Thank you Neil Harvey. Your letter was like a breath of fresh air, and I could not agree more (Working 9 to 5, letters.computing.co.uk). You get what you pay for in life, and if a company wants "x" amount of work done, they should simply pay for it.

As Neil says, your employer is not a charity, so why should they get work done for free? And if they can't afford more staff, then  perhaps they need to expand a little more slowly, prioritise work differently, deal with a bigwig's over-sized pay packet, find and fix  inefficiencies or perhaps  admit that they're a hopeless case and shut up shop for the good of us all.

Any firm where overtime is commonplace should take a long hard look at itself, and work out if they are
under-staffed or inefficient.

Regular overtime is simply encouraging staff to live  unbalanced lives. If you  want worn-out, unhappy staff, possessing the decision-making precision of a small child, this is the way  to run things.

Instead, I hope you want  to run your company in a sustainable, efficient manner. You could even think about training your staff - another topic entirely.

The degree to which a company serves - yes, serves - its staff and customers  determines its value. Some companies get this so wrong they absolutely deserve to go to the wall, and I sincerely hope they do.

Phil Hackett

I am a 21-year-old woman working as a software engineer on an industrial placement as part of an information systems degree (IT must offer jobs for the girls).

We techies are labelled as anti-social by the other departments no matter how much we interact with everyone else, and I think unless something changes dramatically people will always have this opinion.
To be honest it does not bother me provided I enjoy my job, which I do.

And I still live the same social life as everyone else, going out and enjoying life.

Marie, submitted on the web

Partnerships for Schools chief executive Tim Byles said: "Building Schools for the Future (BSF) is not about taking things away" (School plan is to build, not demolish).

BSF will not be delivering the IT service, the service provider will, and it will wish to minimise costs to maximise profit.

So while BSF may not take things away, the service provider will - especially the IT technicians from schools - and allocate them centrally to save costs.

Proper consultation is  impossible because of the structure of the project. I participated as a school
governor in a consultation exercise. The local education authority (LEA) BSF IT team imposed last-minute changes in its contract with schools that seriously disadvantaged all the schools.
There was nothing the school governors could do about it. We could only discuss the school-LEA agreement, and not the real driver, the LEA agreement with the service provider.

On career development, some school technicians are working in schools because they want to serve their community and do not want to work for a large corporation.

They knew the job did  not offer much by way of opportunities in the  careerist sense, but offered different prospects.

Their choice to serve an identifiable social unit whose values they share  are destroyed by BSF IT.

The fundamental objection to the BSF IT project is that it is bureaucratic and anti-competitive. The LEA chooses the service provider prior to negotiating the terms of the contract, so the other businesses which might have bid are excluded before the exact service is  defined.The alternative approach would be to set interoperability standards and standard service contracts to create a genuine market in which
local suppliers and service  organisations could bid, and where individual schools choose to buy a service.

BSF IT is just a way of  diverting public money to large corporations in the guise of providing a service to schools. It is bad for the schools and bad for small UK IT  service providers.

Roger Hill, school governor

I am curious as to how the government expects MI6 to attract a world-class enterprise architect when its web site shows that it is paying below the market rate for such a job (MI6 holds IT staff recruitment drive).

MI6 is offering a salary range of £56,000 to £79,000, while the market salary, according to IT Jobs Watch, is £70,000 to £86,000.

I now see why the government suffers security lapses when, even for what are probably the most critical jobs in the world, it consistently fails to offer salaries which could attract the cream of the industry. I
hate to see what salaries it offers technology staff who work in other parts of government.

Jonathan Eaton

The writer of the article "iPlayer piling the pressure on worried ISPs" suggests that ISPs might protest
because "they have sold unlimited connections to people on the understanding that they will not use them much (an arrangement called fair use), and the BBC has broken that agreement."

Sorry? The BBC has broken that agreement?

