Just 15 buyers are in charge of £14B in UK central government tech spending The UK government employs just 15 commercial staff with direct expertise in digital procurement dedicated to dealing with the largest technical suppliers, according to a Parliamentary spending watchdog. As it prepares to implement a set of ambitious plans to improve efficiency with digital technology, the central government …
Well given the level of consulting in places like the Cabinet Office, I find myself asking the question: and how many consults do they engage.
Would not be surprised if for each of the 15 decision making civil servants, they already have a rather large pool of consultants to advise them.
Now whether those consultants are truly independent and impartial is another matter. From my experience with respect to GCloud and Microsoft, I would say not.
It sounds a lot like the UK Go Vermins is attempting what Trump attempted recently over the pond.
My suggestion (cover smile) is why not get MuskRAT on board. He is available again right now and he is certainly committed to saving Go Vermins money spent on security and immigration for spending on other things, like er , Telecoms ?
Why is Brtain like a f00kin' shadow puppet of the USA ?
We are still trying to make IR35 work long after the US decided it was unworkable......
and so it goes on.......
Are you sure that Microsoft isn't part of a commy take over ?
Why not let Microshit decide what tech our Go Vermins use ? They seem to know "something" about IT !
snigger........
ALF
We are still trying to make IR35 work
IR35 is working exactly as intended - not to fix a broken system, but to break independent work and funnel contracts to large consultancies. It’s not a failed policy. It’s a successful protection racket run by subsequent corrupt governments.
"We are still trying to make IR35 work long after the US decided it was unworkable......"
That's because government departments refuse to acknowledge that "something idea" is such a good idea that throwing more money and/or technology at it will make it work eventually. Probably exacerbated by consultants, who depend on continuing income, refuse to say "Stop. This will never work." See Birmingham.
IR35 wasn’t a misstep - it was a calculated restructuring of the labour market to benefit big consultancies.
Civil servants play along because it’s pension-safe compliance, not because it works. Consultants trapped in the system know exactly how rigged it is - but with no leverage and no alternatives, they stay silent. Meanwhile, consultancies skim obscene margins off captive labour and laugh their way to offshore accounts.
There is a huge information and experience disparity between buyers and sellers.
I have worked on the supply side for public sector IT & Telecoms services for over 25 years and I have NEVER come across a buyer who fully understood:
- what the actual client need is (rather than a 'want' from whoever shouts loudest in the client organisation),
- what they were buying,
- what was technically possible,
- what was commercially feasible or competitive,
- what was realistic from a risk perspective,
- what the interdependencies are with internal or partner teams, processes & technologies.
Our team on the supplier side would be deeply involved in several procurements for one service type every year.
On the buyer side, you are often faced with one person who is (at the time a certain service is being procured - say once every 5 years) just at the right level in their career where they get to do this once. They were too junior the time before and may have moved on to another role the next procurement comes around.
That is not a fair 'fight' and actually not ideal for both the buyer and the seller.
Said it beore and will say it again, most management are simply parasites, they want big pay but they dont actually return any value of any kind.
The west is dying because too many people give themselves and others fake praise and titles. Everyone is an expert and every one has background because the other guy said so.
Trump is simply doing what ALL big businesses wishes to do. The problem is you cant accept that big business especially Billionaires are not your friend, they only got rich doing exactly what Donald is doing now, namely abusing their position because they can.
The only difference bewteen Donald and other bigbusiness leaders is how hard to they push and endeavour to control. Just look at Elon he treats people just like shit, just like Donald, the only difference is Donald is President. If the roles were reversed the news stories of today would be the same, maybe different places, and difference names, but the end picture would be the same.
My point about selection of Donalds team is how are people any of these the "best" at anyting except being idiots ? The republican party is massive, how exactly do people who can barely tie their shoe laces possibly be able to manuveur and get enough voice and control of such a large group ?
This ^^^^^ 100000000000000000000 times !!!
This is NOT some new piece of Knowledge BUT the utterly crap procurement continues year after year !!!
Govts in the UK waste HUGE amounts of money on so many projects, YET there are NEVER any lessons learned and the SAME mistakes are repeated over & over.
It would be cheaper to simply pile the money in 'new notes' into a large pyre and burn it once a year !!!
