Government saves £490m on ICT and digital

31.10.2012
The government has saved some £490 million on ICT and digital spending in the first half of the financial year.

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude announced this week that across all government departments £3.1 billion has been saved, and he expects this to rise to £8 billion by the year end.

The savings are still a fraction of annual government ICT spend - where estimates vary between £17 billion and £20 billion. Using these estimates, savings are between 2.4 percent and 2.8 percent of total ICT spend (although it is worth remembering that these are the half year results).

These in 2011/12 - £249 million of which was attributed to ICT and digital.

"As a result of the Government's strict financial controls and business-like approach, interim results show departments have saved £3.1 billion so far this financial year - including savings of £409m from ICT and £81m from the Government Digital Service - putting us on track to save £8 billion by the end of the year," said a spokesman for the Cabinet Office.

"We welcome scrutiny as a means of helping us to deliver even greater savings for taxpayers, which is why we will invite independent auditors - who report to the Audit Committee - to perform a full audit of our full year figures, including the contribution of ICT-related savings, at the year end."