A recipe for rip-off

But will David Cameron make good on his word of involving smaller suppliers with public sector contracts?

I couldn’t let such a momentous report as the Government and IT - A Recipe for Rip-Offs: Time for a New Approach pass without offering my two penn’orth.

As earlier articles mention, the report calls government IT procurement an “obscene” waste of money.

Has it really taken this report to make people realise that?

It also recommends that government looks to smaller IT providers to supply its IT - which we have been suggesting for years.

That way, they would avoid paying up to 10 times the going rate for a simple PC.

As one reseller suggested, the government should run its departments like a private business and think where the money is coming from.

If any of us ran our business that way, we would be out of a job quicker than we could say our own names.

However, it seems as if the gravy train has come to the end of the line for some of the large IT providers. And not before time.

David Cameron, with his “Big Society”, is keen to engage more with smaller IT providers. Let’s hope we see some examples of that soon.