back to article Why does the UK keep getting beaten up by IT suppliers?

It's a line Brits love to quote: "You're a big man, but you're in bad shape. With me, it's a full-time job. Now, behave yourself." Michael Caine's iconic dialogue as the Get Carter protagonist sums up how tech companies see the government: big, in bad shape, and here to do what they say. While the UK government wants to focus …

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      1. Like a badger

        Re: "MoD has been so utterly shite at procurement for 40 years+"

        "Is MoD procurement still around 23 000 staff (bigger than the entire UK armed forces combined) ?"

        UK military headcount is about 130,000, plus about 20-30k reserves.

        https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/quarterly-service-personnel-statistics-2024/quarterly-service-personnel-statistics-1-april-2024

        MoD DE&S (aka procurement is apparently about 12,500:

        https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/defence-equipment-and-support/about/recruitment

        MoD total staff is about 60,500.

        So we're paying over 12,000 people to work collectively to turn gold into lead, with conspicuous success. Who knows what the other 38,000 MoD staff do?

    1. Acrimonius

      Re: Long time ago now...

      Also countless audits recommending a new way - better, faster, cheaper - every decade or so. MOD has the luxury to hide behind 'defence of the realm' so money is no object

  1. JamesTGrant Bronze badge

    I think this comes down to the corruption of government by the very wealthy.

    We could pay gov tech employees a really great wage and have enough of them.

    Or we could pay an external company loads of money instead.

    To do the job, the external company needs to employ the same number of people on a given project, but you can bet a big margin goes to the corporation and not to the employees pay. So, it’s tax payer’s money being siphoned off to the mega rich (often non-domestic and untaxed) rather than the government money being used to support good jobs in the nation’s economy. That’s how the very rich get richer and the economic middle class gets hollowed out. When the prime minister is the son-in-law of one of the wealthiest people in the world, (Rishi) who advocates workers do 70hour weeks and shouldn’t ask for holidays, it ain’t gonna improve.

    Educating our MPs and councillors on how we can better manage the flows of wealth and why ‘trickle down’ really means ‘the rich will own everything and you’ll be financially insecure’ is the best hope we have now I think. Sorry so depressing.

  2. Andy 73 Silver badge

    "In 2023, the PAC found that the number of digital, data, and technology professionals in the UK civil service amounts to around 4.5 percent of the workforce, "less than half the number it needs when compared to an equivalent industry average of between 8 percent and 12 percent."

    For a lot of government functions these days, the technology is the service. Gathering, processing and acting on data from the population of the UK and millions of business is the bedrock of government activity. I'd expect the percentage of the workforce dedicated to technology and data processing to be significantly higher than the industry average, and then double that again to catch up with years of mismanagement.

    But that low percentage probably also hides that technology is seen as a minor service function, and that nearly all of the senior management are Oxbridge humanities graduates. No names, but I've seen the results of this in organisations where the leadership is determined that they understand the technology after reading a few vague architecture documents (and to be clear, they are smart guys, of course they can read) - to the point where they can confidently make completely wrong decisions about technology and strategy. At that level, decisions are seen as "management", not "engineering", so people with no real experience of technology at scale try to do management at scale and.... large invoices all round!

    For those that are interested, it's well worth reading up on Digital Government in Estonia. You can set up a business there online from anywhere in the world, get married online and basically perform most government functions electronically - and it's no coincidence they have the highest number of tech unicorns in Europe.

    1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Unhappy

      "on Digital Government in Estonia."

      Ahh, the poster child for "digital*"

      Population 1.366million

      Left the former USSR 20/8/91.

      Wanted nothing to do with the former USSR, so basically a green field site for IT, with a well motivated populace (78% voted Leave in what I suppose we should call "Sexit")

      *Also much beloved of those who wanted ID cards (with "free" cradle-to-grave tracking of HM subjects)

      1. Andy 73 Silver badge

        Re: "on Digital Government in Estonia."

        Yup, they're a special case, and the Soviet influence runs deep, but they also show that properly online government services can work extremely well, and appear to demonstrate a knock on benefit to industry.

        And why not treat some of the required transformation in the UK as 'greenfield'? Stop trying to merge existing, inefficient systems that have a dependency on resource heavy departments with software that has to dance around manual processes. Analyse what is actually being delivered rather than how the current staff deliver it. Build replacement parts in a modular fashion (even if the interfaces at the edge remain messy and manual) and then give people the chance to switch over if it benefits them. It doesn't have to be a big bang changeover, but it does have to be a commitment to genuine change rather than patching a broken system.

        As for ID cards - they are not required for the UK to go digital, and we've got a good history of preventing them being introduced. That doesn't make the other lessons from countries that have successfully gone digital from being valuable.

    2. Ian Johnston Silver badge

      No names, but I've seen the results of this in organisations where the leadership is determined that they understand the technology after reading a few vague architecture documents (and to be clear, they are smart guys, of course they can read) - to the point where they can confidently make completely wrong decisions about technology and strategy.

