Government shells out over £3,500 per computer in Cabinet Office expenditure
In a recent analysis of government ICT investments, some projects have shown promising returns, while others have fallen short of expectations.
According to a dataset available on data.gov.uk, more than 40 of the government's 248 £1 million ICT schemes demonstrated a negative return on investment. This is a concern for the taxpayers, as these projects collectively cost a significant amount of public funds.
One such project is the Cabinet Office's active operations management initiative, which cost a total of £1.3 billion up until July last year. Unfortunately, this initiative did not provide any cashable cost savings in 2010/11, and it is not listed as a coalition deficit reduction programme.
Interestingly, the department that invested over £1.3 billion in an ICT project during 09/10, which did not bring payable savings in 2010/11, is not specified in the provided search results.
On a positive note, the Department for Transport's data center consolidation project, known as G-Cloud, has returned 109% on the government's investment. Moreover, none of the Department for Transport's 32 ICT projects yielded a negative return on investment.
It's worth noting that the Cabinet Office's updated business plan labels the regular publication of performance details of all ICT projects above £1m as completed. This transparency is a step in the right direction, as it allows for a more informed public and potentially for the identification of best practices that can be replicated across other projects.
However, it's important to mention that the costs of maintaining "legacy infrastructure" and those of "specific secure systems" were not included in the spending figure. This means that the actual cost of some of these projects may be higher than initially reported.
In conclusion, while some government ICT projects have shown impressive returns on investment, there are still areas for improvement. By learning from both successful and unsuccessful projects, the government can strive to make more efficient use of public funds in the future.