The unrealistically-priced ISP offerings only made business sense because the average user would not know how to access the more technical bandwidth-draining services such as online  gaming and movie downloads - pirate or otherwise.

Now a well-known brand has entered the market and made it easy for the ordinary, non-technical, user
to access the sort of material the internet evangelists (including these bottom-end ISPs) have long promised - material that could make the internet as pervasive  as the TV.

These cheap ISPs have gone "lunatic" because their flawed business models have been shown up to be entirely unsustainable in the world that they actually promised.

Adrian S, submitted on the web

The seventh principle of the Data Protection Act is: "Appropriate technical and organisational measures shall be taken against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal data" (Lose data and you go to jail).

IT professionals are already finding it tough to implement and maintain IT solutions to address evolving data security threats.

Vital projects are frequently competing for IT budget and resources.

In my experience, organisational measures - such as the effective communication of policies and procedures and training of employees - have a greater potential to  affect people's behaviour.

Therefore, better habits are acquired and risks truly minimised. Automated solutions which ensure the timely distribution of new and   revised policies and procedures, so that they are read, accepted and proved to be understood, make policy compliance affordable for all organisations, however large and dispersed its workforce.

It is high time that all departments within every organisation recognise  that data security is a
shared responsibility, which demands a collective  response and, dare I say, shared budget.

In this way, simple yet effective cross-function interventions are less likely to be overlooked, as large IT project rollouts take precedence.

Dominic Saunders

It is wrong to report that people will face jail for reckless data breaches, (Lose data and you go to jail).

The Criminal Justice and Immigration Act, which gained royal assent earlier this month, does introduce tough new sanctions for breaches of the Data Protection Act, granting the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) the power to fine organisations for serious and reckless breaches of the Act.

This change in the law sends a very clear signal that data protection must be a priority and that it is completely unacceptable to be cavalier with people's   personal information.

Another clause in the new Act allows the Justice Secretary to introduce prison sentences for the separate offence of illegally buying and selling personal information if the black market exposed by the ICO continues.

This threat creates a  powerful deterrent to those tempted to engage in this  illegal practice.

The ICO has repeatedly called for more effective sanctions against organisations that fail to live up to their responsibilities under the Data Protection Act, and we welcome the tougher sanctions.

David Smith, Information  Commissioner's Office

I read with interest your interview with Tim Byles regarding Building Schools for the Future (BSF) (School plan is to build, not demolish).

I note that he uses the mantra: "We are in the business of educational transformation; this is not a bricks and mortar project".

However, the examples he quotes are all linked to administration and facilities management rather than teaching and learning or the engagement of reluctant learners.

Where is the talk of personalising learning with engaging online resources sorted by learning type and ability? Where is the access to media-rich learning on an individual basis? Where is the principle of anywhere, anytime learning that allows our most able to access advanced learning material to extend their horizons, while at the same time allowing a child off school to catch up with missed work?

The administration systems are important, and engagement of parents in their children's learning is vital, but the learning activities are missing from this view of BSF. The danger of BSF is
re-creating the same education system in new buildings, and that will not transform education.

Our children deserve better learning environments than the tired and worn out schools they occupy. BSF is a long overdue investment in our education infrastructure and we must applaud our government for making this commitment. All is far from perfect, however. Is educational transformation at the forefront when schools are told by architects that, because of heat considerations, there should be no more than five PCs in a classroom?

Children find learning most engaging when they are trying something new in an environment where they feel safe and secure in case something goes wrong.

Well, BSF is certainly trying something new but as for feeling safe and secure?

Stephen Douglas
City Learning Centre Manager

John Jones appears to have all the answers with regard to Building Schools for the Future (BSF) and seems to be putting the blame squarely on IT support staff (Vice-like grip, letters.computing.co.uk).

Maybe if the education system employed teachers who were actually IT-competent, and did more to check on what the pupils are really trying to do with their computers in lessons rather than concentrate on their work, we wouldn't have to block such "innovation".

