back to article UK government tech procurement lacks understanding, says watchdog

UK government plans its technology purchases with limited assessment of technical feasibility, according to a spending watchdog's analysis of the £14-billion-a-year procurement of digital services. Among findings in the latest National Audit Office (NAO) report [PDF], which evaluates the government's approach to technology …

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  1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Novel and Noble were Enemies of Olde too, but such is Progress

    "The Public Accounts Committee has long maintained that technology can transform the way government delivers public services. Without a more strategic approach from the center, and a sourcing strategy that is fit for purpose for the digital age, the government risks wasting more money and squandering the opportunity to modernize the public sector."

    Those two short sentences reveal the fundamental essence of the continued guaranteed serial failure which will blight governments, both home and away, friendly and hostile, as technology marches on to transform everything.

    Centralised ministerial government personnel tasked with ensuring maintenance and retention of established historical command and control protocols/levers/taxing measures are a crooked fit in a new digital age which has leading prime technology and technologists recognising and able to advertise and present wasteful squandering applications/projects/programs just as soon as government sources unfit as free agents of radical change for a brave new universatile digital age venture forth into the public domain with announcements of such proposals as may primarily be designed to reinforce the status quo

    You may like to consider that now it is best to accept that technology is into transforming public services which deliver government rather than government delivering public services.

  2. Eclectic Man Silver badge
    Happy

    A helpful suggestion:

    I suggest that the author of the report, and all government IT procurement senior management be sent the following web address with the requirement to read the articles concerning large IT procurements and attended comments threads before their next procurement:

    http://www.theregister.com

    <Bows>

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: A helpful suggestion:

      I doubt the author of the report would find anything novel here. IT procurement senior manglement, OTOH, might think their performance was in line with public procurement norms.

  3. cookiecutter

    My nemesis

    Procurement, not only public sector but also private sector are a fucking nightmare! I can only guess that if you're too stupid to go into HR or become a CEO, you go into purchasing.

    It's insane that I could spend 6 months researching, meeting vendors, looking into stuff, looking into what the environment engineers are trained in etc etc etc and STILL some knob who can't turn a laptop on gets to over rule my decision on what to buy, because some vendor somewhere that I've already decided doesn't meet the requirements has managed to meet some sla on the business case

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: My nemesis

      @cookiecutter

      ....I've mentioned this elsewhere, but it might be relevant:

      - Fortnum & Mason bags stuffed with folding money

      Just saying!!

      1. cookiecutter

        Re: My nemesis

        It's utterly nuts. If this was done properly, NONE of the big vendors would ever get another contract. WHY do they still get paid more money when they fuck up?!

        Every vendor is out there screwing the tax payer. Charging the same yet offshoring the staff to pay less. You can't say.."You fucked us last time so we're not letting you bid this time "

        You should be able to say..you didn't meet the requirements, you're not getting another government contract for a decade

        1. MonkeyJuice Bronze badge
          Trollface

          Re: My nemesis

          Well obviously, Capita, Atos, Fujitsu, etc. are names that have won extremely high value bids in the past.

          It would be terribly irresponsible to take a company that hasn't got such impressive public sector experience at face value.

    2. Terry 6 Silver badge

      Re: My nemesis

      Even at the lower levels. When I first went into education management I also supported the IT for my team and a few others, in my skilled amateur way. When there was stuff to buy I researched, then contacted vendors and if possible negotiated the best price.

      But eventually we were given a central IT department with a purchasing manager. We were forbidden from buying kit through a well known catalogue,which was fair enough as they charged too much for much of their stuff and I only ever used them in extremis but had to buy it through him instead. I actually welcomed that, on the grounds that a) I didn't have the time to do it, really b) he'd have a more extensive knowledge of products and suppliers as a full time professional and c) his buying power meant he could get better deals. The extra charge we had to pay for his services would, I truly believed would be more than justified by getting better stuff on better terms. Believed, that is for about 3 months.

      After which time it became increasingly obvious that he hadn't a clue. When I'd asked him to advise on the best product for a given requirement he just told me the standard well known, generic one- and I already knew there were better, more appropriate ones at better price, but he just hadn't done any research or got any knowledge. And when we'd asked him to supply some other bits of kit he bought items that were more expensive than I could get from the shops down the road - and in case you are thinking "ah support contacts/warranties etc". No, the most egregious part was that we found out he was just ordering everything from the same catalogue company we'd been forbidden to use ourselves, and at the same published prices.

  4. Ian Mason

    Rinse, repeat.

    Every few years the NAO goes through this exercise, every few years they come to the same conclusion. It's like a perennial driving test failer going for their 16th test and failing yet again. Perhaps it's time hire a chauffeur and be done with it.

    1. David Lewis 2
      Joke

      Re: Rinse, repeat.

      Perhaps El Reg do the same with these reports! How would we know. The sense of Deja Vue is strong with this one.

    2. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

      Re: Rinse, repeat.

      It's like a perennial driving test failer going for their 16th test and failing yet again

      I always thought that there should be a "5 strikes and you are out" on the driving test - if you haven't mastered how to drive a car on the road, in traffic, by then then you'll be a danger to other road users [1] when you finally do pass the test.

