back to article UK.gov blacklists Fujitsu from future contracts - report

Japanese IT group Fujitsu is among several companies that have been "blacklisted" by the UK Government, claims the Financial Times. It means that Fujitsu, G4S and other unnamed companies will not be considered for future public sector contracts when they come up for tender because of their poor performance on past and existing …

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  1. Antidisestablishmentarianist

    "the comment is that we are not commenting. We don't comment on government contracts and we're not commenting on this."

    Surely commenting that you're not commenting is still commenting? Comments anyone?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      I suggest El Reg contact them and request that they comment on how committed they are to their no comments on comments policy because commentards asked in the comments.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      No comment.

    3. Spearchucker Jones
      WTF?

      "the comment is that we are not commenting. We don't comment on government contracts and we're not commenting on this."

      That's not even tautology. It's a non-denial denial - also known as tacit confirmation.

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        Trollface

        Is this a lost episode of "The Prisoner"?

        1. chr0m4t1c

          Re: Is this a lost episode of "The Prisoner"?

          No, but the script is so long they're still filming it.

    4. Code Monkey
      Trollface

      My comment is that between the lines of not commenting, Fuj are a little grumpy today.

      Need a hug, Fuj?

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I think Sir Humphrey must have got a nice cushy non exec post at Fujitsu for his retirement.

  2. IT Hack
    Pint

    I interviewed with the Big F for a military project. I asked why they proposed using IE6 instead of Firefox for a more secure browsing experience. I don't think my point was appreciated. Then again I didn't need to go through the entire security clearance bollocks. Which was nice.

    Pint to whoever grew a set of cajones and set up the black list. Now by rights that list should grow quite nicely.

    1. Lord Voldemortgage

      " by rights that list should grow quite nicely"

      Yes, although I do wonder if there will be anyone who escapes it.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        There is that military equipment supplier...

      2. This post has been deleted by its author

      3. IT Hack
        Pint

        Yes, although I do wonder if there will be anyone who escapes it

        I'd be happy with that...a fresh start as it were. It would certainly help the smaller and more agile enterprises to gain a foothold in the areas that have traditionally been the hunting grounds of the big players. I have a feeling that smaller players with more to lose would be far more interested in delivering quality. On the flip side of that of course is if they can afford to walk away from deals that do not sit well either technology or management wise.

        Pint coz this is really pub talk.

    2. Mexflyboy
      Paris Hilton

      For the love of God, cOjones

      Please please please white people/English speakers, the fecking word is c-o-j-o-n-e-s, NOT c-A-j-o-n-e-s, PLEASE get it right (cojones = balls, cajones = dresser drawer, so you sound like a twunt saying "cajones"...)

      Paris Hilton because SHE would know the difference between cojones and cajones...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: For the love of God, cOjones

        You've read some of the other comments on this site right? Some commentards struggle with English words, you should be willing to let foreign words slide....

        I'm looking at all of you who use "of" or "loose" in the wrong context :-)

      2. Robert E A Harvey

        Re: For the love of God, cOjones

        so tou are saying tat getting yer cojones trapped when you shut yer cajones would be bad?

      3. IT Hack
        Happy

        Re: For the love of God, cOjones

        Dude....its avant grade expressionism with a huge dollop of Dadaism and a few flakes of Surrealism!

        Ok...no...point taken. I honestly thought it was cajones...I will not make the same mistake. Thanks for pointing it out :)

        Its always good to learn.

  3. IHateWearingATie

    Idiots

    The first rule of the blacklist is that you don't talk about the blacklist as it breaks EU procurement rules.

    What you do is ask for examples of relevant previous projects and the contact details of the clients so you can find out how useless they are. You also ask pointed questions about previous contracts where performance clauses were invoked, penalties paid etc.

    Do this right and you don't need a blacklist...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Idiots

      How are they idiots? all the government have said is that they don't have a blacklist.

    2. John G Imrie

      Re: Idiots

      That assumes you have someone who is (a) independent and (b) competent to ask these kind of questions.

      1. Robert E A Harvey

        Re: Idiots

        and (c) had performance clauses in those contracts

    3. John McCallum
      Devil

      Re: Idiots

      If only Edinburgh Council had had the cOjones to find out the uselessness of the main conrtactor for the trams debacle they would by now have a tram line that went somewhere rather than one that only went to the airport and back to Princes St.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Based on poor performance in the past

    Then why do they still keep giving Capita contracts?

    1. Toothpick

      Re: Based on poor performance in the past

      Then why do they still keep giving Capita contracts?

      Probably because there aren't that many outfits that can handle the size and/or scope of Government contacts. Whoever gets the contract may be the best of a bad bunch.

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

        Don't call this a tumor. It's just showing unexpected requirements.

