We may not have a date for next year’s General Election yet, but the campaign is well under way ­- and, for once, it will be watched with particular interest by the IT community.

The whims and fancies of politicians have always had an effect on IT professionals, of course, but as we approach what will be the most important economic referendum in our lifetime, technology is going to play a more central role than ever.

In the public sector, whoever wins will have little choice but to bring in savage cuts, which will, in politics-speak, be targeted at “bureaucracy” and “the back office” ­ meaning IT will be in the firing line. There is already a growing awareness that shared services will have to be accelerated and outsourcing will become even more prevalent.

One of the biggest changes in Whitehall IT over the past 10 years has been the influx of experienced private sector IT leaders to bring some of their corporate nous to what was an often poorly skilled and badly resourced government IT profession. Given the likely crackdown on high-paid civil servants ­ the Tories’ shadow chancellor George Osborne, for example, promising to effectively cap pay at the level of the prime minister’s salary,­ will we see a reversal of what has been largely a successful trend?

Changes in government mark changes in public sector IT strategy. Tony Blair’s administration shifted focus from automating the big administrative processes, such as collecting tax and paying benefits, putting technology at the heart of reforming public service delivery.

But that led to over-ambitious projects and ever-expanding databases, neither of which fit comfortably into the modern view of openness, agility and rapid development. We can surely expect big changes to the policy of big IT.

However, one area the next government must get right is IT skills. Every party has spoken of the need to expand our creative and technology sectors to reduce dependence on the City. Whoever wins will only find friends in IT if they make good on this most fundamental of promises.

In the last few General Elections, Computing has not been alone in hoping that the leading political parties give technology a pivotal role in their manifestos.

Next year ­- assuming Gordon Brown doesn’t surprise everyone with an autumn poll ­- we might finally get our wish.

Labour’s Digital Britain strategy is central to the party’s plans for economic recovery, job creation, and digital infrastructure, as minister Pat McFadden explains in the latest issue of Computing.

Meanwhile, the Tories seem to be positively all over technology. The party said last week it plans to use IT to make government more open, transparent and accessible to the public.

“For all politicians, the question now is, do they understand how technology is changing people’s expectations?” said shadow science and innovation minister Adam Afriyie.

And this week we heard again that the Conservatives want to look at how electronic patient records can be hosted online by the likes of Google and Microsoft, a concept first touted by David Cameron in April.

It is good to hear the benefits of IT being so widely debated, but still the concerns linger -­ and in particular, how naive politicians’ expectations for technology seem to be.

Tony Blair rightly saw that IT-enabled change was the key to transforming public services and his government set out down that road with enthusiasm. But it soon discovered that delivery was a rather more complex affair.

There are sure to be votes ­ and certainly attractive national newspaper headlines ­ to be gained by populist ideas such as giving electronic patient records to Google.

But as the NHS is finding, introducing electronic records is a massively complex task, and just by stamping the names Google or Microsoft all over them does not make them any cheaper, easier, or more likely to succeed.

We look forward to IT taking its rightful place as a policy battleground, but let’s hope the UK’s IT professionals are offered a chance to keep the promises grounded in reality.