      That's not really any worse then people with an MSCE certificate who think they know how teaching, diplomacy or healthcare ought to be done.

      1. Andy 73 Silver badge

        On the whole, people with MSCE certificates don't have control over billion pound budgets, even if they think they do.

  3. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    Government procurement could *start* with some actual *penalty* clauses

    The US government has a right to walk away from any contract without compensation.

    This fact alone is a major reason for the structure of US companies that are almost exclusively "Govt con-tractors"

    Curious that HMG, despite it's fondness for emulating US methods, has not adopted a similar policy, is it not?

    It's not like there aren't enough lawyers in parliament.

    They may (will?) not understand the technology involved but they can understand the idea of wheather it does (or does not) meet the requirements

    And BTW there's a classic old story from "Programming Pearls" that describes a Bell Labs exercise to build an email system for an Olympics. The lead research did a quite BOTE calc and concluded the bid proposal they were going to put in (as written) would need something like an 80sec minute to work out.

    I wonder how many of those "unforeseen technical complexities that are "too fundamental" for any change control process to deal with" were of those kind.

    We'll probably never know because the government will claim "Commerical confidentiality,"

    Which means that the con-sultants can "find" exactly the same problem again next time.

    HMG giving money to con-sultants and con-tractors is like sleeping with a dog you adopted that morning from a pound that's been living on the streets for a year and not expecting to wake up scratching yourself.

  4. MrGreen

    Conflict of Interest

    Those handing out the money for the contracts have shares in the companies where the money is going.

    They don’t care how much of your tax money is being wasted because they’re making millions.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Public Sector...

    ...gets fucked because of preferred supplier lists and back handers from the likes of Capita etc.

    It is impossible for the likes of me, a small independent IT shop, to get a public sector contract.

    That is all.

    1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Unhappy

      "It is impossible for the likes of me,"

      Except how many of those Capita/Accenture/PWC staff do you think are direct employees?

      The answer is a lot fewer than you might think.

      How did you think they maintain the need-a-Serb-speaking-Python-and-Rust-developer-of-course-we-can-Minster routine?

      If' your good, set up as an LLC and your skills are in demand then yes you can.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "It is impossible for the likes of me,"

        Yeah, my comment still stands *I* cannot hold the contract...I can work for someone that does and walk away with 20% or less of the actual rate being charged and have no control over the budgets for my own project...but I cannot hold the contract and manage it myself...there has to be a parasitic company like Capita involved in the middle tearing a stripe out.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Public Sector...

      Indeed AC, one isolated example was all about back handers & who you know

      I'm posting AC for a reason.

      A small company I used to work for bid for govt work, even set up a demo system online that their end users could try, ensure everything was as required (we even made a few quick turnaround changes as it was a classic loose requirements spec from the "top folk" , but with end users seeing a working product they then added a few nice to haves after playing around, which we included). All end users gave ultra positive feedback at end of the trial.

      Competitors were big name groups (at least one of which was, AFAIK, basically selling vapourware), "our" product was only one end users had been able to try & it met all their needs..

      We did not get the contract.

      Our sales guy heard (off the record) from guy who had organised end user trial (but crucially was not someone with a say in who got the contract, a "coalface manager" rather than a budget person) that our bid was by far the lowest, fully met the spec (obv. as spec was enhanced / extended based on seeing our product in use & changes we made during end user trial). The end user test head guy also noted there was no way we were going to get the contract as how good it was was irrelevant - we did not have the internal contacts or the "big name" & crucially we had not provided any "hospitality" or similar financial inducements for the decision makers - despite any hint of bribes being expressly banned for govt. bids) - end user head guy was irritated we did not get it, as a working solution would have made his, & his teams, jobs easier - he kept in touch with our sales guy & (surprise, surprise) a few years down the line told him the winning bid was still not fully fit for purpose.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Public Sector...

        This. I gave up on public sector bids donkies ago...the main problem I had (aside from what is mentioned here) is that bids are only made public because they are required to be made public, the intention is to always use an incumbent or internal team.

        Just look at how NHS grants work...you'll tick every box, except the "must be working within the NHS or a specific NHS department".

        Even if you try and take the scenic route in, via a GP or local healthcare centre or something, you'll fail...because even if they absolutely love your product, if the money isn't staying within the "buddy network" you won't get it.

        I've been contracted before for NHS work though a company who was also subcontracted...it was a London based trust...I was contracted to do some regular database maintenance...the place I had to visit had a fucking huge IT team, all folks that had been hired straight out of University...absolutely none of them ever did anything...at least not while I was there...I just saw them playing LAN games of Quake 3 for the whole time I was there.

        NHS not only needs to clean up it's contracting practices, it needs to stop fucking around with it's graduate hiring scheme. The NHS has an army of "techies" that can't do anything because they have no experience outside of University...the actual tech work goes to contractors that are 4 rungs down from the primary contract holder who aren't paid enough to care...the firm I subbed for, who subbed for someone else wouldn't prioritise the NHS at all because after the two rungs above had take a stripe, there wasn't anything meaningful left...be being at the bottom, I was on even less...I was getting the thin streaks of gravy off a massive plate...the contract was worth something like £2m a year...but by the time the "management overhead" had taken it's massive slice, there was only about £70k a year left...which was essentially spread out across a small team of engineers and a project lead and running costs (travel expenses, spare parts etc). It wasn't worth a wank.