IF you miss this years 'Fire' you simply wait for the next year limiting the loss for this Month/Quarter/Year as appropriate. !!!
Once again, the civil service will NOT admit that they do not have the skills BECAUSE showing weakness is 'career limiting'.
Make it up as you go along and make sure that you are NOWHERE near it by time any sort of assessment of 'Value for Money' comes around!!!
P.S.
I wonder how HS2 is going !!!????
:)
I know, we could pull in talent by outsourcing commercial supplier relationship management to - yes, commercial suppliers! Obviously have to be from the same shortlist of trusted mega-corpses, but what could possibly go wrong?
You think I jest. Back in the day, I subcontracted in a Gov Dept to a mega-corp which both delivered the project and provided the majority of bums on the seats of its management/oversight board. Conflict of interest was raised, but dismissed by Those in Power because the arrangement was deemed essential to delivery. Today I am a Crown Servant (in a different part of the forest) and my immediate boss is a contractor. He wants to jump ship and join the Dept but, despite the chance of a severe drop in gross cost, he was refused because funding cuts.
This present initiative will last almost as long as it takes the ink to dry.
Quote: "We are doing something"
Quote: "We are keeping the country safe"
Quote: "We are keeping the children safe"
Quote: "Who is Michelle Mone?"
Mostly lies!
Mostly COMPLETE indifference to taxpayer revenues........
....oh! and COMPLETE lack of any action to do with ENFORCEMENT!!
Quote: "Can you explain enforcement to me?"
You got it, lots of words that either mean nothing or the exact opposite. Been going on for a long time, as George Orwell would tell you if he could. Unfortunately, it's going to end in our lifetime, quite abruptly and horribly. Critical debt & tax levels approach. As Gerald Celente but with many expletives would say; "when all else fails, they take us to war".
are at least two government agencies at work here, then the proposed solution is simple and straightforward.
We create another department to oversee those 2 agencies as well as any other IT procuments reporting directly to the cabinet, and reuiring cabinet level civil servants and a full staff to run it. If one member of staff could have some idea of IT, then so much the better.
Could call it the department of giving jobs to tossers from eton/oxford.
Watch out on this place, and in other switched on locations similarly publishing and advising on novel and inevitable situations, for continuing breaking news on surging rapid development of practical fundamentally different plans for virtual realisation and deployment to applications in emergent spaces***, for it not going away, you know. Of that, every Tom, Dick or Harry and Jack and Jill predetermined and destined to be starring in the Troubles v2.0 ahead in the deliverable deserved sufferings they've accrued as a result of their past serial wanton and wilful misdeeds, you and they can be assured, if they don't wholeheartedly reject and surprisingly quickly find at least one of the 50 Ways to Leave Your Abusive Lover
* ..... ICYMI ....... In Case You Missed It
** .... TPTU2B ...... The Powers That Used to Be
*** .... Tell me IT is not so whenever all evidence is proving it, makes Jack a very stupid boy
And as much as one may dislike such an inevitability please do try to avoid taking any action at all which will identify you as another hapless and hopelessly fooled enemy to also experience the sufferings resulting from diabolical misdeeds.
Did you manage that all by yourself or was a poisoned LLM involved? And in that last sentence are you actually recommending inaction as the best course of ... action? ...... Anonymous Coward
Yes, and most certainly not, AC. And what the last sentence says is that both inaction and any action in support of an inept and self-serving status quo is that which is gravely to be regarded and avoided and relentlessly to be stealthily battled against for the emergence and reinforcement of necessarily radical and fundamental change to have a welcome and successful effect pioneering a wholly different outcome taking the future on a whole host of different directions to new environments and places provided by AIgents delivering them from remote and secure alien spaces.
"The UK government employs just 15 commercial staff with direct expertise in digital procurement dedicated to dealing with the largest technical suppliers"
We don't need to ask if they are bribed, we need to ask how many millions they are making from bribes.
Single person managing 1B worth of purchases is always bribed to the hilt. And superiors too.
All these departments are for show.
They’re designed to spend as much of your tax money as possible, as quickly possible.
The employees don’t ask any questions because the deal is, they get an easy life and a nice pension.
All MP’s and their rich friends own huge amounts of shares in all the companies where the money is going.
They all know where the money is going in advance.
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