4 ms·
One of the responsibilities of the UK’s Government Digital Service is to review any IT spending by other departments, and are staffed so that in many cases they
by jon-wood 6y ago
One of the responsibilities of the UK’s Government Digital Service is to review any IT spending by other departments, and are staffed so that in many cases they can implement and support products themselves rather than outsourcing them. My understanding is that other departments are making headway in being allowed to bypass that process, but at their peak GDS were fantastic at shutting down bad projects before they’d sucked up millions of pounds.
- pbhjpbhj 6y agotl;dr it's not working Well how the hell do we have a £40M contract for supply of laptops to schoolkids filled by a noname laptop supplier using the jankiest (really low quality, really poor spec) laptops worth maybe £100 but being charged to the taxpayer at >£300 each. School IT people are getting them delivered, a lot are broken, and the cost of repair is given as more than the cost of buying _retail_ a better replacement. I don't know how these people live with themselves, ripping off the taxpayer and lumping in-need schoolkids with poor equipment. Anyone in that decision chain could spend an hour reading "budget laptop" articles on trusted websites, then look on the website of a high-street supplier for a top price. Boom, saved the taxpayer £20M. Mind you at least something was delivered, current UK government tenders appear to be typified by non-delivery by completely inexperienced companies for costs well above market.
- wp381640 6y agoThe equiv contract in Australia went to Lenovo. Microsoft and Adobe preloaded the laptops with Office and Adobe Suite and no cost. Worked out pretty well.
- jacquesm 6y agoThis is especially sad given that the BBC micro project in the 80's was a resounding success and showed exactly how these project should be run.