back to article Public sector IT buyers 'hogtied by mess of red tape'

Blighty's public sector IT bean counters face a bewildering mess of overlapping tech purchasing bureaucracy, channel sources have warned. Three wide-reaching frameworks that direct government tech spending will end up running in parallel into next spring, potentially confusing purse holders. Of the three schemes, one is the £ …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Silverburn
    Mushroom

    Why do I have a sudden compulsion to source all my formally-public services privately?

    1. Armando 123

      Common sense?

      Seriously, when I worked at the phone company, with the largest private computer network in the world, things weren't this complex. In fact, that "20 systems working to get a dial tone" diagram starts to look sleek and elegant and Ive-designed ...

    2. Ru
      Headmaster

      Formally public?

      But informally, just a gentlemanly agreement and a promise of cash in hand, I presume?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Does the Pope crap in the woods?

  3. Colin Millar
    Big Brother

    Govt purchasing power

    What a larf - someone owes the country a fuck of a lot of money for mentioning the phrase "economies of scale" to some dickwad pol who interpreted it as "big = good".

    Anyone who knows anything about selling into the public sector would tell you that big just means an even faster extraction of taxpayers moolah to the middlemen.

    Until real cost reduction is incentivised procurement bureaucracies in the public sector will continue to swill cash down the drain lining up their pencils and making their spreadsheets neat.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Here's how government procurement works in practice

    1. Trawl though the frameworks to confirm that they have nothing of relevance to your requirements

    2. Issue tender based on your requirements

    3. Contact SMEs who may not have seen the tender but who you know have something good to offer

    4. Get told by SMEs that they can't afford to take part in the render process

    5. End up with something not so good from one of the usual suspects

  5. steeplejack

    Here's another example of how it works in practice:

    1. Being forced to by EVERYTHING from computers to t.paper from 1 supplier.

    2. Nothing to trawl, because you are denied any choice. Place order.

    3. Be sent the wrong product. Spend a fortnight answering stupid questions to explain why its not what you clearly ordered.

    4. Eventually get the expected product.

    5. Note that you could have got it 15% cheaper down the road.

    Yes folks, GCAT is burning your hard-earned taxes, every day.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like