It might seem a little churlish to berate Gordon Brown over the status of a few of his junior ministerial posts, given that he has had rather more critical issues with senior ministers to worry about lately. But you’ll forgive us if we do so anyway.

At the moment, two of the top three government roles relating to the technology industry remain vacant after the latest reshuffle, and the third is soon to be vacated.

We have yet to see a new minister for digital engagement – formerly Tom Watson – or a minister for digital inclusion – previously Paul Murphy. Add to that the impending departure of the man meant to be championing Digital Britain, communications minister Lord Stephen Carter, and you have to wonder just how serious the prime minister really is about the industry.

Instead, we have a couple of Alan Sugar-style “celebrity” appointments, with Sir Tim Berners-Lee advising on opening up government data, and Lastminute.com founder Martha Lane Fox as digital inclusion champion.

Let’s look for a moment at the key words in those job titles – engagement and inclusion. The former is meant to lead the promotion of online public services, the latter to reach out to the digitally excluded. These are two pretty critical tasks if, as Brown has repeatedly promised, technology is central to the future of the UK economy.

This week sees the publication of the final Digital Britain report – a crucial document for UK IT, and one bound to create controversy. So who will see it through? Not Lord Carter, enobled purely to appoint him to a ministerial post so he could drive the plan through, yet off he goes, presumably back to a lucrative private sector role.

If the UK IT industry is not complaining in the loudest terms possible about its apparent downgrading within the government’s ranks, then it should be.

It’s time for Brown to stop messing about with job titles and political appointees. The UK needs a technology czar to oversee the development of digital Britain.

Forty-six years ago, Harold Wilson gave a speech that is remembered for what became perhaps the former Labour prime minister’s best-known phrase ­ the “white heat” of technology revolution.

In reality, Wilson was talking more about casting aside restrictive working practices and old class divides than heralding the importance of high-tech innovation. But it was the first time that this country’s leader turned to technology as a potential vote winner.

Last week, Gordon Brown stepped further onto the same platform. “The digital future of the UK is a complete departure from what has gone on before,” he told delegates at the Digital Britain Summit.

For some months now, Brown has placed science and technology at the heart of economic recovery ­ as he should, and so should be praised for. This year, we have seen the draft Digital Britain report published ­ to a somewhat lukewarm reaction ­ and in the past week hints of government cash for next-generation broadband and a “bank” to fund high-tech startups.

By the time you read this, chancellor Alistair Darling will have published the Budget, and some of these proposals may or may not have become clearer.

But whether in the Budget or not, it is time for the rhetoric and promises to stop and the action to start. Putting technology at the centre of the UK’s future is an easy and obvious thing to say; it is much harder to turn it into policy.

When the prime minister said last week: “We can use the downturn to build the necessary technological infrastructure we need for the future,” it is unclear whether “we” refers to the government, or to the country as a whole. Is this an exhortation to business and consumers to spend, spend, spend on technology, or is it a promise for funding and legislation to make this a truly digital Britain?

Wilson gave us white heat. It’s time for Brown to show us the colour of his money.

Seamless integration has long been a Holy Grail for IT managers.

Anybody who has been in the industry for more than 10 years will be able to reel off a long list of failed initiatives aimed at making IT systems more interoperable.

Open standards have long been a mantra for most vendors, but one that remains under the shadow of perhaps the most popular cliché in the book: “The great thing about standards is there are so many to choose from.”

David Roberts, chief executive of user group The Corporate IT Forum, says it all for IT leaders in our article on Cisco’s new unified datacentre strategy: “We have constantly called for suppliers to work more collaboratively to effect seamless integration and interoperation of infrastructure components.”

The history of IT shows that interoperability is the key to making any technology or trend a success. When the industry failed to agree on networking standards, users just chose one –­ IP ­ that was proving pretty successful outside of vendor control, and so the internet era began.

