UK government tech procurement lacks understanding, says watchdog
- Reference: 1737016213
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/01/16/nao_uk_government_tech/
- Source link:
Among findings in the latest National Audit Office (NAO) report
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, which evaluates the government's approach to technology suppliers, are details of how Whitehall departments create business cases for new IT projects and procurement without technical input – leading to problems later that can be difficult to resolve.UK govt office admits ability to negotiate billions in cloud spending curbed by vendor lock-in [2]READ MORE
"Current government processes from business case development to contract award do not work well for digital programs. Departments can present investment cases without a detailed assessment of technical feasibility, for which there is no detailed central government guidance. Without such assessments, funding allocation at the center can be based on departments' conceptual or simplistic high-level assumptions," the report says.
"This results in limited technical evaluation of contracts with technical risks downplayed. Complexities which emerge after contracts are signed can be too fundamental to be dealt with through a change control process. A poorly defined requirement and an overemphasis on acquiring the minimum requirement or cheapest resource."
Responding to the report, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, MP and chair of Parliament's spending watchdog, the Public Accounts Committee, said the government's woeful handling of major digital programs had led to delays and costs to the taxpayer.
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"Digital commercial skills are in short supply and government is not making the most of the limited expertise it has. Government has managed digital suppliers poorly, and the center of government has not provided direction to help departments become intelligent clients," he said.
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"The Public Accounts Committee has long maintained that technology can transform the way government delivers public services. Without a more strategic approach from the center, and a sourcing strategy that is fit for purpose for the digital age, the government risks wasting more money and squandering the opportunity to modernize the public sector."
The NAO has tracked several large digital change programs, including the [6]Emergency Services Network (the troubled blue-light replacement communication system), [7]Universal Credit , the National Law Enforcement Data Service, and [8]Digital Services at the Border , among other projects.
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In these projects, the public sector spending watchdog found that government's commercial approach to selecting and working with suppliers contributed to difficulties in their programs, causing significant delays to modernization (totaling at least 29 years), and with more than £3 billion in cost increases (at least 26 percent of the original forecast), requiring a reset of the programs concerned and continuing to operate legacy systems for longer than planned.
The NAOs' report says that the government had yet to create a unified strategy to approach a "few very large suppliers who now dominate technology markets."
[10]£3.8B later, old tech supplier flames still burning for HMRC
[11]UK energy watchdog slaps down Capita's £130M smart meter splurge
[12]UK immigration seeks tech support, development partner for border crossing systems
[13]UK farm ministry offers £27M to support legacy systems for another three years
The NAO called for improvements to the current collaborative central approach established by the Central Digital & Data Office (CDDO), the Crown Commercial Service, and the Government Commercial Function (GCF).
"The GCF has to cover a large spectrum of commercial activity and does not have the extent of digital skills needed to reflect the distinct procurement challenges of digital programs and operations," the report states.
"CDDO leads on digital and data policy but, while it has relevant digital expertise, it does not have responsibility for digital procurement in government, is much smaller than GCF, and is not resourced for more extensive engagement on digital procurement. Non-technical leaders are not given enough digital procurement support to manage digital change programs effectively. This lack of specialist digital commercial focus creates major challenges to the efficient and effective organization, delivery, and ongoing maintenance of government services and their related digital infrastructure."
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The NAO also found that central government departments often enter into digital and technology contracts without "sufficiently understanding the complexities posed by the existing environment."
"Setting requirements for digital programs can be particularly difficult, but pressure to deliver quickly can result in contracts being awarded before the true requirement is fully understood," it said. ®
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[1] https://dmscdn.vuelio.co.uk/publicitem/1acf41c7-1e6b-462e-86e9-67a9ea42abc7
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/04/uk_cddo_admits_cloud_spending_lock_issues_exclusive/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Z4jm2Ux1tDYrMVKhYc6ouAAAAQ8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[6] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/14/pac_emergency_services_network/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2018/03/09/dwp_forced_to_published_universal_credit_reports/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/29/home_office_seeks_border_crossing_tech_help/
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z4jm2Ux1tDYrMVKhYc6ouAAAAQ8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/09/hmrc_aspire_supplier_deals/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/15/ofgem_smart_meter_capita/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/29/home_office_seeks_border_crossing_tech_help/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/16/uk_farm_ministry_offers_27m/
[14] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z4jm2Ux1tDYrMVKhYc6ouAAAAQ8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Technology is bought on a whim or a promise.