      Driving a car isn't a right.

      I'd also recommend that anyone going for a car test *has* to have spent time riding a bike (motor or human powered) *before* they are allowed to take the test - unless they can't for medical reasons. It teaches you to be a lot more respectful of other road users when you realise that you are a hell of a lot more vulnerable than them!

      [1] Especially bikes (motor and human-powered).

      1. Tron Silver badge

        Re: Rinse, repeat.

        If they had to ride a horse first, they would have some experience in dealing with emissions too.

  5. Ken G Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Cost Benefit analysis

    Every IT provider will be able to give a detailed financial breakdown of their product development, implementation and operational costs, along with costs to change.

    No government department is able to give a financial breakdown of the benefits associated with any of their projects beyond "if we don't spend it, some other bugger will".

  6. ComicalEngineer

    A couple of personal experiences:

    I spend 30% of my time working in the energy sector, for whom Ed Miliband is the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (since July 2024). Ed's qualifications for this role? A degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and an MSc in Economics from the LSE. One of the institutions with whom I work is extremely frustrated with the pie in the sky thinking coming from the department which is actually sacrificing energy security on the altar of net zero. I won't go further to keep my blood pressure down.

    Another of my main occupations is providing technical input to certain government fuel related projects. My company was taken off a job by a NGO who did not like our work and yet copied and pasted large sections from our reports into their new report template. Their costs are over 30% more than ours and the end customer doesn't like their output! The person making the decision to employ the NGO instead of our private company has no qualifications in a relevant discipline but is a civil servant with a degree in classics and an MBA.

    I detest the way that government continues to blame "experts" and "consultants" when on many occasions they simply disregard the work carried out by these people and do whatever is politically expedient.

    BTW; an expert isn't someone that you were at Eton / Harrow with or a fellow member of the Bullingdon Club.

  7. breakfast
    Boffin

    I'm a stuck record on this...

    Every time this comes up I keep coming back to the fact that the government could save a truly colossal amount of money by recruiting a solid and well-paid in house development resource. We can no longer pretend that software systems are not part of core government functions, so not having the ability to run them from inside the government is ridiculous.

    It would save money and keep domain knowledge within the organisation that needs it. We've had forty years to see that the private sector is not inherently more efficient than the public sector and that competent and happy internal teams can do outstanding work. Build up the resource and make it happen.

    1. Tron Silver badge

      Re: I'm a stuck record on this...

      The churn rate of Windows versions alone must be costing billions in public money. Nothing will change as government exists primarily as a mechanism by which the rich can extract public money from the rest of us. Any actual benefit is incidental.

      AI BS will just increase costs and energy use, whilst making everything less reliable. Daft. Much of what we use computing for would be cheaper and safer to do on paper.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I'm a stuck record on this...

      Downvoter here, and here's why.

      On the face of it, yes you are correct - UK Gov is of such a size that it could keep a significant team fully occupied, that would keep skills in-house, yada, yada, ...

      But think a bit harder and you come up with why that's not going to work.

      To start with, those skilled people (all the parts of the dev team from business analysts through to the coders and testers) would be civil servants (disclosure, I'm a CS hence posting anon). CS pay is not renowned as being competitive with the private sector so you won't be getting all the sharpest pencils in the box. Then you take a step back and think of the adage that there's nothing that making it a government function can't make worse. And even if you surmount those issues, you will still have the problem of learning about a major change to your project, deliverable "next week", from a minister on the evening news.

      As others have said, what we DO need are stable requirements, proper budgets, senior civil servants prepared to tell ministers publicly that "no, you can't sensibly run a project like that", and teams adequately equipped (i.e. the right people in the right places with the right skills) to properly handle the private sector suppliers - as in, write proper specs, hold the supplier to them, don't hand out more money for fixing failures to meet the specs. But that also means having higher ups who know the difference between cost and value.

      And as already said, it's not like it's something new, cue Benjamin Franklin “The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.”

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Read the fiat standard by saifedean ammous and all of this will make sense!

  9. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Head of Nail Meets FCUKing Great Hammer ....

    Dominic Cummings had the right solution for the established problem which has lions being led by donkeys up the garden path to nowhere worth arriving at ........ PM's adviser invites 'weirdos and misfits' to work for Number 10

    When/Where is the Great Comeback/StartUp Party due, Dom? It is long overdue and the natives are getting restless and listless. Don’t let the buggers grind you down and have you giving up the ghost and your every right to host/mentor and monitor the field of dreams.

    It is not as if there isn’t an almighty army of stealthy invisible untouchable help able to deliver every heartfelt tactical wish and vital strategic need, is it.

  10. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
    Facepalm

    UK government procurement

    UK government tech procurement lacks understanding, says watchdog

    That's better.

    Just replace "tech" with "hospitals", "HS2", "Nuclear Power" or whatever.

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jan/20/johnson-plan-to-build-40-new-hospitals-unachievable-streeting-told

    “Successful delivery of the project appears to be unachievable,” it said.

    “There are major issues with project definition, schedule, budget, quality and/or benefits delivery, which at this stage do not appear to be manageable or resolvable. The project may need re-scoping and/or its overall viability reassessed.”

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