back to article Change to sustain public sector ICT spend

Public sector investment on ICT is set to remain steady over the next five years in the face of the government's spending cuts. New research by Kable shows that efforts to save costs in other areas and a redesign of many services will ensure that spending to support these will offset cuts in other areas. UK public sector ICT …

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  1. Fluffykins Silver badge

    ICT?

    I thought we'd decided that IT was called ICT only by people outside the industry.

  2. Eddie 4
    FAIL

    Trebles all round for the big consultancy firms

    These "reforms" are another example of the privatisation of public services - jobs in the public sector are sacrificed in return for more profit in the consultancy sector. All this talk of encouraging SME involvement in the public sector is just talk - its the DoLittle & TouchUp consultancy firms who will clean up & we (the taxpayer) will end up paying more for less.

  3. despairing citizen
    Thumb Down

    Have these analysts actually seen how funding works in a council?

    Facts of life of council IT spend, as seen from the front lines.

    Conversation goes like this.

    Minister ... "you have to cut 20% from your budget"

    Social Services... "but people will die and children abused.. can't cut already over worked"

    Highways.... "but we've had a bad winter, we'll get sued if we don't repair, and the councilor wants to be relected by the people who drive on our roads"

    Libraries.... "we dont have any left"

    IT... "give us money, and we can save you money"

    IT gets cut first.

    Even if a one off £250k 12 month project would save £500k in cashable property costs per year, and improve BC/DR and service delivery at the same time.

    Personally I see a future of slash and burn budget cuts in IT, no it doesn't make sense, but thats life with councilors controling the budgets, and the only benefits they consider is measured in votes not pounds.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Unhappy

      Mister.

      The brutal truth is the conversation, which I see everyday, goes like this:

      Minister ... "you have to cut 20% from your budget"

      Public sector IT staff... we can easily do that - cut out the middleman, go direct to source and update our archaic service provision

      Procurement... get some quotes then!

      Public sector IT staff... here are 5 quotes from the top industry providers

      Consultancy IT staff... aren't you meant to ask us?!

      Procurement... you can't use them, you have to use preferred suppliers with whom we have a commercial relationship and prove value for money. Here's a list.

      Public sector IT staff... here are 3 quotes from our approved suppliers.

      Procurement... hmmm expensive aren't they? OK we'll chose this one. (100x the cost of the most expensive quote from the previous submission).

      Despondent Public sector IT staff... Fine. Let's submit an RFC for £2k

      Consultancy IT staff... Whooohoo we're in money! Let's do a shoddy job.

      Information Assurance / Security... you can't do that! China might break the Googleplex code and own all our content!

      Public sector IT staff... go down the pub.

      Anon anon anon anon...

  4. Anonymous Coward
    IT Angle

    Such sweet memories

    Local government (and central government for that matter) IT Mangers really are mostly clueless.

    I once changed 2 lines of code i originally wrote and charged out for the week while I spent the rest of the time working on my own project and looking for the next job, all at a hundred quid an hour. The IT Manager looked over my shoulder about a dozen times as day and nodded as if to say good job!

    I have since mended my evil ways, but imagine a building site foreman doing the same for knocking two nails in !! (oh sorry that's the council works department!)

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