back to article UK.gov to chuck up to £5B to gang of back office software vendors

The UK government has gone to market shopping for back office software in a tender which could be worth up to £5 billion ($6.4 billion). The Crown Commercial Service (CCS) — an executive agency and trading fund that also sits within the Cabinet Office — has fired the starting pistol in the formal competition allowing software …

  1. elsergiovolador Silver badge

    Spoilage

    One could wonder why government is spoiling these big corporations.

    If it's not in the requirement, they should at very least demand that all delivered software should be open source and publicly available, so that the public could assess the quality of the work delivered by these grifters.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Spoilage

      Software as a Service or Platform as a Service don't work like that because while the stack may be open these services are the intellectual property of their developers.

      Of course that doesn't mean that the services can't be assessed both functionally, technically and commercially, which still needs to be done within the Projects that will use this Procurement Framework.

      Presumably the commercial part will be easier and fit for purpose...

    2. UnknownUnknown

      Re: Spoilage

      They don’t need a procurement framework for ERP, they need a standard solution that just fucking works.

    3. ergethrtj6

      Re: Spoilage

      no big companies feel spoiled.

      Responding to any request from CCS is an exercise in repeating yourself answering unending irrelevant questions

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Citizens Are Wondering About Their Money...........

    Yup........A billion to ORACLE here...............

    .....A billion to Accenture there......................

    .....A billion to Deloitte later...........................

    .....and then, way down the road, a project or three cancelled................................

    Cui bono?

    Guess!!!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Citizens Are Wondering About Their Money...........

      I'm wondering about the money, specifically why the Cabinet Office are letting five completely different lots that will then be won by different suppliers and implemented completely differently five times for essentially the same back office services?

      One of the things that bedevils the civil service is pointless and unnecessary difference and duplication between departmental processes and systems. They should have one shared services owner, one set of HR, IT, Procurement, Finance processes, and one ERP instance for each silo.

      1. Vince

        Re: Citizens Are Wondering About Their Money...........

        Derisking for a start. It's not like we've learned what happens if a single vendor screws up recently and how widespread a problem is...

      2. ergethrtj6

        Re: Citizens Are Wondering About Their Money...........

        because CCS gotta CCS

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Five Billion.......And The Propeller Falls Off....................

    So......How much money do you have to spend with BA Systems to get an aircraft carrier with a reliable propeller?

    Clearly five billion is not enough!!

    You know.......Fortnum & Mason bags full of folding.....and five billion of citizen money......clearly not enough for good propeller technology............

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Fujitsu

    How on earth are these people even permitted to exist as a company in the UK?

  5. ecofeco Silver badge
    Headmaster

    Shopping?

    Well I guess that is an easier way to say "brown envelopes, back handers and failed project and cost overruns."

    Yeah, that really is mouthful, innit?

    So shopping it is!

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    oh look, CCS post yet another version of yet another framework

    Its almost like they have 20 different teams, each managing a pool of competing frameworks

    I suppose it keeps them off the street

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    oh look another framework from CCS

    Seriously why do CCS need so many different procurement frameworks?

    Do they get paid per framework?

    oh. sorry, NM

  8. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    Territory must be defended at *all* costs

    And by territory I do mean bureaucratic territory.

    Heaven forbid the 100+ data centres HMG considers necessary to run this, frankly rather small island, could be merged.

    Bearing in mind that Lands End to John O'Groats is 3.23mSec straight line distance at the speed of light.

    How much actual hands-on work do those servers need? Wouldn't it be best to put them in some cold part of the country next to a big body of water (Ulverston? Windermere?)

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