Higgins  who head sector trade body Intellect, and also participating in the Vote Manufacturing campaign, as well as being vice-president of EICTA (right) is backed by companies from the sector, including software firms Iris and Kewill and Ernst & Young the analysts that carried out the economic impact assessment for the project.

The original version of the manifesto, ‘Making BrITain Great Again’, launched by Microsoft in July 2009,  then taken over by Intellect is reported to call for help for Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) graduates with personal debt, and wants Government and private sector companies to consider the policies of companies towards graduate recruitment when awarding contracts.

It wants large technology companies to share expertise with emerging entrepreneurs in the sector and the establishment of an advice hub based on web 2.0 technologies with Government-sponsored programmes to enable UK companies to learn how global companies run their businesses.

Inevitably reduced taxes will help to to encourage investment in UK IT companies, increase R&D and persuade global IT companies to open offices in the UK, according to the manifesto, with generous Corporate Venturing relief urged to encourage large companies to invest in smaller firms in the IT sector and an extension for the SME R&D tax rate to all technology firms.

A call for simplification of the Enterprise Investment Scheme will allow serial entrepreneurs to be able to apply for EIS tax relief when they play an active role in the companies they invest in.

Government is asked to deliver the required digital infrastructure accelerating the rollout of high-speed broadband, establishing an intelligent transport system and implementing ‘smart grids’ to improve the efficiency of electricity delivery alone could create 700,000 jobs according to experts.

Party technology manifesto
Last week, the Conservative Party launched a Technology Manifesto through Francis Maude (left) in which it promised to open up the market for government IT contracts to more suppliers.

• Legislating to enshrine the freedom of government data and create a powerful new ‘Right to Government Data’, enabling the public to request – and receive – government datasets. This will radically increase the amount of government data released – and will provide a multi-billion pound boost to the UK economy. President Obama’s administration has already implemented a ‘Right to Data’ policy.
• Extending superfast 100 mbps broadband across most of the population. This is 50 times faster than Labour’s planned broadband network and would make the UK a hub for the creative industries
• Publishing online every item of central government and Quango spending over £25,000 – including every contract in full. This will create new jobs by opening up government procurement to more SMEs. We will also publish online every item of local government spending over £500 – including every contract in full. In addition, detailed information on the salaries of senior civil servants and local council officials will be published online.
• Creating a level playing field for open source IT in government procurement and open up government IT contracts to SMEs by breaking up large IT projects into smaller components.  
• 'Government skunkworks’  creating a small IT development team in government –  ‘- that can develop low cost IT applications in-house and advise on the procurement of large projects.

The 'e-skills Manifesto'
The heads of leading IT & Telecoms companies and CIOs from all sectors of the economy have joined together with e-skills UK - the Sector Skills Council for Business and Information Technology - to publish the e-skills Manifesto , which was launched at the European e-Skills Week conference at the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills in London.

Companies backing the Manifesto include Cable & Wireless, Cisco, Logica, HP, IBM, Quicksilva, BA, National Grid, UBS and Whitbread. With 2.46m people currently unemployed in the UK 1, the group say that investment in technology skills is essential for economic growth and employment.

Technology holds the key to innovation and global competitiveness across the whole economy, and will underpin the majority of future job creation in the western world. Half of Europe’s productivity gains in recent years are attributable to IT, which is at the heart of new economy sectors from low carbon to biotechnology to space. The technology sector also delivers £71 billion a year in direct GVA contribution.

Research released by e-skills UK to support the Manifesto shows that the technology professional workforce has continued to grow throughout the recession. Growing at four times the UK average for the coming decade, 110,000 new people a year will be needed to enter IT careers. In addition, IT literacy skills are also now a pre-requisite for employment for everyone, with 92% of new recruits required to have skills in the use of IT 2.

Among the Manifesto’s recommendations are calls to radically improve IT-related education, to provide practical help for companies to innovate and increase productivity, and to ensure that government policy reflects the strategic importance of technology.

Andy Green (right) CEO of Logica and Chair of e-skills, UK’s IT & Telecoms Industry Board.  "It is technology that enables innovation and underpins productivity right across the economy. Modern economies are driven by skilled people who create and use technology. The UK needs more, many more of these skilled people. We need to e-skill the UK, and we need to do it now."

"As employers, through e-skills UK, we are putting our collective efforts into creating the skills we will need for this technology-enabled future. We need to prioritise the e-skilling of the UK as crucial to the future of the economy." adds Paul Coby, (left) CIO and head of BA Services, British Airways and chair of e-skills UK’s CIO Board


Larry Hirst, (right)  chairman of IBM Europe, Middle East and Africa and chair of e-skills UK, said: "With e-skills UK, we are placing particular focus on inspiring young people about technology and improving their experience of studying technology at school. We also need to make employer-backed IT degrees central to the STEM agenda, and help more smaller companies to exploit and innovate through IT."