back to article UK government rolls out £3.6bn management consultancy framework amid scrutiny of rising external expertise spending

UK government has dished out spots on a £3.6bn framework to secure management consultancy services for IT strategy, software spending and hardware investments, among a flood of other advisory categories. Mammoth accounting and consultancy firm Accenture is one of the big winners in the tendering round, which dates back to 2019 …

  1. Chris G

    Grey box

    The grey box in the article tots up to over ten billion pounds worth of consultancy contracts.

    All I can say is the UK goverment ought to one of theost well advised on the planet, the future must be looking very rosy for the UK.

    On the other hand the record tends to indicate the UK gov' has little success in outsourcing because they either don't have anyone who can formulate a contract or in order to be seen to be doing something they scatter contracts like throwing bread to the ducks.

    1. Mike 137 Silver badge

      Re: Grey box

      "....they either don't have anyone who can formulate a contract or in order to be seen to be doing something they scatter contracts ...."

      On the other hand, we must consider the quality of the advice. Experience to date suggests that Govt. doesn't generally get what it thinks it's paying for. I've been subjected to some of these consultancies when they've been brought in on assignments I've headed, and I've often found they've sent in nattily suited jargon spouting young men who actually deliver like interns.

      The fundamental problem is that if you aren't an expert you can't really judge the expertise of those you hire, so promo takes precedence in the decision making. The folks actually doing the procurement are not sufficiently expert and haven't engaged with the necessary experts internally. It's a great pity that past performance doesn't get considered sufficiently though.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Grey box

        Don't forget the old trick of presenting actual experts in the tender process and then when it comes to delivering, just throwing fresh faced grads at the problem

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Grey box

          <Cough>Capgemini</Cough>

  2. Chris G

    Exactly that Mike, how can anyone foemulate a contract without the expert knowledeg of what is required.

    I was involved with tendering for local government contracts in the ninieties, neither my bosses who wre ex council EOs or the incumbent EOs inthe council fully understood what the tender required on the one hand or how to estimate and compile the tender on the other.

    It came down to me to advise both sides and do a lot of the donkey work, an absurd situation that was potentially a conflict of interests, aside from beingvwork above my pay grade.

  3. Carl W

    SMEs?

    This is confusing. Some of those companies are SMEs and have been awarded contracts of hundreds of millions of pounds?

    1. UCAP Silver badge

      Re: SMEs?

      Possibly a conflict of acronyms - SME can mean "Small to Medium Enterprise", but it can also mean "Subject Matter Expert". In this context I suspect the latter.

  4. Pen-y-gors

    Nice Picture

    Nice piccie on the home page about this article about more dodgy Govt 'consultancy' deals - wads of £50 notes.

    Well known fact - the only people who use £50 notes are drug dealers and forgers. That's why most shops won't accept them.

  5. Natalie Gritpants Jr

    When I can no longer do ASIC design, I know what I'm going to blag myself into.

  6. Howard Sway Silver badge

    Another day ..... another few billion announced

    Just waiting for the day when they announce that they are working on procurement for a new strategy to deal with all the procurement strategies they've bought.

    It appears that an infinite amount of advice is required in order for government to understand that you can automate administrative processes with IT systems.

    1. Chris G

      Re: Another day ..... another few billion announced

      It looks as though Boris has adopted the ecoonomic theory of his birth place.

      If you can't pay your debts just print more promisory notes.

      The US is just in the process of raising the debt ceiling for the 79th time since 1960.

      1. ICL1900-G3

        Re: Another day ..... another few billion announced

        Don't call him 'Boris', it makes him sound like a cuddly mate. He isn't. He's an arse.

    2. NeilPost Silver badge

      Re: Another day ..... another few billion announced

      Not really sure why they need more frameworks … they already have dozens of existing ones already setup.

      Hardware… Lenovo, Dell, HP, Apple, Brother, Samsung, IBM, Cisco, Fortinet, Meraki, F5. You don’t really need data centre HA as they default to Cloud First.

    3. A Nother Handle
      Pint

      Re: Another day ..... another few billion announced

      At first glance that is exactly what I thought the headline was saying.

  7. Peter D

    Accenture's IT Advice

    Would this, by any chance, mostly be to award more contracts to Accenture?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Were the people making these awards working through the supplier list alphabetically ?

    Hint to any company wanting to win government contracts - have a name starting with A or a number.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like