HM Revenue & Customs will save £110m a year without cutting
jobs as a result of a revised
Aspire contract
with lead outsourcer Capgemini.
The department spends about £740m a year on IT. The original
Aspire contract between the department, Capgemini, Fujitsu and BT
was one of the biggest outsourcing deals, worth £2.6bn, when it was
signed in 2004. The life-time value has now risen to £8.5bn.
According to an HMRC official, the savings will come from
modernisation and scrapping legacy systems from the merger between
Customs & Excise and Inland Revenue.
The revised deal runs until 2017, and comes on top of savings
worth £70m during the first five years of the original 10-year
contract.
HMRC CEO Lesley Strathie said the deal was just one of the ways
HMRC would cut operating costs. "It signals the intent to bring IT
costs down, as announced in the 2009 Budget," he said.
HMRC
lost the personal and bank account details of 25 million people
who were receiving child benefits when two CDs containing the data
went missing. They have never been found.