The only things we have to block is YouTube - because there is little related to education on there - social networking, proxy-bypass and games sites because the pupils cannot control themselves enough to not play games or chat when they should be working.

It gets to the point that we're having to manage behaviour because a teacher cannot.

I've never had to turn a teacher's idea down because of "firewall issues", but I have had to disappoint them when they purchase outdated software designed for Windows 95 or NT or is not designed to be run on a  network because they didn't speak to us first.

Perhaps John has watched far too many TV commercials for teacher training where all the little darlings are polite, friendly and willing to learn.

Instead of "advising",  perhaps he should spend some time in real schools and see the problems we face on a daily basis - threats, abuse, blatant attempts to bypass security, theft and damage.

If the pupils and staff don't respect the equipment we manage, they can hardly expect any respect from us.

Andy Davis

I find it shameful that a person in such a position would apportion blame to technical staff in schools, but fail to mention the years of poor leadership and direction from local authorities when it comes to strategic leadership of IT (Vice-like grip, letters.computing.co.uk).

Surely if local authorities were engaging with schools - as some are - and helping schools move forward to  sustainable models of IT which has significant impact on teaching and learning, leadership and management, and achievement and attainment in schools, comments such as this would not be able to be made.

We should try supporting technical staff in schools.

After all, these are likely to be the same people providing the support in the schools anyway, just under
a different company name, and having to respond based on company and contractual protocol rather than the directives of the senior leaders in the school.

Tony Sheppard, Edugeek.net

Yes, in some schools IT support is terrible, but that is hardly surprising given the salaries offered (Consistency is key, letters.computing.co.uk).

With an ageing senior staff who simply do not understand computers, and the skill and effort required to maintain and install computer systems, basically computers for schools is the hardest of IT jobs.
It is no wonder that people leave to work elsewhere.

Joe King

Yes - a percentage of schools have bad IT systems and bad IT staff (Consistency is key, letters.computing.co.uk).

The same goes for industry, and for any department in an organisation. The situation should be remedied by cutting out the cancers, not killing the entire organism.

The IT portion of BSF is  using a blanket approach to all schools to fix a problem in a small percentage of schools. Unfortunately, the majority of schools who have superior IT services will be caught under this as well, and the standards decreased.

The BSF-not-so-smart bomb, is going to do far more collateral damage than is worth the problem it's trying to fix.

Marc Blake

As a network manager in a school environment I find the biggest problem I come across is the support staff put "in my way" as part of BSF (Vice-like grip, letters.computing.co.uk).

For example, I had a hardware failure on the internet connection which I diagnosed, but I have to report to the company put in place under the BSF agreement. Twenty minutes later I get a phone call from a field engineer who goes through some diagnostics which I had already tried, which is then referred to the corporate IT department of our council.

Twenty minutes after the call from the engineer I get a call from the council's IT  department, which diagnoses a failure on the fibre converter which needs to be swapped out. The response I get is I have to contact the support company who deals with schools, who will then  contact the same person I have just spoken to, to arrange replacement parts to be sent out to them, then they will come out and change the failed item.

In the old system in the days before BSF, all I had to do was make one phone call and diagnose the issue.
Once this was done an agreement was made on when and where the hardware item was replaced. Nine times out of 10, I met the engineer halfway between his base and mine and exchanged the parts.
Most fixes were sorted within the hour. This incident was still going 12 hours after the fault was reported. By saying the likes of   in-house support staff stand in the way of education is a joke.

We know more of what is going on and work harder than most to deliver a system which meets the needs of pupils and staff and is as cutting edge as is possible to the tight budgets we are given.

Simon Dart

There are lots of good and bad things about the BSF programme, but one thing we must not forget is that BSF is not the solution (Consistency is key, letters.computing.co.uk).

