IT home support not sufficient for public sector workers

Around three quarters of public sector organisations may not be able to support a hybrid workforce according to their IT directors in a new survey. 

Conducted by Apogee Corporation, the poll of UK public sector IT directors and decision makers also found that, despite this lack of confidence in their IT capability, about 70% were not putting IT investment at the top of their priority lists. 

CEO of Apogee, Aurelio Maruggi, said: ‘In the age of hybrid working, today’s talent pool demand an element of flexibility. Exposure to digital technologies from an early age also means that they expect access to the latest and greatest solutions in the workplace. 

‘Public sector organisations are currently struggling to meet these needs, and failing to take steps to do so will likely lead to challenges in bringing in new staff while causing unhappiness among current employees, leading them to potentially leave the business.’

Organisations included in the poll also admitted that IT solutions did not cover all types of employee working with 42% of them saying that their remote workers do not have the same access as those working in the office. Also, 21% of the organisations expressed concern about cyber breaches when employees utilised shared IT solutions.

These numbers are despite the almost half of organisations who want to offer a remote or hybrid model or working as a way to attract new staff. 

Also, despite a recent report finding that the government produced a record amount of IT waste in 2022, the Apogee survey found that this waste may not be discarded properly, with only 15% of those surveyed having an ‘end-of-life plan’ for devices used by their hybrid workforce 

These security risks include a lack of action around encrypting the devices used by public sector workers with only 31% of organisation stating that they have encryption and only 35% using endpoint security. Endpoint security means that the security for individual devices can be managed through a central system administrator, who could also take action on issues such as blocking certain apps or authenticate a log-in attempt. 

You can find the full research findings, including those on private sector businesses, from Apogee on their website here.

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