concluded that IT is not a major contributor to innovation. They clearly have not been listening to the same IT professionals as me. The ones I meet on a regular basis are mostly bursting with ideas about how they could deliver business improvements or use new technology for money-making purposes ­ if only they had the time.

In my experience, a lot of potentially good ideas are discussed away from the office, over lunch, in the pub or smoking room ­ – or at least, the part of the pavement or car park that is the modern-day equivalent of the smoking room.

Some of those ideas, such as the one involving the pint pot and the managing director’s trousers or the national mobile phone camera surveillance network, are not helpful.

But others pinpoint specific problems observed and experienced at the sharp end of daily IT service provision, accompanied by logical or innovative suggestions on ways to solve them, or centre on ideas for new hardware and software that may be able to exploit dormant commercial opportunities.

The trouble is, those ideas are always left on the table with the soggy beer mats and grubby coffee cups. Once back in the office, the volume and urgency of the workload forces all thought of putting the world to rights on the back burner, not to be even thought of again, much less acted on.

It is an old complaint, but IT staff continue to spend most of, if not all, their time fire fighting – ­ just keeping mission-critical systems and applications up and running, and clearing up those myriad issues that affect user desktops, laptops and handheld PCs on a regular basis.

And in these difficult economic times, when pretty much every resource you can think of is pared to the bone, having a lean, mean IT operation that focuses on performing its core duty seems the natural option. So much so that anybody who can find the time within their working hours to think about how IT can help improve the business must be feeling pretty nervous about their jobs right now. If this is you, and you’re not feeling nervous, please accept my apologies for sowing any seeds of doubt.

And that is precisely what makes criticism from global executives even harder to stomach. Perhaps instead of lamenting what they clearly feel to be an unacceptable situation, these boardroom mandarins should take the time to listen to what their IT staff say and find out if they have any innovative ideas in the first place.

Admittedly, that approach would require a business leader who was able to spot a good idea when they encountered it, something that a few could not do if one hit them in the face with a cricket bat.

Of course the meeting does not have to take place in the pub, and for the sake of mutual courtesy and respect, it might be better if it didn’t. But bearing in mind the time constraints involved on both sides of the equation, some form of lunch hour meeting ­ – preferably with either free or subsidised refreshments in order to ensure good attendance –­ is probably the only way to take things forward.

Having taken the trouble to open their ears, making some commitment to the additional manpower and resources needed to put those innovative ideas into practice then becomes paramount –­ paying overtime if necessary. It must be remembered that not everyone is so scared of losing their job that they will work extra hours for nothing.

The expertise and creativity that can help drag ailing businesses out of the financial quagmire are often right under their own noses. Executives should stop carping and put more effort into digging them up and harnessing their potential.

When London’s Royal Free hospital admitted that its new medical records system had been failing patients, it came as no surprise to me.

The chief executive of the hospital, Andrew Way, said his staff had been disappointed with the IT system and its implementation had meant a large amount of inefficiency and fewer patients being seen.

I experienced the hospital’s troubles first-hand a few months ago and wrote an article about it at the time, only we chose not to name the hospital then - I did not want to look as though I was abusing my position as a journalist to make a complaint.

But now this is out in the open and the problems have been acknowledged by the hospital boss I thought I’d point out some of the Royal Free’s main problems – based on my experience.

For example, the accident and emergency department is not on the same integrated IT booking system as the rest of the hospital and the different departments that scan patients are not linked up with each other.

A doctor even told me to keep my own records if I wanted the doctors to be informed before they treated me.

It is clear these hospital difficulties have been ongoing so when will these problems be sorted?

Reports leaked out as far back as August 2008 of board level meeting minutes from the Royal Free indicating the June rol-out of the Cerner Millennium Care Records Service was not going well and appointments and records were being lost in the system.

The Cerner software was being installed by BT, which in 2003 won a £993m contract to build a care records system throughout the NHS, also known as the NHS Spine.

The minutes discussed the possibility of legal action against BT. A spokesman from BT Health said no action has yet been taken and when I wrote my column in November the Royal Free said it was too early to comment on what might happen, but that as a result of technical difficulties with the Cerner system, a programme was being set up with its local service provider BT, Cerner, and the London Programme for Information Technology to address the issues.

“While not all technical problems have been resolved, the programme to address these issues is progressing,” said a hospital spokeswoman in an email.

It is now clear this programme did not progress quickly enough.

By Rosalie Marshall

Following all the anticipation, the kick off to the VMworld conference this week was slightly disappointing. And after speaking to customers and analysts at the event, I know many feel the same.

A full audience awaited the new VMware president and chief executive, Paul Maritz. It was the ex-Microsoft employee's first major presentation to customers, partners and press since he joined VMware earlier this year and replaced founder Diane Greene, and he had a chance to put right the stories that have circulated on how Greene's departure caused share prices to plummet and important senior executives to step down. Maritz's keynote speech could have been an opportunity for VMware to show the world it would continue its innovation climb and not let the purchase by EMC diminish its hunger.

Instead Maritz's opening speech was flat and the announcements he made did little to surprise anyone. He did not mention his past or register any excitement with his new position.

Customers I spoke to expected the cloud announcements that were made. Some had read the gist of the strategy in the press already and others expected the move because of Maritz's background as chief executive of EMC's Cloud Division and founder of the company's acquired firm Pi.

The keynote told the audience VMware will expand its server virtualisation technology to build the first virtual datacentre architecture – which the firm calls a Virtual Data Operating System - that will allow businesses to pool all types of hardware resources, including servers, storage and networks, into an aggregated on-premise cloud. The capacity will then be able to be federated to off-premise clouds, said Maritz. VMware will partner with vendors such as Intel, Cisco and IBM to ensure the platform succeeds.

But it seems the idea has still to be developed a great deal before VMware can expect a large uptake from customers.

The topic concerning many customers is how secure is it for them to host their infrastructure off-site? And will such a move comply with regulation, especially European Union data privacy laws that require information to be stored within the EU. Indeed, that is why EMC's consumer cloud division, Mozy, has just opened its first datacentre outside the US, in Dublin.

Maritz is aware the new idea needs a lot more work before it will start appealing to customers. Following a question and answer session with the press, Maritz told me it was a complicated issue and he did not have to time to expand on the details, but he said: "The strategy will not take off before VMware solves these data issues and puts in place the necessary solutions".

Considering the cloud announcement was the main focus of Maritz's keynote, I don't think I was alone in expecting some more granular details on how the initiative would actually take off.