        "handle the size and/or scope of Government cont[r]acts"

        I think you have identified the problem.

      2. Ian Johnston Silver badge
        Thumb Down

        Re: Based on poor performance in the past

        Amongst the companies that clearly can't handle government contracts is Capita. A lack of bidders is not reason to give work to a dreadful one; it's a reason to look again at the work you're offering.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Based on poor performance in the past

      You mean "Crapita" not "Capita" is that just my good English or your typo

      Either way I think your statement stands!

    3. The Godfather
      Angel

      Re: Based on poor performance in the past

      Maybe because someone in Government is looking for a nice role there in later life.....

    4. chr0m4t1c

      Re: Based on poor performance in the past

      Having worked on the inside of these deals for several companies I can tell you that one of the reasons Capia will still be getting work is because part of what they are paid to do is stand up publicly and take the blame when HMG cock things up, so the Whitehall bods don't get drummed out of the service for serial incompetence.

      Have you never noticed how projects always go wrong in the same way but with different suppliers? There's a reason for that.

      Here's how things work:

      1) New contract awarded to supplier(A)

      2) After honeymoon period (about 2 months), cracks start to appear as supplier and HMG try to amalgamate completely different working practices.

      3) After a year, contract is re-negotiated when HMG realised they haven't asked for what they want and are surprised when supplier delivers what they asked for instead of what they want.

      4) Things go quiet for a year or two.

      5) HMG eventually introduce so many changes and delays into <big project> that it becomes impossible for anyone to deliver on time or budget as you effectively have to start again.

      6) Supplier and HMG have "crisis meetings".

      7) Supplier takes blame for f*ck up

      8) At end of contract, HMG kicks out supplier(A) for f*ck up (wink).

      9) New contract awarded to supplier(B).

      10) 90% of supplier(A) staff on contract TUPE to supplier(B)

      11) After six months in the wilderness, supplier(A) is awarded a new contract that supplier(B) has "f*cked up" (wink, wink).

      12) 90% of supplier(B) staff on contract TUPE to supplier(A)

      And repeat.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I do wonder

    Just how long it will be before UK.gov runs out of companies to contract their IT stuff out to, iot seems to me that none of the current crop of providers have any kind of competence other than in.

  6. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
    Coat

    possibly

    because Fujitsu dont promise to hand out enough 'directorships' to ex-politicians, and capita do... alledgedly

    Oh and G4S.. they're just plain crap

    Boris

    <<running away from the angry lawyers

    1. handle

      I was going to make a similar point

      "because of their poor performance on past and existing government deals."

      translates to

      "because they don't make big enough donations to the Tory party."

      1. Dave the Cat
        Stop

        Re: I was going to make a similar point

        "because they don't make big enough donations to the Tory party."

        Seriously, you're going with THAT angle? Are you aware of anything the Liebour party got up to in the last decade? People in glass houses and so on.... Don't get me wrong, i'm not exactly a supporter of the current crock 'o shite we have in gov't but the last lot are a law unto themselves....

  7. Marty
    Facepalm

    on the other hand....

    It makes me wonder how many suppliers have blacklisted UK Gov and would request they don’t consider asking them them to bid for public service contracts

  8. Pypes
    Meh

    As public sector contracts are in no way a hotbed of corruption....

    "companies will not be considered for future public sector contracts when they come up for tender because of their poor performance on past and existing government deals."

    So does that mean capita are barred for life?

    1. Dave the Cat
      Thumb Up

      Re: As public sector contracts are in no way a hotbed of corruption....

      We can only hope so.....

  9. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    But who *will* bid for HMG's barely spec'd super-mega projects with 4 yr supplier selection?

    Because *real* competitive development companies cannot afford to f**k about with endless beauty pageants to be told "No, you were scored down because you did not use enough staff from Wales/Scotland/NI/Serbia/some-other-f**king-place-they-put-in-the-list"

    Perhaps they *might* like to consider breaking the work down into *smaller* packages and not using this "£10m/yr over a decade equals £100m. We can't have *any* one on the bid list with a net worth of less than £100m" b***cks.

    Anyone remember NIRS II? "We'll be *so* much cheaper as it's the first client/server social security system in the *world*" There was a reason *everyone* else bid a mainframe solution. R(very big system) x R(never used implementation strategy) x R( unexpected problems) = probability(of-massive-clusterf**k.)

    1. ZweiBlumen

      Re: But who *will* bid for HMG's barely spec'd super-mega projects with 4 yr supplier selection?

      Perhaps they *might* like to consider breaking the work down into *smaller* packages and not using this "£10m/yr over a decade equals £100m. We can't have *any* one on the bid list with a net worth of less than £100m" b***cks.

