Oral Answers to Questions

Charlie Elphicke Excerpts

Wednesday 8th February 2012 Commons Chamber

The Minister for the Cabinet Office was asked—

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

1. What recent progress he has made on bringing forward proposals on Government IT procurement; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

Soon after the coalition Government came to office, we introduced strict controls on ICT spend that saved £300 million in the year to March 2011 alone. We have opened up procurement to small and medium-sized enterprises, we are moving towards open standards and interoperability, and we are examining some of the incredibly expensive and burdensome ICT contracts that we inherited from the previous Government.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Will the Minister tell us more about how open source, getting computers to talk to each other through common standards, and smarter procurement can help to save billions of pounds, secure better computers, and break up the IT cartel that was fostered under the previous Government?

[Mr Maude]

It is becoming increasingly clear that the Government have opportunities to handle their IT and increase their digital offering in transactional public services very differently from that which we inherited. It is also becoming increasingly clear that it will be possible for both the quality of those public services and public interaction to be massively improved, at a fraction of the cost incurred by the previous Government.