Slashdot Mirror
UK Gov't To Review Hundreds of Websites, Axe Many of Them
krou writes "The UK government is to review all of its 820 websites after the Central Office of Information revealed that for 2009-2010, the government spent '£94m on website development and running costs and £32m on web staff,' which each site visitor representing a cost of £11.78 to the government. 'The UK Trade and Investment website averaged 28,000 users per month but cost over £4m ... 16% of government departments did not know how their own websites were being used by tax payers, and almost a quarter were not aware of the running costs.' There was also anecdotal evidence of departments bidding against each other for search terms on Google. The review is to be carried out by Cabinet Minister Francis Maude, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander, and Digital Champion Martha Lane Fox."
It's a two way street. Governments are slow to adopt streamlined purchasing systems because they're spending tax dollars and so everything has to be accounted for and purchases authorized in various different and often complex ways. Many vendors are more then happy to put up with all the inane purchasing requirements BS the government will throw at them in exchange for a high-volume and usually exclusive contract with higher prices then retail consumers would pay.