      Absolutely. I'm convinced a committed bunch of freelancers or micro-SMEs (or whatever the term is for a 5 staff company) could do a better and significantly cheaper job than most of these over paid consultancies. In a 5 man shop EVERYONE is committed 100% of the time. In big coorporations you're paying overheads for things that simply don't need to be. Too much talk going on, not enough real work.

      1. Graham 25
        IT Angle

        Re: But who *will* bid for HMG's barely spec'd super-mega projects with 4 yr supplier selection?

        The issue with breaking a large project down into smaller contracts is someone has to be responsible for making sure all the bits work when connected back up - something the government is utterly useless at doing as it has neither the skills or the intellect to do.

        People frequently forget that most if not all of these 'blacklisted' companies have hundreds or thousands of satisfied, content clients plus the UK government. The problem is the Uk government, its contract structures, its failures to adhere to its side of the contract in almost all cases. Without HMG contracts, these companies would be smaller but do just fine.

        Blacklisting wouldn't help in the slightest as eventually everyone gets blacklisted.

        1. Magnus_Pym

          Re: But who *will* bid for HMG's barely spec'd super-mega projects with 4 yr supplier selection?

          A 5 man operation can't afford to take 30 or 40 government ministers/home office mandarins to the worlds hottest destinations on 'fact finding' missions. Without the 'facts' how can they make informed decisions?

          P.S. I wonder how many 'fact finding missions' are being planned to look at the environmental impact of big government procurement contracts on the rain forests to take place in Rio in four years time.

  10. Linker3000
    Facepalm

    In other news...

    The Public Accounts Committee has announced an investigation into the overspend and ultimate failure and cancellation of the late-running government contract awarded to a 'major information technology company' to develop a database system to maintain and track details of those IT companies blacklisted from future government IT contracts.

    An unnamed spokesperson said that the project suffered from numerous flaws and bugs - most notably a mysterious design fault that shut down a user's data entry terminal if they entered the letters c-a-p-i into any field.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hmmm

    This wouldn't have anything to do with Fujitsu threatening to sue the Govt for £700m over the NHS IT debacle would it?

    It can't just be for dodgy contract performance alone, as every major IT services provider has been involved in enormous Govt contract failures over the last 15 years, and is continuing to do so...

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Fujitsu eh?

    I used to work for them and have a lot of friends that still do. I feel very sorry for them right now as they are good people, and were good at their jobs. Can't speak for the rest of the company mind.

    Oh yes, and AC for very obvious bloody reasons.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Things To Remember

    Frequently news headlines report tasty morcels which are sucked up by the masses, but the real story which might not be so inviting in appeal terms, is often missed. And so it might be with this announcement. We don't actually know what the real news is with this one.

    What we have with this story is an MP who has clout who is trying to demonstrate what a hard guy he is. Because if he didn't do so then he might find his own feathers being trimmed.

    Astonishingly, it seems that FJ might have been pulled into the limelight because there is an ongoing £700m dispute between FJ and the government before the courts - with the government owing money to FJ. I presume that FJ would soon find themselves off that blacklist if they found a way to write off the £700m debt.

    And this hard guy in government had better be careful, because if he is seen to be pouring scorn on a major IT supplier then it won't be long before other IT suppliers figure they don't want to deal with government on future contracts. The end result of this short-term policy could be a massive overspend for government in future years when they find they can't get partnerships with big companies working - or are forced to use only a limited number of companies because the others won't play ball.

    1. Ian Johnston Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: Things To Remember

      Since every single major project run by these big companies has been an unmitigated disaster, I think I can hold back the tears on that one.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Things To Remember

      A relevant quote: ' As to the blacklisted companies left sitting, in the words of one observer, on the procurement “naughty step”, they will be able to work their way back into the government’s good graces – but the process will be demanding. Mr Maude said the government would expect any outstanding legal action that was “costing money on both sides in lawyers’ fees” to be quickly resolved'.

      FT Article

    3. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Meh

      Re: Things To Remember

      "And this hard guy in government had better be careful, because if he is seen to be pouring scorn on a major IT supplier then it won't be long before other IT suppliers figure they don't want to deal with government on future contracts. "

      Isn't that pretty much what already happens?

      .."or are forced to use only a limited number of companies because the others won't play ball."

      With the rules that HMG uses to select which companies they will allow to bid that pretty much happens already as well..

      You've missed the *other* possible effect. That HMG *might* decide to re-structure it's requirements (including it's interface documentation and procurement cycle) to allow smaller players. This might allow a big enough pool of development *companies* to make benching under performers a *real* threat.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Things To Remember

      I would agree that the ongoing legal wrangling is at the root of this. Smart money is in some sort of settlement and everybody gets back in the sandpit and starts playing like good children all over again.

      Having got close sources inside Fujitsu, since about £1bn of their annual UK T/O of £1.6bn is directly related in some way or other to Government business, it seems odd that there is not a constructive resolution in play, unless of course they want to destroy their UK operation through obstinacy.

