UK Taxpayers' Money Getting Wasted On IT Spending

hypnosec writes "A report combined by MPs has claimed the UK government is spending 'obscene' amounts of taxpayers' money on IT. The Public Administration Select Committee revealed in its report that some government departments have spent £3,500 on a single desktop PC, which can be purchased for as little as £200. Some other examples of the government pouring public money down the drain include buying copier paper for £73 when it can be purchased for £8."

Comments

That £3500 PC

[LilBlackKittie]

About that £3500 PC...

The media reporting this story appear to be doing a good job of ignoring what that £3500 PC actually is: three years of PC, with software licensing, hardware replacement, upgrades, maintenance and support. It's not just the bare metal put on someone's desk but the full service behind it.

If you take the IT budget for a large healthcare public sector organisation and divide it by the number of desktop PCs they support, it'll probably come out at around £1000/year.

What's been missed is ...

[amw]

... that this £3,500 doesn't just cover "hardware sitting on a person's desk"; it also includes the software, support, long-term upgrade contracts, etc. This "journalism" sells newspapers (unsurprisingly, the Daily Mail featured it quite prominently) but ignores most of the facts.

I'm not denying that some money is being wasted, but nowhere near as much as this report implies. See this article for more detail.

Re:Ohh, shiny!

[TheRaven64]

I doubt it. Apple is not on the list of approved suppliers for most UK government departments. In a lot Dell is the only option, and their government price list is insane: at least double their web price for exactly the same equipment. Even if this includes a support contract, it would still be cheaper to buy the cheap version and just throw it in the bin and buy a new one if there's a problem. Spending £3500 on an Apple desktop would mean a 12-core 2.66GHz Xeon - I'm pretty sure you can't get that for £200 elsewhere, since it has two CPUs that retail for over £500 each (although the rest of the specs on that machine are pretty anaemic for the price: only 6GB of RAM and a single 1TB disk? WTF Apple?)

The real story

[igorthefiend]

Is http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2011/07/28/obscene-whitehall-it-spending-or-sloppy-journalism/

Basically, they took something out of context and sensationalised it.

Re:Ohh, shiny!

[gilleain]

Ah. As others have pointed out, the PC Pro article says :

However, as our report from the 13 May states: “The bottom line might make it look like Cabinet Office workers are all sitting in front of the most ridiculously expensive machines in Britain, but officials played down the figures, saying they covered more than just the hardware. According to a Cabinet Office spokesperson, the “costs cover the core infrastructure and applications – basically anything supplied by a third party’.”

(Read more: “Obscene” Whitehall IT spending or sloppy journalism? | PC Pro blog http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2011/07/28/obscene-whitehall-it-spending-or-sloppy-journalism/#ixzz1TUbtZD9C)

I agree. Disclaimer: I'm involved

[Kupfernigk]

I consult in this area. I have to tell you that where the NHS and local authorities are concerned, printing is a very competitive business and only efficient suppliers make a go of it. (The contracts you describe are, however, going out of date.)
In fact, the worst cost offenders in both areas are not the IT/facilities providers and the supply companies; they are the end users who buy inkjets and run them on petty cash.

My own GP is very clued up in this area and keeps a close watch on the local trust to see if they are getting good value for money. Generally speaking, they do. In fact, compared to privatised healthcare in the US, the NHS is amazingly efficient and low cost - which is why we have very similar life expectancy adjusted for social class, but we only spend half as much of our GDP as does the US - and our GDP per head is lower to begin with.

Every So Often

[Greyfox]

Some plonker comes along and demands to know why IT resources cost so much more than the crap he can buy at Best Buy. If said plonker has any pull at all, everyone gets all worked up for a while and plans are made to pilot a program to just buy all our shit at Best Buy and avoid the costs. Then people start looking at bringing hardware reliability up to corporate standards, retaining extra employees to do away with "expensive" support contracts and licensing software. Then, for some bizarre reason, the project quickly and quietly dies, is buried and no one ever hears about it again. This usually wastes more money than is actually being "wasted" with the "expensive" desktop machines we're using.