Hoorah Government IT is saved.....
What makes the Treasury think he knows anything about running IT projects, managing costs yes, but IT.....
Look forward to more expensive IT projects that cost more, take longer and deliver less, but are on time and on budget.
The usual government IT project is:
Year 1 - Assess need, put in budget proposal
Year 2 - Get the budget, hire consultants to confirm budget and firm up requirements
Year 3 - Put contract out to tender
Year 4 - Let contract based on 2 year old requirements.
Year 5 - legislation changes mean large change control costs and delays.
Year 6 - project delivers late over budget and does not meet the business requirements which have changed again.
It's carried out by:
Year 1 - A small group of civil servants and a tier 1 business consultant.
Year 2 - A small group of civil servants, a tier 1 business consultant and a bunch of inexperianced graduates sold in at exorbitant rates by the tier 1 consultancy because the rates paid by the government won't allow for anything else if they want to make a profit.
Year 3 - As above, plus a group of suppliers giving free consultancy, too late.
Year 4 - As above, plus the winner of the bidding process who's on a profit recovery plan because they under bid to win the business. (tier 1's consultants should drop by 90% though)
Year 5 - Change request, yahoo we can make a profit because we're the only game in town, but the new legislation is not compatible with the solution.
Year 6 - Disaster.
See it's easy, but at least its fair and the price isn't decided up front by the CEOs like the building trade do.
Government IT procurement is a big game of chicken to see who will say the king has no cloths first. But if they do they won't win any more contracts for a while.