Maude to gov IT suppliers: If you are rubbish you will be binned

Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude will today warn some of the largest IT suppliers to government they may find themselves in the metaphorical public sector waste bin if their performance is rubbish. After the champagne cocktails hair dryer treatment, integrators including Accenture, Atos, Steria, Capita, Capgemini, Logica …

[J P]

Tax Payers to Gov:

Try not buying rubbish IT in the first place - knowing what you want, and telling the supplier what that is, before delivery would probably go a long way towards helping too.

[Toothpick]

Gov to Tax Payers:

We get the cheapest. If it's rubbish then tough.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Tax Payers to Gov:

"knowing what you want, and telling the supplier what that is, before delivery "

That's a bit of a big ask of those at Westminster Home for the Clueless & Unemployable. A more charitable approach might be to accept that government IT delivers almost no benefits, so we request that they don't even try and spend the money at all in the first place.

[LarsG]

GOV to IT supplier

But don't worry, your contract will have a a nice compensation clause in it. So you can't lose!

[Pete 2]

Please miss!

Can we employ the same standards for our politicians?

[boony]

Re: Please miss!

Best comment of the week

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Please miss!

Upvoted. I bet his mates call him Maude

[JaitcH]

Capita, surely not!

I thought Capita and the Conservative Party were bonded like twins.

Is the Old Boy system breaking down?

[JimmyPage]

you mispelled Capita

and left the "r" out. (Private Eye speak)

[Anonymous Coward 15]

Re: you mispelled Capita

You misspelled "misspelled". Muphry's Law strikes again.

[Anonymous Coward]

How will they stop sub-contracting?

True occurance....

Company hires firm X to fulfil a service contract. X was rubbish, so they employ firm Y instead.

They are shocked when the engineers for X turn up back on site, because Y had sub contracted back to X.

Unless these things are sorted out, then this is just going to be a world of fail.

[Blane Bramble]

Re: How will they stop sub-contracting?

Normally there is a clause about "will you sub-contract" etc. I guess this needs to be expanded to include who you're sub-contracting to so that can be checked.

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting fired for poor performance?

Bloody hell! If this kind of thing catches on I might actually have to start doing some work if I want to keep my job!

[embraman]

Couldn't agree more...

...about tidying up the procurement frameworks. And anyway, aren't those on the frameworks supposed to be good enough to deliver what's required? What's the timeframe for kicking poor performing companies OFF a framework? About 3 years looking at one I've just used. Give us public sector bods more flexibility to avoid the big boys who dominate and get complacent, and oh, I don't know, let us help stimulate the economy by using more SME's and developing good working relationships. That would be nice. *bashes self on head with GPS Framework RM591 [Lot2]*

[Mark 65]

MOD next?

So will this then be rolled out to defence suppliers next?

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: MOD next?

Yes BAe-Thales have been told that if they fsckup the next fighter/aircraft carrier/tank then the government will have to switch to another major British arms manufacturer to buy the next fighter/aircraft carrier/tank from

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: next fighter/aircraft carrier/tank

Or Multi-role Combat Vehicle, as it's officially called in the Statement of Requirements

[Anonymous Coward]

He really needs to start by looking at the people in the public sector who are managing the external companies.

[Miss Lincolnshire]

How the hell do Govt expect to get economies of scale and buy IT as an entity when they insist on ridiculously fragmented contracts in order to give an impression of competitive tender. Particularly when the civil servants in charge are incapable of managing complexity

Sorry gents but yoursaying "we expect our suppliers to be joined up" does not relieve you of all risk and responsibility. Your contract, your problem