The success of Microsoft Windows was largely due to the fact that one supplier realised that most users wanted all PCs to look the same when they switched them on (with apologies to the fervent Mac community) and could run any off-the-shelf software they wanted.

More recently, once Apple turned downloading into a seamlessly integrated art, the music and video industry changed forever.

These days, we have a whole class of software ­ categorised by the awful name “middleware” ­ that owes is existence to the fact that technology products do not work together. Is IT the only sector able to make money out of its own inability?

Spurious costs on integration are an unwanted irritation for IT managers. If vendors want to help their customers through the recession ­ – and so survive themselves –­ they need a new approach to working together.

And here is the good news… Apple and IBM are doing very well, thank you. Record financial results all round.

That’s that bit over. Now for the bad news.

Five thousand layoffs at Microsoft and another 5,000 at Ericsson. IT job cuts at Axa and Unisys. Let’s stop there before it gets worse.

Are you getting as fed up as we are by the constant stream of depressing stories emanating from the business world, and in particular the IT sector?

Computing is the first to admit that we are not slow in reporting such bad news, but sadly it is a fact of life at the moment. We’ll be the first to bring you the good news too, it’s just a little harder to find right now.

Nonetheless, it is heartening to see that IT managers are approaching the difficult times ahead with a mood of realism rather than being disheartened.

The first of what will be a regular quarterly survey of readers’ attitudes, the Computing Technology Barometer, shows that IT leaders are being cautious but not downbeat.

They expect little by way of budget increases, and are wary of the latest products and services being pushed at them by vendors, but where there are opportunities to deliver real benefits from the right technologies, they are forging ahead.

It is important to remember that driving change through IT does not necessarily mean buying lots of new products. There are often plenty of ways to make better, faster or smarter use of what you already have –­ and when you see well-established trends such as virtualisation, mobile computing and data security highlighted as priorities in our research, the implication is clear –­ IT leaders have become very good at making the most of a tough time.

So to borrow a phrase that someone else borrowed in a rather more important speech last week, let’s pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and keep IT at the heart of successful business.

Rarely has an impending ministerial report generated so much anticipation in the IT and telecoms industries.

Communications minister Lord Stephen Carter’s Digital Britain review is due to be revealed next week, and speculation surrounding its contents has reached what –­ by the sedate standards of telecoms –­ can only be described as a fever pitch.

The review aims to create an “action plan to secure the UK’s place at the forefront of innovation, investment and quality in the digital and communications industries,” according to the government.

It will cover everything from the future of broadband to illegal file sharing and digital content. The report presents a unique opportunity – certainly the first of its kind in the UK – ­ to take a joined-up policy approach to the knowledge economy.

Early indications are that Carter will be in favour of universal broadband –­ mandating industry to provide a connection to anyone in the UK who wants one, wherever they are, using whatever wireless or wired technology is most appropriate and cost effective. Such a scheme has been discussed and rapidly dismissed in the past, so this would be a major step forward.

The costliest question will be who pays for next-generation broadband and the rollout of fibre optics that is needed to take connections up as far as 100Mbit/s. There is a realisation at the highest level of government that this is every bit as important a recession-busting infrastructure development as roads, railways and new runways.

There is an unprecedented coming together of trends that puts the timing of the review at a perfect and pivotal point –­ the need to stimulate investment and create jobs; the rapid acceleration of consumer technology use; the globalisation of business through IT; and a government desperate to be seen to be doing something popular.

It could be a groundbreaking moment for UK IT – ­ let us hope we are not disappointed.

It is extremely unlikely we will see any IT companies following the example of financial services firms and carmakers in begging for state handouts. But it is nonetheless encouraging that Gordon Brown seems to be aware of the role technology can and must play in rescuing the economy.

The prime minister has taken to talking in depression-era terms as he continues his bid to save the world – ­ oops – ­ the banking industry.

Brown has on more than one occasion over the past month drawn parallels between last century’s investment in roads and railways and a 21st century priority for building digital infrastructure. His latest proposals highlight high-speed broadband networks and promoting jobs in technology industries.

