The UK Paid $5.65 Million For a Bookmarks Site (mahadk.com)

(Friday January 30, 2026 @11:41AM (msmash) from the how-about-that dept.)

Reference: 0180698580
News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/30/1241207/the-uk-paid-565-million-for-a-bookmarks-site
Source link: https://mahadk.com/posts/ai-skills-hub

The UK government paid consulting firm PwC $5.65 million to build its [1]new AI Skills Hub , a site meant to help 10 million workers gain AI skills by 2030 that [2]functions largely as a bookmarking service , directing users to external training courses that already existed before the contract was awarded.

The hub links to platforms like Salesforce's free Trailhead learning system rather than offering original educational content. PwC has acknowledged the site does not fully meet accessibility standards. The platform also contains factual errors in its course on AI and intellectual property, which references "fair use" -- a legal doctrine specific to the U.S. -- rather than the UK's "fair dealing" framework.

[1] https://aiskillshub.org.uk/aiskillsboost/

[2] https://mahadk.com/posts/ai-skills-hub

Vibecoded with Invision? (Score:2)

by cristiroma ( 606375 )

Seem to be vibecoded with invision ...

When you register you manually enrol to the courses and they open in their own platforms (MS, Salesforce) etc. This is only a facade done in maybe a week.

That cookie banner...I don't think it does what it says it does. Regardless of what I choose it sends a beacon to [1]https://static.cloudflareinsig... [cloudflareinsights.com], I guess UK is out of EU right?

It's the gold rush of web development - get as much as you can, while you can.

[1] https://static.cloudflareinsights.com/

They got off cheap! (Score:2)

by serviscope_minor ( 664417 )

If it only cost 5 mil and actually works then they got off very cheap as these things go.

The trouble is that the government is obsessed with several things.

1. Fraud!

Can't have fraud so the procurement rules are deep and complex to the point where only the largest companies can hope to negotiate them. They'd rather pay 100x over the odds and a 50% failure rate due to incompetence than have a 1% chance of failure due to fraud. In fairness this is a problem with the elctorate rather than the government. But it

Re: They got off cheap! (Score:2)

by liqu1d ( 4349325 )

I fail to see how paying Â£5million for a site like that is anything but fraud. These websites are not complex.

The UK government paid consulting firm (Score:2)

by MpVpRb ( 1423381 )

This rarely results in excellence

News @ 11, Public servant wastes millions! (Score:2)

by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 )

Of other peoples money, Why? because they can. Over all, public servants are getting more incompetent and useless by the day.