UK.gov awards seats on £2bn 'digital outcomes' framework to suppliers – one of which doesn't even have a website

The UK government has made a £2bn contract award for "Digital Outcomes and Specialists" as part of a one-year framework agreement. The deals, agreed by the Cabinet Office's Crown Commercial Service, were developed to attract suppliers to "help research, test, design, build, release, iterate, support or retire a digital service …

[IGotOut]

So..

A bunch of marketing companies?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: So..

Makes the UK look like a Banana Republic.

[Dr Fidget]

Re: So..

The UK is a Banana Republic

[JohnMurray]

Re: So..

..................with no bananas..............

[find users who cut cat tail]

Re: So..

And yet absolutely bananas.

[Potemkine!]

Re: So..

And is not a Republic; at least not in a foreseeable future

[Eclectic Man]

Re: So..

But, according to QI, the UK is an essential part of the trade in live cocoa plants. If you want to grow chocolate plants and transport the living plants between countries, they spend two years in Reading. This is because (and here I paraphrase Sandi Toksvig) 'the climate in Reading is so crap that the pathogens all die' and it is safe to transfer the plants to another country.

So basically the UK is sort of a Chocolate fireguard. (But in a good way.)

As a resident of the aforementioned Reading Town, I can vouch for the crap climate.

[Paul 195]

Re: So..

Perhaps we are a tomato monarchy rather than a banana republic.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Digital Energy

Whatever that is.

Lot number two goes to Xonetic, a company which claims to "harness digital energy"

It will all end with a few digits (zeros) added to the end of the contract price

[Anonymous Coward]

Xara Clipart??

Yeh they throw a website together with a stock template, a bit of clip art and some generic vague business twaddle and get millions in cash.

e.g. That Xonetic clipart I've seen before

https://www.xonetic.com/

See the "Business Technology Operating Model" paragraph picture.

So for example, the man with the hands and the floating apps, the image on the right on the Xonetic website, I can also find here on this website:

https://triduo.tech/

and here

http://www.stemmonsservices.com/5064042-hd-business-wallpaper/

I'm sure I've seen this stock template stuff before I think it was a Xara stock template, but not quite sure:

https://www.xara.com/

In their heads, UK.gov think they're going to create jobs by throwing money at professional looking companies, but in reality these companies go to one of the generic stock website generators and churn out some fluff for twenty quid.

Edit:

Ahhh yes, Shutterstock, the balloons are the lead balloons from Shutterstock.

http://shutterstock.puzzlepix.hu/kereses?query=lead%20balloon

[Anonymous Coward]

Browser London / Wordpress

Browser London looks like a word press site, e.g. this is embedded in their sites html:

e.g. "<meta name="generator" content="WordPress 5.6.1" />"

Clipart a plenty:

https://www.browserlondon.com/case-study/portal/

https://unsplash.com/photos/npxXWgQ33ZQ

So, the obvious question. if they make their own websites from wordpress, do they also roll out wordpress for client sites?

So take "the London Mayor" example.

"As a world centre of entrepreneurialism, London is home to hundreds of thousands of small businesses. It’s the Mayor of London’s role to support,... blah blah blah....through the London Growth Hub; an online portal, message board and events directory managed jointly by the Mayor of London and the Greater London Authority. As part of a digital strategy review, the Mayor’s office invited Browser to help its internal team take the platform to the next level. "

OK, from the vagueness here, it looks like they made the website and they're talking it up.

This website here:

https://www.businesshub.london/

"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v15.8 - https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/seo/ -->"

So straight away a pointer to wordpress.

Uses:

#catapult-cookie-bar

Which is this wordpress cookie consent plug in, against suggesting wordpress.

https://wordpress.org/plugins/uk-cookie-consent/

OK, so likely yes, a wordpress site.

So, wild guess..... does your London Business message board looks like this, the most popular wordpress plugin for these forum message boards:

https://bbpress.org/

I do not have a login to your site, but if you login using Firefox, select tools developer page source and have a look.

Nothing wrong with the above, lots of companies slap together sites with Wordpress. I just don't view such companies as digital innovators or technology drivers.

