Infosys enjoyed a boom in UK government invoices in 2023 Tech services biz Infosys enjoyed a 49 percent increase in its invoices from the UK government for 2023, according to research figures. The Indian company, founded by the father-in-law of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, has come under scrutiny as research from Tussell showed it billed £7 million ($8.87 million) in 2023, up …
The curious thing here is that Infosys billed only £7m. That's chicken feed in a commercial context, in the con text of the UK government's circa £5bn annual splurge on IT it's not even a rounding error. And if the spend includes outsourced tech-delivered services, you can probably triple that £5bn.
At that scale there's no excuse for the government relying on crappy outsource and offshore models from the private sector, they need to do far more themselves.
The fact they take on "chicken feed" contracts, shows you the devastating impact of Sunak's reforms. Basically British small business is being pushed out.
Bear in mind that £7m here, £7m there and suddenly you have some serious cash.
If you include exemption from IR35, very cheap workforce and ability to shift profits offshore, it's a great money maker.
I'm hearing that sung by Rachel Unthank accompanied by a concertina and washboard.
As my Dad used to tell the trawler skipper once he had sorted their Decca, radar and VHF (and after I had cleaned the seagull crap off the 500kHz long wire insulators) 'It'll be alright when you get to sea Captain'.
Look, I'm sure those involved have all participated in the mandatory training. So there is no chance of any wrong-doing or perception of wrong-doing. Right?
There is a very, very, very slim chance it could actually be beneficial in a "Do not embarass the family business" kind of way. But then again, just look at C*apita. I was once told that a huge problem with government contracting is each contract bid has to stand or fall on it's own merits. Apparently past performance can't be taken into consideration because that would be 'unfair'.
Correct - and a source of huge frustration to those working in the public sector
Also on the supply side. I've had many conversations with public sector customers who've wanted fairly simple and sensible things that we could have supplied. But then the procurement process kicks in, the bid costs (on both sides) ramp up and it becomes a very slow and frustrating process. The best/worst example was a simple, but relatively large order for generic PCs. That took 4yrs to get approved, by which point the PCs that had been approved were obsolete and end of sale.
So you have my sympathies if you're trying to work in the public sector.
I can't argue against a big company being one of many on a framework for competitive tendering - if it wasn't there you could ask why.
The question, which hasn't been answered, is whether any contracts awarded have *not* be awarded in the economic and professional interest of the taxpayer. If that was to be shown there would be a massive issue to answer for (which they wouldn't do but that's another issue). Otherwise, every politician seemingly has a snout in a trough somewhere ... It's only when the pigman gives them extra feed or obstructs access to the trough that it becomes a problem ...
You cannot look at this without the lens of Sunak's IR35 (albeit he has not introduced it in public sector, but he has not scrapped it either). Infosys also competes for contracts open to SMEs for bidding, which IR35 has greatly decreased competitiveness of.
Bear in mind that companies like Infosys are exempt from IR35.
Basically Sunak's government virtually denies a subset of companies ability to actually run business, and also bid for those contracts.
Company that falls in scope of these rules becomes taxed on revenue and automatically becomes less competitive and cannot deduct any business costs from the tax.
It is interesting that even CMA has slept on it. Not to mention other public bodies that are supposed to look into conflicts of interests and potential corruption.
How would define what is in the interest of the tax payer? Is it longer term gains and benefits or short term costs & savings ?
The classic example being our aircraft carriers, a 2bn cost change was nixed by MoD civil servants because the short term cost made it seem they'd lost control on budgets, yet the long term benefit, none of which the decision makers would be around to get reward from, would have costed in and been much better for the taxpayer.
Fwiw my impression is Infosys have cornered the market in terms of offering the right balance between skills & costs, so you actually get value out of engaging with them as subcontractors, rather than their rivals like Accenture, expensive, or TCS, constant churn of staff.
So they win contracts because they seem to know what they're doing and the offer is decent, not because of who they know.
Fwiw my impression is Infosys have cornered the market in terms of offering the right balance between skills & costs, so you actually get value out of engaging with them as subcontractors, rather than their rivals like Accenture, expensive, or TCS, constant churn of staff.
Presumably not without the help of Home Office that gives out skilled worker and intra company visas - at below market rates.
I wouldn't say that Infosys are any better or worse than any other provider utilising offshore personnel. In fact I've seen both excellent quality resources, along with graduates with absolutely no skills whatsoever being put into roles of responsibility
The normal practice is for the good resources to be brought in during bid stage, and then the quality and experience of the staff goes down over time, reaching all time lows at the end of the contract.
In my current gig, Infosys bucked the trend bringing in the worst resources possible from the get go - quite how many steak dinners were involved in the bidding stage is anyone's guess
"The question, which hasn't been answered, is whether any contracts awarded have *not* be awarded in the economic and professional interest of the taxpayer."
Almost all big IT and infrastructure projects should not have been awarded in the interests of the tax payer.
Often there's a genuine underlying need, the common problem is inadequate scoping, definition and contract specification, and as a result the private sector grow fat on projects that are years late and don't meet either the stated or the real requirements, consider:
ESN
Ajax
Astute
RN Type 31
Nimrod AEW4
MoD DII
Burghfield warhead manufacturing
HS1
HS2
Crossrail
Libra courts system
NHS NPfIT
DfE PFI
NHS PFI
Fire Control centres
MoJ tagging
Defra SPS
DfT Shared Services (twice!)
Courts reform programme
Making Tax Digital
Lower Thames Crossing
...and many others
None of that includes the billions people have to spend directly where government control what we have to pay for, such as energy bills, water, telecoms, Hinkley point C, EVs, low carbon heating etc.
And a footnote for those interested in such things, Concorde was probably the single most overspent project ever involving a British government, with an out-turn cost around £15bn in today's prices, and being about 11x the original estimates.
“the Cabinet Office has said all contracts are awarded following an open and fair process, and decisions are "rigorously scrutinized." “
They’re definitely rigorously scrutinised, so that all of the elites know who’s going to win so that their broker can purchase shares in the winning company a few weeks before the announcement.
""Ministers do not take part in the evaluation or selection of winning bidders,"
Of course they don't, that would be *work*. They just "advice" on evaluation criteria. Which is just an extra step and has the same end result as selecting the winner directly.
Normal procedure when an bureacracy has to announce a position open, but they already have person for it: Copy the person's CV to requirements and grant points by requirements filled. If your person isn't at the top of the list as "most qualified candidate" , you've done something wrong.
From that point you can have evaluation and selection of winner as totally honest processess. Simple, eh?
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