If some IT systems in schools are bad, why not create a company that goes to schools every so often to help network managers with problems? Why not set up, manage and send experts to help IT departments in schools? Create policies about standard IT, and help schools with IT problems.

Putting public sector organisations under the umbrella of a private sector company is not solving any problems, it is going to increase them. My managers think so, teachers in my school think so, so what is going on? Why are the top guys not hearing us?

At a previous IT BSF meeting, they told us we have the opportunity to create the classrooms of the future. But suppliers taking the contracts are going to implement their systems, so it's just more of the same - but it will cost more.

I am disappointed that secondary schools are wasting all that taxpayers' money.

Jose, submitted on the web

Learning and training have always been discretionary spends for corporations (The demand for skills should not be demand-led, peterskyte.computing.co.uk).

If the UK is not to fall behind the rest of continental Europe, never mind such countries as India and China, UK firms - some of which are subsidiaries of global corporations often with US-based headquarters - must stop regarding vital investment in learning and training as non-essential.

In lean times, target the spend on immediate and  urgent skills training. In better times, allow employees to broaden their knowledge beyond just the known technical or workplace skills.

For example, let them learn a new language, or  follow a course in environmental studies or even on how to direct a stage play. Maybe none of these would have a direct or immediate application at work, but they would equip an employee with knowledge and skills that will, inevitably, come into play at some time   during their careers.

Government can play a part by assisting companies, perhaps through the taxation system, to provide financial incentives to continually re-skill the workforce.

Mick Matysiak

Producing a network security policy is the easy part. The hard part is actually enforcing it and managing the constant review process. Security threats never stand still and neither should a company's security policy (Case study: Leeds Teaching Hospital NHS Trust).

A trusted security adviser can help organisations identify and manage the risks, as well as design, implement, monitor, review and amend the corporate security policy in the light of changing threats. But before outsourcing network security can be contemplated, a company and its chosen security
partner have to build up those high levels of trust.

Staff should never feel the impact of a good security policy; all they should ever experience are the benefits.

Scott Nursten

As businesses, and particularly small and medium-sized businesses, rely  increasingly on the internet for core functions such as e-commerce web sites, email and hosted applications, any interruption in service is a huge concern.

In the current economic climate, every opportunity to sell must be maximised. Hosting providers have
become adept at building in get-out clauses to protect themselves, rather than their customers, in the event of failures - even when they appear to offer a 100 per cent uptime guarantee.

So when selecting a hosting provider, do not be bamboozled by marketing puff and false promises. Place
issues such as resilience,   customer care, hardware fix times and real-world service level agreements at the top of your list.

Ben White

Next-generation access is a key issue in avoiding the bandwidth crunch, but with BT's 21st century network (21CN) years from completion, it is not just the ISPs that ought to be concerned (iPlayer piling on the pressure on worried ISPs).

UK businesses that still run their communications through BT-based DSL or through ISPs that use the current BT network will inevitably start to feel the strain of outmoded copper wiring.

Even when 21CN is eventually unveiled, it must provide fibre to both the core and access networks
before it can offer a genuine next-generation network. Upgrading BT's access network will require significantly more investment, and the question of who will pay for it has yet to be understood.

We would welcome an  informed debate on how best to keep UK telecoms moving forward.

Stephen Beynon,
ntl:Telewest Business

What patients think about others having access to their medical records depends on what they have been told about who will have access (NHS must learn lessons on centralised patient records).

For example, what if men were told that if they are  prescribed Viagra it would be known by administrative staff for up to six months  after being issued? It is not just current medications that will be on the system.

What if they were told about the NHS secondary uses service, pharmacists,  researchers and so on - would that affect their view on access?

When I contacted a primary care trust about drugs such as anti-depressants, Viagra and medications used in a termination, they seemed to imply that this data would be uploaded. Would all women who had an abortion be happy about uploading anything that implied they have had such an operation?

Dave, submitted on the web

Legacy programming skills are somewhat required, but do not think all skills are
needed (Look to the future, letters.computing.co.uk).

