The government's plan to cut IT spending by billions of pounds
is a conjuring trick, says Vince Cable, the Shadow Chancellor for
the Liberal Democrats.
Cable was responding to a
disclosure in Computer Weekly yesterday (10 February 2009) that
the Chancellor Alistair Darling is planning savings of billions of
pounds in the costs of running IT and the back office. The savings
will form part of the Government's 2009 budget.
Cable said that the government has yet to provide evidence it
made the £21bn savings which Gordon Brown promised by 2008 on the
basis of a report on efficiency in 2004 by Sir Peter Gershon,
former chief executive of the Office of Government Commerce.
Cable told Computer Weekly that ministerial promises of savings
are "a bit of con".
He said, "The government has a big budget deficit to explain and
it does look as if they are going to resort to this time-honoured
escape. It is like government saying it is going to solve its
problems by abolishing waste. It is at that level of superficial
cynicism. To me it sounds suspiciously like a conjuring trick. They
are trying to make savings but these things of course do not
happen."
At the Government IT 09 conference last week Martin Read, former
Chief Executive of Logica and now an adviser to the Treasury, said
an efficiency review has identified "significant" savings from the
estimated annual spend of £16bn on IT and £18bn on back-office
administration. Further details will be in the government's 2009
Spring budget, he said.