The Government is reforming its ICT procurement strategy by reducing the complexity of the projects to cut costs. Conservative Chair Bernard Jenkin MP stated that IT procurement was 'notoriously difficult'. Prior to the reform, IT procurement was time consuming and costly which squeezed out all competition aside from large corporate companies.
Emphasis throughout the plans is to break down projects into more manageable sizes and having a greater focus on outcomes. The government is working to include more innovative small medium enterprises (SME's) by changing the way in which procurements are done, such as a 'Dragons Den' style event where people can pitch ideas surrounding the delivery of IT projects. They are also aiming for at least 25% of all contracts to be awarded to SME's.
The scheme also aims to introduce open source networking and cloud computing for storage of data.