I got my first job as a Cobol developer, which I have had for three years since graduating. I wish I had stayed away from Cobol and so should all graduates. It does not matter whether or not there are 70 billion lines of Cobol if you cannot get a job in this area.

I have been looking for work and finding it very hard to get a job. I am a  first-class graduate with a masters degree, and even with these academic qualifications three years of doing Cobol has crippled my chances.

All you have to do is type Cobol in a job search and there you have it - the last time I received just 40 hits. Cobol is dead in the job market. When you narrow down your search to London, there are only about seven hits.

Some developers say Cobol is not dead and that they have recently got a job. These people have probably been programming in Cobol for  a lifetime, so everyone is  competing with these guys for a handful of jobs.

A company might give people with Cobol skills lots of money to fix a bug, but how often do these bugs cause faults? You could be unemployed for years before anything goes wrong, waiting for your one-off big contract payment - it is too risky an investment.

I have three years' experience in Cobol and if another candidate has three years of Java, C or C#, I am out of the competition. Do not listen to those who say it does not matter what the language is, because it does.

I am now hoping to build on my skills at university and will keep trying to apply for jobs. I am also hoping to do some courses to refresh my knowledge in areas I have neglected over the past three years. Cobol should not be taught at university.

Peter, submitted on the web

David Evans wrote that: "A bunch of lunatics ranting about privacy are trying to prevent ISPs monitoring user connections, profiling them and then intervening by serving advertising. Do they not understand that the ISPs are simply trying to improve the customer experience? The extra revenue would be spent on much-needed infrastructure upgrades." (iPlayer piling on the pressure on worried ISPs).

I sincerely doubt the ISPs are trying to improve the customer experience. As far as I recall, Phorm - the company at the heart of this reference - is working with a couple of ISPs with a product that will use deep packet inspection to intercept and read your personal traffic between you and the web sites you are reaching, which is itself of questionable legality.

The company promises faithfully that it will ignore personal data and just extract keywords which will be used to provide targeted advertising. One has to simply trust this company.

If such a company were involved in, say, adware deployment or perhaps rootkits, one might take a different view. The analogy often quoted asks how you would feel if all your personal mail were opened, scanned, resealed and the data used by the postman to select which  advertising flyers you should receive. Of course, the   postman promises not to  actually read anything.

Do you really think it is  lunacy to be concerned?

John K, submitted on the web

The only bunch of lunatics are the ISPs. They have oversold their services to customers, and the market
is so competitive they fear increasing prices. (iPlayer piling on the pressure on worried ISPs).

So they want to sell their customers' privacy to spyware vendors instead. Using what value proposition? Simply steal valuable content from the content creators - smart plan. Or at least, it would be if you could get away with it.

When ISPs start stealing and abusing content to entice people away to competitors, content providers will start getting annoyed. When that happens, you will see net neutrality has two sides. Not to mention commercial and legal disputes.

Pete, submitted on the web

Despite calls to introduce pure computer software patents in the UK, many observers will be encouraged to see the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) appealing the recent Symbian court decision (Confusion reigns on software patents). It is worth reflecting on the importance of this move.

Judging from the US, where pure computer software patents can be granted, the evidence of success in
extending patent law in this field is mixed. The software industry in the US grew exponentially without pure software patents, suggesting they are not necessary to promote innovation and, rather than acting as an incentive, prevent competitors from developing in a similar field.

Extending patent law in this case is widely recognised as unworkable, particularly in a field where
innovation is usually accomplished in increments too small to be viewed as inventive steps, and where freelance businesses use the free and automatic protection of copyright protection.

Introducing pure software patents could raise the costs for small software developers to mitigate against risks surrounding research and development, thereby inflating the capital needs of  software development.