There seems to be quite a few client document portal plugins for Wordpress out there too:

https://www.approveme.com/wordpress-document-portal/

https://wpbuffs.com/wordpress-client-portal-plugins/

https://wpdatatables.com/wordpress-client-portal-plugins/

So if you wanted a document portal you might go click click click and install the plugin for it.

I'm just saying here, on the one hand you have UK companies like Xara, and Serif making Adobe level products, and on the other hand you have a lot of little companies of no special value. You'd do better to identify those major tech you have and invest in those, rather than throwing money at companies with nice clipart and a marketing spiel.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Browser London / Wordpress

Well done.

You could have just gone here though: https://whatcms.org

[NeilPost]

Re: Xara Clipart??

“ At it’s heart, Digital Modernisation is about improving your customer experience. We define Digital Energy as the combination of highly digital and automated business applications and tools, combined with Industry leading ways of working, practices and techniques.”

... from their homepage. Whilst I agree improving the user experience is key, it’s not ‘at the heart’. Surely at the heart is modernising business processes, technology so it’s fit for purpose and does the Fucking job.... as well as being good to use, but as specified, fit for purpose, supportable, on-budget and performant/scalable too.

Lipstick on piggers it seems. Just reskin the UI. Job done.

[Carl W]

this isn't how Digital Outcomes and Specialists works

There are thousands of companies allocated to each lot. I assume the ones in the contract notice are just randoms from the list.

[don't you hate it when you lose your account]

I specialise in

Underwear realignment compatibility utilising an agile pocket shuffling interface development.

Where should I send my bank details and is it compulsory to live in a ditch?

[Scott Broukell]

Re: I specialise in

@ don't you hate it when you lose your account

P - Parliamentary

A - Agility

N - Nobheads

T - Technological

S - Shambles

You should fit in very well, thank you for your submission. Your focus on constant customer centered adjustment journeys and outcomes is right on message.

[Scott Broukell]

Re: I specialise in

@ don't you hate it when you lose your account

PANTS - Further:

For matters concerning liaison, coordination and communication, you will be contacted by the office of Rt. Hon. Lord Gusset of Chaiffemoore (Under secretary).

[RuffianXion]

Re: "neither side was short of a few shekels"

Shouldn't that be (Undies Secretary)?

[Kane]

Re: I specialise in

"Underwear realignment compatibility utilising an agile pocket shuffling interface development."

Bambleweeny 57 Submeson Brain?

[Fruit and Nutcase]

I have a Digital

Camera

Can I have a government contract to take pictures (of the government going about it's business/doing it's business)?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/feb/10/no-10-defends-taxpayer-funded-photos-pm-dog-playing-snow-dilyn

The going rate of pay is fine.

[Pete 2]

No website, no cry

> Users Needs Ltd has yet to build a website.

It's good to see that one of these outfits takes internet security seriously.

[Eclectic Man]

Re: No website, no cry

Indeed, it has been remarked on this very website several times that the best way to avoid Internet attacks is to not connect to the Internet.

[Anonymous Coward]

Goes to look at Browser London website:

"503 Service Temporarily Unavailable"

Yep, they'll fit in perfectly with this government.

[Al fazed]

seriously ?

WTF springs to mind.

Another total fucking disaster in the making, bagsomoney for the privifew. Only 1%, still not bad - wahey

Is anything new happening ?

Is this IT news or just it ..................

ALF

[Pascal Monett]

"director Shila Odedra, seemingly a former lead user researcher at tax collector HMRC"

I am confident that that persone knows exactly how to milk that particular cow.

[Anonymous Coward]

Users Needs Ltd has yet to build a website.

I'm sure, given the funds, they will be able to build the most expensive site available...

[Dr.Flay]

Place your bets now

I give it 2 years before they realise this 2 billion is not enough for all the overpriced buffets and drinks they will need for all their "meetings" in expensive hotels.

3 years before the Gov admit it looks like it needs fixing.

5 years before they admit they can't fix something they don't understand (no they won't admit that last little bit).

