Just 15 buyers are in charge of £14B in UK central government tech spending
- Reference: 1749204006
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/06/06/ukgov_has_only_15_buyers/
- Source link:
As it prepares to implement a set of ambitious plans to improve efficiency with digital technology, the central government needs to overhaul the skills it relies on to manage commercial relationships with tech suppliers, against a backdrop of "poor outcomes in its attempts to modernize and make government more efficient," a report from the Public Accounts Committee said.
The government spends at least £14 billion ($19 billion) annually with technology suppliers. While there are 6,000 people with mixed commercial skills in Whitehall, "only 15 people [are] dedicated to the full–time management of technology suppliers…" the report revealed.
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The PAC added: "Given the pace of digital technological change needed to adopt AI and the significant shift from legacy systems to modern replacements, this number is simply not tenable."
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In January, the administration unveiled a [4]"blueprint for a modern digital government," outlining ambitious plans to improve government efficiency. It also created a Digital Commercial Centre of Excellence "to help public sector organizations negotiate costly contracts together to save money, and open opportunities for smaller UK startups and scale-ups to drive economic growth and create jobs."
However, the PAC report said the Government Commercial Function (GCF), which is accountable to the Cabinet Office, leads public procurement policy while the Government Digital Service (GDS), which is accountable to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), is responsible for government's digital and data function "but it does not have a formal role in respect of procurement."
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"The GCF and GDS have important roles to play in improving government's digital procurement, as will the new Digital Commercial Centre of Excellence that the government is setting up. GDS has not had formal responsibility for digital procurement in the past. This needs to change, but GCF and GDS have not yet set out how they will make this happen. With different parts of the Cabinet Office and DSIT responsible for different elements of digital procurement, and the new Centre of Excellence reporting to both Departments, it is also not yet clear who is ultimately responsible for delivering the improvements to digital commercial activity that government needs to make," the report said.
"We are concerned as to whether DSIT will have the authority to instill the change that is needed in most departments," it added.
The committee of MPs called on the government to "urgently clarify" the roles of different teams responsible for digital procurement.
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The Committee implied there was potential for confusion over the role of the new Digital Commercial Centre of Excellence. While its explicit objectives are to identify opportunities for reform and improvements and help start-ups and SMEs get a foothold on government contract, Cabinet Office and DSIT seem to think it would be "fully harnessing the capability of the digital and commercial functions; ensuring better data on technology spending; leveraging government's buying power with technology suppliers; helping departments to optimise their use of the cloud; and digitally upskilling commercial staff across government."
"The Centre of Excellence will have just 24 experts to undertake its roles, compared to 6,000 mainly general commercial people working across government," the PAC report said.
When buying from dominant "big tech" suppliers, the Cabinet Office told MPs it was a "complex and big–scale set of challenges" and that the picture was "mixed."
Although it has a team of 20 "incredibly senior, experienced people" specialized in making deals with the largest suppliers to help departments, their use was "clearly dependent and clearly inconsistent."
Training for civil servants in commercial roles lacks elements for managing technology and digital spending. "The GCF accepts that more could be done but has not yet set out what that would look like in practice," the report said.
In February, Andrew Forzani, chief commercial officer in the Cabinet Office, [7]told the PAC that if the government wanted to use its spending power to strike better deals with the top cloud providers, individual departments needed to align their requirements.
[8]Greater Manchester says its NHS analytics stack is years ahead of Palantir wares
[9]UK govt data people not 'technical,' says ex-Downing St data science head
[10]How the collapse of local cloud provider caused biz continuity issues in UK government
[11]UK.gov: NO MORE tech deals bigger than £100m. Unless we feel like it
In December 2023, the Home Office awarded market leader AWS a £450 million ($609 million) contract for cloud services over three years. The deal replaced an earlier £120 million ($162 million) deal awarded in December 2020.
Challenged about why the value of the deal had increased, Forzani said: "There is limited choice. If you want to leverage government purchasing power for hosting, you need to get a number of departments aligned around requirements. That is very challenging to do."
In April last year, [12]The Register revealed that the government had admitted its negotiating power over billions of pounds of cloud infrastructure spending had been inhibited by vendor lock-in.
A document from the Cabinet Office's Central Digital & Data Office – before it was rolled into the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology – said the "UK government's current approach to cloud adoption and management across its departments faces several challenges," which together "risk concentration and vendor lock-in that inhibit UK government's negotiating power over the cloud vendors." ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
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[4] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/21/ai_humphrey_uk_government/
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[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/28/uk_government_cloud_strategy/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/21/greater_manchester_nhs_palantir/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/28/uk_government_data_people/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/03/collapse_of_ukcloud_hurt_govt/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2014/01/24/cabinet_office_100m_tech_contracts/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/04/uk_cddo_admits_cloud_spending_lock_issues_exclusive/
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Perhaps we can discuss this over a series of lunch and dinner meetings next month. Maldives or Bahamas? Send me the flight tickets and hotel bookings and I'll be there.
Uhu....
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
Re: Uhu....
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.
As it prepares to implement a set of ambitious ambiguous plans to improve efficiency with digital technology
TFTFY
"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.
Re: “See Birmingham “
No thanks.
I would like a decent weekend.
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.
Information and experience asymmetry
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.
Plus ca change
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.
Quotes From SW1
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?"
Given that there
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.
I think those 15 need to be offered lucrative private sector roles in procurement consulting immediately.