The government-commissioned Gowers Review of Intellectual Property agreed with this position, and recommended that changes in the current position on pure software patents, business method patents and gene patents should only be  made in light of economic evidence that they would enhance innovation to offset the considerable costs.

Many commercial and  individual software developers are glad the UK IPO is  taking a stand to listen to all interests in our industry, not merely vested practitioners.

Laura Creighton
Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure
www.ffii.org
Shareholder Report
www.reportlab.org

Pieter Hintjens
Director Imatix Ltd
www.imatix.com
General Secretary European Software Market Association (ESOMA)
www.esoma.org

Aidan Maguire,
Director Blue Fountain Systems
www.bluefountain.com

It is a pity that this kind of legal action only stifles progress (High Court rewrites UK software patent rules). Imagine if someone had patented binary or the alphabet.

Introducing patents to software is the reason all the big software companies are embroiled in constant court battles. Every company seems determined to patent every software concept they can, knowing that it will screw up some other software producer's ideas.

Ah well, one of the few remaining bastions of the UK's computer industry is destroyed.

Andrew, submitted on the web

This government has inflicted huge damage on the education process, but it is not fully to blame for the fact that too few students are signing up to take IT degrees (Falling through the skills gap, letters.computing.co.uk).

I joined the IT industry in 1984 having taken a non-IT degree. I did so because the potential earnings were high. By the age of 23 I had a mortgage on a flat in London. I am now 44 and have no mortgage, having worked in the industry all my life.

Yet if I were a student  today, I would avoid IT. It is not well-respected in boardrooms across the UK, and pay levels have dropped dramatically. This is backed up by the technical vacancies on your web site, which seem to average about £30,000 after several years' experience. That is equivalent to my starting salary.

Students understand that to clear their debts and make a three-year degree worthwhile, they need high potential earnings. At the moment, IT does not portray that potential even if it exists. Before firms grumble about the lack of IT skills, perhaps they could try offering a decent salary.

Kathy Sadler

Having just read your story on the shortage of skilled people in IT, I am stunned (Skills crisis sparks
investment in IT ability).

My son is 22 and has an HND with Commendation from Greenwich University. He has been out of work for two years. We have tried everything - but to no avail. He is based at home, works voluntarily, builds his
computers and dazzles us all with his know-how - but still no employer comes to light.

David Alston

Philip Lewis might be wedded to his company, but many employees are wedded to other human beings, who take a dim view of their spouses doing excessive hours (We can work it out, letters.computing.co.uk).

As a general rule, if you have to do a lot of overtime you are either understaffed or inefficient. Should inefficiency be rewarded? As for transferring the work to "flexible" people on the other side of the world, experience with call centres suggests you may have to pay for several times as many hours if you use overseas labour. And with wages in India rising much faster than here, the benefit could be trifling.

Why is it that some firms say they are not charitable institutions, yet expect their employees to treat them as such?

Neil Harvey

I share a lot of the concerns voiced over the future of IT provision in schools under Building Schools for the Future (BSF), especially the cost and the lack of flexibility that will result (Must do better: £45bn schools plan fails to impress).

However, we should not glorify what exists. While a lot of schools have excellent IT, some have horrendous setups that are under-invested in and not fit for purpose. These schools are failing their teachers and students, meaning that the government cannot meet its Every Child Matters agenda.

Very soon, students from the age of 14 will be able to study diplomas offered at a different institution to their host school - these locations will need to have joined-up IT for this to work. With the increased dependence on computers for assessment and examinations, standardisation is inevitable and
robust systems will need to be available for all students 24/7, hence some form of managed services will be  required to replace the  existing cottage industry.

Colin Small

As part of one of the teams leading BSF in a large authority and an ex-local authority IT adviser, I feel it necessary to point out that over many years the block in innovation within many - not all - high schools has been the short-sighted view and iron grip of the IT management whose aim in life appears to be to say "no" before hearing the problem (Must do better: £45bn schools plan fails to impress).

