Simon Kirby – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Simon Kirby on 2014-04-07.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what his policy is on ensuring that Government IT initiatives represent best value for money; and if he will make a statement.

Mr Nick Hurd

After the 2010 General Election, this Government formed the Efficiency and Reform Group to help and support departments in maximising value for money. Although responsibility for projects remains the responsibility of individual departments, we introduced strict controls to provide further scrutiny of spend including on IT projects.

These controls can and have been used by the Cabinet Office to block inappropriate spending. In 2012-13 alone these controls helped us save taxpayers over £500 million from IT, contributing to overall efficiency savings of £10billion in 2012-13 (the last year for which we have audited figures).

We have clarified our ‘red lines’ for IT procurement – these are designed to encourage competition in the sector, free the government from longstanding inflexible contracts with IT providers and ensure maximum taxpayer value. These rules include:

· we will no longer let ICT contracts over £100 million in value – unless there is an exceptional reason to do so. Contracts should be smaller to ensure the widest possible range of suppliers can compete for them.

· we will not give a contract for service provision to a company providing the system integration function in the same part of government. It’s an important way of ensuring we are an intelligent customer.

· we won’t extend existing contracts unless there is a compelling case – it’s rare to find any good reason to extend the pricing and technology of the past.

· we do not expect to let hosting contracts for more than 2 years. The cost of hosting seems to halve every 18 months. Businesses wouldn’t sign up for years upon end – and neither should government.