      2. localzuk

        Re: Public Sector...

        There is often an assumption in public sector that "big company" means "stable and secure", so conversely, small company means unstable. So, when marking a bid, there will be lines talking about things like business accounts, cashflow/cash on hand etc... And basically everyone who isn't a huge corp gets marked down because they don't have hundreds of millions sat as "cash on hand".

      3. Terry 6 Silver badge

        Re: Public Sector...

        This, with Locazuk's comments shortly after, does not surprise me.

        Local authorities have a strong "No one got fired for buying IBM" mentality.

        Risk aversion is built into the senior management. Which makes sense If it's the right kind of risk

        The problem is that the risk they're avoiding is getting blamed. It's not the risk that the big company selected will be totally useless. Because that blame is well distributed and the Big Company will have ready made excuses.

        1. localzuk

          Re: Public Sector...

          It isn't just about risk aversion at a management level - policies and procurement rules as currently written dictate certain things when buying in the public sector. So, when a department is going through a procurement, the requirements placed upon them automatically disadvantage smaller businesses.

          1. Terry 6 Silver badge

            Re: Public Sector...

            That's a fair comment, though arguably the policies from on high are also are also written with an eye to the, err, optics and avoidance of blame. After all, say the various implicated politicians we went with a sound well known company. ICL ( Fujitsu). They had all the experience, big departments with lots of people, guaranteed cashflow........

  6. Acrimonius

    IT/ERP Companies also do not have what it takes

    What is overlooked is that many of the companies also lack the required engineers and managers both in terms of experience/skill and numbers. This is made worse as they promise to do something in half the time than what is realistic (also never good practice to say no to the Client's deadlines) or are faced with a mountain of changes they cannot suddenly cope with. So they go cap in hand back to the Client for more money and time which itself needs more money.

    As far as Government staffing is concerned it will never have internal staff with the reqired technical and technical management skills. Nor will the most able want to be in the Civil Service. It will be career ending - a CV no-no. So an army of consultants/advisors who have an hidden agenda and no one internally competent enough to also manage.

    Replacing the outdated SAP is likey to a mother of fuck-ups

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      Re: IT/ERP Companies also do not have what it takes

      Acrimonious it may be, Acrimonius, but that post of yours was accurately succinct and perfectly highlights the problem which Parliamentarians in their present phorm and ilk will always be plagued to suffer and do vainglorious battle against and be comprehensively defeated by.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: IT/ERP Companies also do not have what it takes

      In some cases maybe...but if larger organisations actually had more skill and experience the track and trace system during covid might not have started out as a shitty spreadsheet.

  7. localzuk

    Poor pay

    The UK govt doesn't pay enough for competent tech workers, so they get people who can't succeed elsewhere. Example, the "Head of CyberSecurity" position in the MHCLG, a department of 3600 people spread out across the UK, has a salary range of £77,257 - £83,230 (London), £70,644 - £76,608 (National). A critical role, ensuring the security of an entire ministry and 3500 people across 20 offices, getting paid £70k. Or someone suitably experienced would walk into a job at a FTSE500 company for £100k+.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Poor pay

      I dunno man. Cybersecurity pay is a mixed bag.

      I work as a cybersecurity analyst sometimes (if I can actually find a gig) and the pay is usually garbage when you consider the amount of responsibility and sheer stress involved.

      I wouldn't take less than £200k for this sort of job. If I can't afford at least a couple of very nice holidays a year and a really comfy house to go home to, I wouldn't take that cybersecurity job...after tax etc, those salaries are crap.

  8. CorwinX

    Pay peanuts - get monkeys

    This is all

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Pay peanuts - get monkeys

      They don't pay peanuts to the contract holders though...and they still get monkeys.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Pay peanuts - get monkeys

        Of course, they pay the peanuts and sometimes get monkeys.

        But still charge the client for gorillas.

        AC as it's the offspring who is paid by BigCorp as a Grad. But being hired out as a "Senior" Something or Other. Said child of mine is actually damn good and appears to be well appreciated by the client, but isn't receiving anything like the paygrade that's being charged out as.

  9. CorwinX

    Penalty Clauses

    These only work if you've got people who know what they're doing tech-wise and can make sure the original specification and contract for the system are rock-solid. No get-out clauses.

    But if that's done properly then failing to deliver lets you put the boot in.

    Also phased payments, based on milestones.

    Initial development, acceptance testing, initial pilot, retooling, extended pilot, final acceptance, rollout, support.

    I learnt that on day one of a project management course at the bank I worked for.

    The problem, I think, is these contracts are always negotiated with civil servants - not IT professionals.

    IMHO

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