It makes me smile when I hear of IT innovation being stifled in schools. Just talk to the countless teachers who have had their ideas rejected because of endless firewall  issues, security risks or apparent incompatibilities.

It is not just old schools that need rebuilding, it is time to build a new, professional IT workforce in schools.

John Jones

As the union representing the employees of the Royal Mail IT function we are disappointed that Robin
Dargue has gone to press at this stage of the reorganisation (Royal Mail delivers changes).

Royal Mail has sailed very close to the wind during this restructuring and has only just stayed on the right side of the requirements of redundancy legislation.

Being critical of a workforce that, based on Dargue's own assessment of the situation, has been starved of leadership, investment and skills development is easy to do, and is consistent with highly-paid recruits to companies. Come in, make changes and move on before anybody realises. We will see how long it is before he moves on.Unite members in IT at Royal Mail have been working hard to keep up with business requirements. They have been doing what was asked of them, often in difficult and uncertain circumstances.

There has been a lack of  investment but despite this the feedback from internal customers of Royal Mail has been consistently positive. They are concerned about the loss of individuals who have been delivering their needs for some time, and that there will be an impact on the service. Casting people adrift, as Royal Mail is, is simply not appropriate.

The trade union Unite is working hard to ensure that those of our members who want to stay in Royal Mail have every opportunity to do so and we will hold Dargue to his word that he will  invest in the right talent.

Unite remains opposed to any form of compulsory  redundancy and even a hint of this happening will create a backlash from the union.

Given the expense  incurred in consultancies  to undertake this work, the cost of voluntary redundancies and the cost incurred in recruiting and paying new, fully equipped employees, a cost benefit analysis is likely to result in a situation where Royal Mail loses.

Brian Scott, Assistant national secretary, Unite CMA

Last July, the Information Commissioner explicitly stressed to UK executives the need for more stringent protection of customer data. Yet a large number of UK public sector organisations are still being extremely remiss when using sensitive customer information  (Data losses revealed at
London councils).

Carelessly leaving information about vulnerable children in a pub - as happened twice last year at Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council - only exacerbates the public's concern.

Public sector bodies need to understand and address internal data infrastructures to prevent data being misused. Furthermore, they need to encourage an organisational culture that realises the vulnerability of  customer information and understands the importance of protecting it.

There are already enough threats to customer data from the criminal community, without organisations adding to them through an array of careless activities.

Jason Goodwin

Mark Surguy suggests that technology is both the problem and the solution when it comes to the issue of data protection and its legal implications (Do you know where your data is?).

However, closer consideration would suggest that technology is not the main concern.

Data is an incredibly valuable commodity. No one would ever consider stuffing a Jiffy bag full of £50 notes and sending it through the post to someone in the hope it arrives intact, if, in fact, it arrives at all. So why does the attitude persist that it is OK to do this with a few  million people's bank details, or the personal information concerning victims of crime, and then begin to worry when the data is lost?
The key to improving data security is changing this  attitude. Technology such as RFID or encryption can offer plenty of solutions to help prevent unauthorised access or corruption in the event of a breach.

However, if the right policies and procedures are already in place to foster a culture of prudence and forethought, these technology solutions should only ever have to offer the comfort of a backup plan.

George Purrio

This research from the CBI once again highlights the serious skills crisis facing organisations across the
UK (Skills crisis sparks investment in IT ability).

While this has been a prevailing theme for a number of years, we are now seeing chief information officers struggling more than ever to fill specific IT roles, with those employees involved at the start of the UK software industry moving towards retirement and not enough graduates being trained to take their places.

It is heartening to see more than two-thirds of UK employers investing in initiatives to raise the level of IT proficiency among their workforce, but it is vital to set up a more sustainable framework for the future.

While investing in internal staff training is a quick fix, companies need to work closely with academia to ensure that the supply of skills meets their future demand.