We work in the 'is this technology worth it' space and determine cost / benefits, impacts and issues - in great human fashion, no 'leader' wants to hear that their idea or concept has downsides or won't deliver all that was promised. Progress is measured in how much physical stuff has been visibly bought, delivered / installed, not in whether there's been upfront work to understand and de-risk the project. By the time it starts going wrong, the original 'leader' has moved on, usually promoted.
Yet another no doubt costly report from the Department for the Bleedin' Obvious.
Any chance of them coming up with a workable solution? Or will that have to wait until they've hired a few dozen more management consultants?
The conclusion is obvious, but...
To be fair, the NAO arent chuffed with the situation and having had interactions with them do have suggested pragmatic governance in publically available documents, I thought good observations on the problems and how to address them. But no-one wants to listen to 'can we just have a think about this first'. See NHS IT scandal and the yet to occur AI everywhere nonsense announced recently.
This requires a significant
change in culture and approach.
Having worked in this space in the past, there are too many people making decisions on tech that they aren't vaguely qualified to even think about, never mind make a decision.
I could wax lyrical about a few of the programmes I was involved in, but I suspect they will be so far removed from reality that none of the learned El Reg readers would believe a government entity could be so inefficient!
"an overemphasis on acquiring the minimum requirement or cheapest resource"
Wasn't it Niel Armstrong who commented on how he was going to space on something built with the lowest bidder ?
It worked out for him, thank goodness, but sometimes the government would do well to remember that cheapest isn't always best.
Something that costs more often has a reason for it (not always though, it's tricky).
Re: "an overemphasis on acquiring the minimum requirement or cheapest resource"
I remember this quote from Armageddon movie:
"You know we're sitting on four million pounds of fuel, one nuclear weapon and a thing that has 270,000 moving parts built by the lowest bidder. Makes you feel good, doesn't it?"
Not sure if that was paraphrased from the Apollo missions, be great it it was.
*Decades* of resellers, consultants and consultants have...
persuaded Ministers that competent internal procurement and project management skills are unnecessary
And 46 years on from Margaret Thatcher this is what you get.
The question is given that the current Administration has a huge majority (and therefore can do pretty much what they want, although it is usually a good idea to try for consensus if you want things to stay in place ) what will they do about it?
IDK. Hopefully something that will produce some enduring benefits.
Re: *Decades* of resellers, consultants and consultants have...
>>And 46 years on from Margaret Thatcher this is what you get.
In another context, didn't Mr Gove mutter something about "....had enough of experts...."?
Transpires that if you don't have in-house experts you don't know what you are asking, so make mistakes when asking the questions and, susequently get shafted for the inevitable goal post moves.
Yeh it costs money to employ experts, who might be less than fully employed on projects, but it is an insurance against budget overruns due to incorrectly specified systems which probably works out cheaper than said overruns.
Icon cos not even Mr Holmes could have predicted the outcome /s
Surprise.....Agile Is Not The Answer!!
Quote: "....Setting requirements for digital programs can be particularly difficult...."
Quote: "...contracts being awarded before the true requirement is fully understood..."
Ha....Twentieth Century Thinking hard at work!!
Wake Up...."requirements" are a thing of the past....what we need is "user stories" and a pretty wall covered in yellow sticky "Post-It" notes!!
Oh....and the idea that you might need some project managers, or a time line.......what you need is a "Product Owner" or two....
By now you've got the picture.....in 2025, IT development teams:
- don't have requirements
- don't use concepts like "architecture"
- really hate the idea of "management" (which is believed to be "interference")
- ...and because there are no "requirements", IT Teams have very limited ideas about testing
.........so is anyone surprised when estimates are poor and cost and time over-runs are frequent? Surely not!!!!!
"Current government processes from business case development to contract award do not work well for digital programs. Departments can present investment cases without a detailed assessment of technical feasibility"
That doesn't just apply to digital programmes. It's been a characteristic of UK and doubtless many other governments for years.
I am shocked. Not.