"They've outsourced too much..."

Listen here to Bernard Jenkin (Conservative) MP, chair of the Public Administration Select Committee, speaking on Radio 4's "Today Programme" this morning. The Committee has just produced a report damning the over-reliance of government on outsourcing for its big IT projects. The problems they expose could be extended to other major areas of outsourcing; the basic gist is that the government does not have the expertise to handle the big contracts it is putting out to the private sector, and is getting ripped off as a consequence.

The report is called "Government and IT - 'A Recipe For Rip-Offs': Time For A New Approach". You can read it here.

Here's one quote to give you a flavour. This is Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude speaking to the Committee:

the quality of our central data is very poor. When we were renegotiating contracts last summer with the biggest suppliers, the central data was woefully inadequate, and we only got the data in the first instance by asking the suppliers themselves.