There are plenty of reasons why government tech is stuck in the Stone Age

It's Government Tech Week on The Register and to get a handle on the challenges facing the public sector we sat down with Massimiliano "Max" Claps, research director of the European IDC Government Insights team. In this interview, we start with the high-level question of how can governments actually "think big" in the face …

[A Yank for YES]

There basically only one reason government It is in such a mess, Margret Thatcher.

[Ashto5]

Really?

Wow what have all those politicians in the intervening 40 years been doing?

From your post it sounds like Maggie nailed it and made all the MP’s superfluous.

[Severus]

There basically only one reason government It is in such a mess, Margret Thatcher.

What an original opinion. Care to give us one scintilla of evidence (fact not opinion) to justify it?

[Version 1.0]

Government tech is stuck in the Stone Age?

And in the Stone Age everyone was a hunter-gatherer.

[Anonymous Coward]

The government is not in a mess.

It outsources giant contracts to management consultants and accountants who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

This is the root cause of all problems: the greed and hubris of the private sector.

[Version 1.0]

Boris, you are commenting in El Reg as an Anonymous poster?

[Ashto5]

Not the private sectors faults

If you are going to order something from the “private sector” it is usually a good thing to know what you are asking for.

Changing your mind half way through costs a lot, not doing your due diligence costs a lot, reusing the same useless bunch of wankers who charged you 3 times the original estimate

Well that falls squarely on the shoulders of the civil service.

You wanna save money then have a single version of local government systems you can then deploy a version for each council because they all do the same bloody thing.

[ColinPa]

How many people are needed on a contract?

I had to visit a customer in India. They had over 10 people working on small bit of the project I was working on. One guy doing the work (long hours), and 9 others "learning". They were not allowed to do anything. I suggested 2 of the people who seemed competent should do some of the work, and avoid a critical resource.

All 10 were billed to the customer