This will come as bad news for Fujitsu, due to a number of botched government projects in recent years.

There is also increasing concern that the rollout of superfast broadband in the UK is being carried out within an anti-competitive process, where BT is the only supplier to have been awarded any public funds up until this point. Fujitsu is the only other supplier signed to the framework.

A spokesman for the department told Computerworld UK: "The suppliers appointed to the BDUK framework are Fujitsu and BT. Frameworks are within the scope of HMG's supplier performance policy, and any supplier identified as high risk will be scrutinised particularly carefully before the award of further work."

Although the statement doesn't officially say Fujitsu is on the blacklist, if reports are correct (they have not been denied by the Cabinet Office or Fujitsu), it is likely that local authorities will continue to select BT over the coming months for broadband contracts. This will inevitably heighten concerns about competition in the industry.

The UK government has said that it hopes to have the best broadband network in Europe by 2015, and has committed a minimum of £730 million up until 2015 to support the rollout.