      Whether they are any good or not, there are enough comments here about others who are perceived to be about the worst of the worst - Crapita being the main target. Seems to be a real choice of evils and current Government strategy to "divide and conquer" by splitting large contracts into vertical elements will only cause more pain, problems, increased costs and reduced "efficiency" as there will be nobody capable or empowered to pull the whole piece together. Persistent f***-ups in Government IT will be the thing of the future any time soon.........even more so than ever before.

  14. Gwaptiva
    Headmaster

    No blacklist, but...

    Government officials that state that "they do not operate a blacklist of vendors" are speaking the truth, but only in as far as that there is no list headed "Do Not Buy from These".

    What there is is a list of "Risk Multipliers". The "cost" of any bid is assessed as the product of the price quoted and this multiplier.

    So, all they need to do is make the multiplier for Fujitsu so extreme in relation to all others that the only way they could beat the "cost" of others is to do the work for free (in which case they'll probably be in violation of some price dumping legislation)

  15. Duffaboy
    Happy

    Simples

    Someone e.g the register put in a Freedom of Information request.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Of course the real problem is that the lowest bid will always be the one with the least contingency when in reality when dealing with the government you should give them a price based upon doing 100% of the work but with 100% contingency.

    So when they change their minds or the people implementing the system realise what they have been told to do is completely wrong it can be put right. The system wouldn't be "late" and "over budget" then either.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I worked for the Big F back around 2002, the money was awful but then so my situation. The people were really great but so demoralised as most had been sucked in when the Big F was buying up companies, they were given limited training and no career advancement prospects, just more or less told they were mindless drones meant to keep systems running and certainly not allowed to improve things.

  18. thegrouch

    I accept that most (if not all) of the big consultancies are unable to manage a Govt project properly. However I don't imagine that a public sector managed project would be any better. I think the suggestion earlier of smaller projects with SME's in charge is a far better solution.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Strange how the only constant in these apparent failed projects is the public sector..

      Are we seriously saying that all these big companies cant put a system together and the public sector are blameless, or for eg. that constant changes in requirements, empire building, lack of user buy in to using a new system etc etc are to blame?

      It seemed to me the NHS IT thing was brought down by health trusts and doctors, all looking after their own empires, strange how we always think they are right and can do no wrong (despite death and negligence claims), but substitute the word doctors for bankers we might not be so gracious.

      Strange world...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Nope

        I used to work for one of Fujitsu's rivals. It wasn't just government contracts that our company fucked up - we fucked up almost every large scale project.

        We'd roll out the big guns (plus vastly overpaid sales people) to win the work but the actual people doing the work were enthusiastic but green graduates and people in the third world. Every project was a disaster.

        I left after trying (and failing!) to convince my department that code reviews were a worthwhile idea.

        1. Triggerfish

          Re: Nope @AC 12:12

          You work for IBM don't cha.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      But who's going to manage the relationships between all the suppliers?

  19. Arachnoid

    As a UK resident I found it more interesting to see G4S on the list given they were behind the olympic security bungle which needed the good old army to resolve..

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Admiral John Byng

    The Fujitsu being punished, quite rightly, is the Fujitsu of a few years ago which did engage in considerable fuckwittery on several government contracts. Since then they have to a certain extent addressed these problems and the heads responsible for the ones cited, DWP and NHS, have rolled, there's been a clear-out of the rotten wood at the top and there is evidence of neural activity at board level for the first time in years, so it's a shame that the decent folk working effectively and delivering well on the remaining government contracts will be looking around themselves today wondering what the future holds. At least, I presume they will be, I've got the day off for an interview elsewhere.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This must be false....

    .....I can't believe there is any company in the world so imcompetent that the UK Gov wouldn't still through huge wads of cash at them.

    1. Sargs

      Re: This must be false....

      Corporate incompetence can be off-set by "Old-Boys-Network" credits if enough senior executives went to the same public school as the minister whose department is involved in the project.

  22. PassiveSmoking
    FAIL

    I guess Group 4... er, I mean G4S will have to change their name again.

    Maybe 4 group? 4 puorg?

    1. Ants V

      @PassiveSmoking

      Guildford Four?

  23. adam payne

    "there is no blacklist, we set out back in June that performance of suppliers would have to be taken into account when new contracts were awarded."

    Sort of like a blacklist then?

  24. WinHatter
    Pint

    10 years to notice. UK.gov should blacklist itself.

    I worked along with the awful lot : ICL-Fujitsu, EDS (now HP) and Cubic Transportation Systems for the OysterCard implementation back in 2002.

    I never had and never have seen such a gathering of incompetent money wasters.

  25. Midas
    IT Angle

    The real story

    I had to read the comments here to get it...

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