Care must be taken to   ensure that the focus of these efforts is not only on new technological advances, but also upon existing systems, some of which  may have been in place for  a number of decades.

These systems have long been the lifeblood of the  organisations they serve, and a shortfall in the skills needed to maintain these could have serious implications for UK business.

Arunn Ramadoss

You ask: are ID cards, CCTV and data sharing acceptable prices to pay for the benefits of improved services and better security? (The surveillance society).

Unless the benefit of surveillance systems is clearly understood by the masses it will never be popular.
However, the foundation of trust in such systems has not been nurtured. Such  need to start slowly and demonstrate that they cannot be abused by anyone.

Access should be severely restricted to those of the highest calibre for only the most important of reasons.

Protecting civil liberties must come first if such systems are to be tolerated, and the adage of "just because we can build it does not mean that we should" must be  revisited regularly.

Such systems can be abused, and that abuse can be directed at any segment of society with an ease that defies belief.

It seems wrong that access to such technology and power is being put into the hands of local councils or debt collection agencies.

The general population needs to wake up to the very real threat of the worst kind of sci-fi future - a dystopia - and that process starts with understanding.

A national referendum seems the only way.

Name withheld on request

Peter Skyte is so right (The demand for skills should not be demand-led, peterskyte.computing.co.uk).

Even the CBI argues that there is a chronic shortage of skilled IT workers, and that it is damaging the industry and productivity.

This is contained in the CBI's survey of more than 700 UK companies across all industries.

It warns that six out of 10 employers are having difficulty recruiting graduates for technical positions such as IT, and that the falling number of graduates with science, technology,  engineering and maths
qualifications is fuelling a skills shortage.

The CBI says larger firms are increasingly looking to India, China and eastern  Europe to bridge the shortfall in UK skills. Meanwhile, the research also showed that more than half of  employers are concerned about their staff's inability to use computers.

Tony Burke, Unite

In her weblog on the fall in the numbers of students opting to study IT at school, Sandra Smith refers to the government's introduction of the IT Management for Business (ITMB) degree (It's time for IT students to get down to business, sandrasmith.computing.co.uk).

The ITMB degree is similar to information systems and information management degrees that have been offered in business schools and other parts of UK universities for more than a decade.

Yet sixth formers are no longer choosing these degrees, or indeed any degree that has IT or IS in it.
The ITMB will not solve the problem. First year students and sixth formers are convinced that there are no good careers in IT, and/or that IT is as boring as their lessons at school on how to use Microsoft Office.

David Newman

While I would agree with Andy Hopkirk's statement that the number of people interested in virtualisation is large (Windows Server: the verdict), I would not wholly agree that the number of those with the ability to experiment with virtualisation is quite small.

The drive for virtualisation is not coming from the lofty heights of academia or research, or from some long-developed strategic plan, but from the ground floor of computing Ð where daily firefighting with limited datacentre space, ever-increasing power requirements and the need to get better value out of
datacentre assets.

Virtualisation has moved rapidly from an interesting technology to an essential part of dealing with the datacentre challenges of the 21st century.

While the National Computing Centre might be able to stand back and take a strategic view, the average IT user cannot wait and wants today's solutions to today's problems.

As second-generation virtual server products have slashed prices without  sacrificing functionality, techniques which have been the preserve of the enterprise are becoming available to small businesses.

Virtualisation is not  optional. That bandwagon is rolling and it will not wait for people to catch up.

David Galton-Fenzi

In response to Keith Lyall's response to my letter (Give and ye shall receive, The longest day, letters.computing.co.uk), all I can add is that, of course, staff are perfectly entitled to refuse
to work beyond their contracted hours.

In turn, they must recognise that I am entitled to grade them accordingly and to employ someone else
who is more flexible to do the work - probably in Chennai, Bangalore or Mumbai, for example.

We work in a global market and cannot revert to the working behaviour that made British Leyland, for
example, the company that it is today.

Philip Lewis