"If you look at the difference between central and local government - what you see in central government is shorter contracts, smaller contracts. Whereas, local government has decided it is going to do completely the opposite."

it has made promises that huge IT contracts, such as the controversial National Programme for IT, will cease to exist and doors will open for SMEs. Francis Maude said in 2010 that 'the days of mega IT contracts are over', and this message has been repeated by various ministers and politicians ever since.

However, Bennett is adamant that this practice hasn't been adopted by local authorities who are now making unrealistic - and not necessarily financially smart - decisions when procuring.

"What local authorities will also do, which is my biggest bugbear of all, is define the proportionality between the actual opportunity and the potential opportunity, which then rules out people like us from bidding," he said.

"For example, Dorset County Council went out to tender for a PSN and in the prior information notice said that the contract was likely to be worth somewhere between £20 million and £200 million. They also stated that to bid for this - which was a pass/fail gate to apply - the value of the contract had to be no more than 50 percent of the annual turnover of the business that's bidding for it."