UK government tech procurement lacks understanding, says watchdog

UK government plans its technology purchases with limited assessment of technical feasibility, according to a spending watchdog's analysis of the £14-billion-a-year procurement of digital services.

Among findings in the latest National Audit Office (NAO) report [PDF], 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.

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"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.

"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.

"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 Emergency Services Network (the troubled blue-light replacement communication system), Universal Credit, the National Law Enforcement Data Service, and Digital Services at the Border, among other projects.

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."

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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.

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"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."

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. ®