This is all good to hear – ­ but forgive us a little cynicism while we wait for the proof. Only last year, the government as good as ruled out any state funding for next-generation broadband – ­ although there are rumours that technology minister Stephen Carter’s forthcoming Digital Britain review will look to find ways to better support private sector investment.

And just how many times have we been through government-backed initiatives to persuade young people to opt for a career in IT, with precious little success?

As Computing has pointed out repeatedly over the past year, history proves that companies which invest in IT are best positioned to survive a downturn. In what many predict will be the worst economic crisis for a generation, the same is surely true of countries.

Having the political will to promote our digital economy is undoubtedly a good thing, but we need fresh ideas and real momentum to make it happen.

So thanks, Gordon, for putting IT at the heart of your plans. Now let’s see some tangible actions to back up the politics.

With the economic crisis showing no signs of ending soon, the only certainty in the next 12 months will be uncertainty.

Clearly, financial services firms will be hardest hit, but the knock-on effects will be widespread.

However, past experience suggests that innovative users of IT will be best positioned to emerge the strongest from troubled times.

The constraints within which IT leaders will have to operate will test many. Capital expenditure will be tightly controlled, and considering that most major hardware purchases ­ and often large software licence deals too ­ are financed through leasing, with the cost of debt so high the options will be limited.

For small or medium-sized businesses, there will inevitably be a lot of interest in software-as-a-service, hosting, cloud computing and other online pay-as-you-go offerings that minimise or even avoid an up-front payment.

For bigger businesses, the spectre of outsourcing will loom large. There aren’t many major firms that have not outsourced at least some aspect of their IT operations already, and the potential for budget cuts and the conversion of direct costs to operational expenses gives a financial imperative that may be hard to argue against.

But there are plenty of technology options too. There is no silver bullet, no next big thing that IT leaders can turn to. But there are still plenty of current big things that offer significant potential savings ­ virtualisation, voice over IP and mobile working, to name but three of many.

Whatever route you prefer to choose, there is one action that all IT leaders need to take.

In previous downturns, there was much talk of bridging the IT-business divide to survive unscathed. Yet here we are again, and still the gap often seems as wide as ever.

There will rarely be a better opportunity for IT to work with its business counterparts to plot a route through all the current uncertainty. Let’s not waste this chance to cross that divide and close it once and for all.

It is good to see so many vested interests discussing the prospects for next-generation broadband in the UK.

The announcement of Ofcom’s latest consultation is an important milestone, and will, hopefully, allow all parties involved to debate the way forward without much of the finger pointing and acrimony that characterised the early days of broadband Britain back in 2001-02.

But given the wider economic crisis, there has to be a question mark over the plans to put the UK at the forefront of high-speed communications.

With estimates of a capital cost of up to £28bn to roll out a UK-wide infrastructure supporting bandwidth up to 100Mbit/s, the likelihood of massive private sector investment is small, certainly in the short term.

With the cost of credit so high as the banking system struggles for liquidity, the payback period for such a major initiative starts to become prohibitive. And there is little chance of government funding to make it happen.

As the Broadband Stakeholder Group points out, this presents an opportunity for smaller-scale initiatives for local fibre networks, a model pursued with some success on the continent.

But even then, with venture capital markets turning away from early-stage technology startups, it’s not a great time for any IT entrepreneur looking for cash.

This is just another example of how the clogged financial arteries will have a knock-on affect in the technology world. It’s already apparent that major IT vendors are starting to talk about optimising IT and making the most of your estate, rather than trying to push costly new products.

It’s too early to say whether or not the attempts to bail out Wall Street will be enough to minimise the knock-on effects. And when we see Microsoft planning the biggest share buyback in history to boost its stock price, it’s clear that even the most successful players are bracing themselves for a difficult period.

There has rarely been a time when smart ideas and cost-effective innovations will be more important to the prospects for the IT sector and for broadband Britain.