6 to 7 years before they scrap it and rebrand another of the same pointless excersise of throwing away money to revamp our failing Gov. IT infrastructure.

Rinse and repeat.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: Place your bets now

In order for this to fail in the proper World Beating British Way, we need Dido Harding to provide some expert oversight and steer the thing into the rocks

[Eclectic Man]

NUTS

Check out the link, (https://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:070717-2021:TEXT:EN:HTML ) and at the top we have the contracting authority:

"Name and addresses

Official name: The Minister for the Cabinet Office acting through Crown Commercial Service (CCS)

Postal address: 9th Floor, The Capital, Old Hall Street

Town: Liverpool

NUTS code: UK UNITED KINGDOM"

Yup, that's right, the procurement is officially NUTS.

Reading the notice I get an uneasy feeling at the mixture of IT speak and HMG Contract speak, I do hope they know what they are doing.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: NUTS

I do hope they know what they are doing.

Have you been smoking something? And I don't mean kippers!

[Eclectic Man]

Re: NUTS

Fruit and Nutcase: "Have you been smoking something?"

No, I take 'happy pills' instead* :o)

Why do you ask?

*Prescribed by my GP, so all perfectly legal, I just hope they start working soon.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: NUTS

I only ask because you seem to be giving them the benefit of the doubt - It's just that IT, HMG and Success is not something one hears of often (come to think of it, can't honestly remember when).

Keep taking the tablets. I do.

[HarryBl]

More of Boris's mates?

[Fruit and Nutcase]

there could be the odd IT advisor cum fitness instructor in the list - just idle speculation - I've not looked

[Anonymous Coward]

So explain to me again how many of these are Tory party donors....

[Anonymous Coward]

I was one of the companies that applied ...

... and the stuff that's coming through is thoroughly useless.

Young company, 2-3 of us part-time (depending on what else we've got going on) and we're just looking to get a foot in the fucking door.

DOS5 or whatever this was called was billed / hailed as this great new framework for bidding on work and guess what ... fucking waste of my time. It's all shit like "can we have 10x MS365 licenses" or "looking for pre-tender information on X".

Whole IT economy for Government is one of three things:

- big lots going to the big four, chums of Johnson

- shit lots going to marketing bods

- no lots going to SME and people who are **actually** talented and **need work**

[andypowe11]

Ermmm...

Really not sure you've done your homework here? DOS5 was open to 1000s of suppliers. Look at the Digital Marketplace - https://www.digitalmarketplace.service.gov.uk/buyers/frameworks/digital-outcomes-and-specialists-5/requirements/digital-specialists - and you'll see 2896 suppliers listed in the spreadsheet. Look at https://www.digitalmarketplace.service.gov.uk/digital-outcomes-and-specialists/opportunities for the current list of opportunities.

[Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse]

And what are the benefits?

With the end result of making absolutely no iota of difference to anything.

What an absolute fucking waste of public money.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm

There seems to be an awful lot of our ca$h going to 'companies' with one director.. AKA PSCs.

Meanwhile lots of companies operating similarly and legally are now prevented from doing so, as they're obviously all tax dodgers.

[kulath]

"Digital Outcomes"??

Seriously, what does "Digital Outcomes" actually mean?

As somebody says: "Whilst I agree improving the user experience is key, it’s not ‘at the heart’. Surely at the heart is modernising business processes, technology so it’s fit for purpose and does the Fucking job.... as well as being good to use, but as specified, fit for purpose, supportable, on-budget and performant/scalable too. Lipstick on piggers it seems. Just reskin the UI. Job done."

A good example of how the only thing they care about is the UI, and why (despite the triumph of getting people actually vaccinated), the vaccination call-up is a bit of a mess with people getting notified twice is the "requirements" for the COVID-19 Vaccination support: https://gpitbjss.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/CVPDR/overview?homepageId=2717090030 . Basically it says nothing more than (e.g.) when the health care professional wants to record an invite has been created, a record is created. Nothing about where the record is created, or whether it is coordinated with any other NHS systems, etc.