You may not realise this, but across UK Government, the cost of IT spending in 2005/06 was £206.90 per person based on the assumption that the population is 60 million and everyone, man, woman and baby, is included.The figures have been revealed in a Cabinet Office report released today into something called "Transformational Government Strategy". You won’t however find the figures in the press release (funny that!). The press release bangs on about how the Government is making efficiency savings by cutting 551 websites. You might even be confused into thinking that only around 26 would remain given the way the release is worded.
The truth, as ever though, is in the detail, and a quick look at the report shows that in fact, 551 websites are being cut, but that is only 51%, leaving 400 to be maintained and run at whatever the cost is. Further into the report there is a section detailing just how much money is spent in each area of Government on IT for 2005/06 and frankly, the figures are staggering. The total IT spend amounts to £12,414,000,000.
Obviously the £206.90 per head figure would be far higher once you remove children, the elderly, the unemployed, and anyone else who doesn't pay tax.
5 comments:
Wotcha chap,
Doesn't seem like a lot to me.
I wonder how much IT spending by business would come to per person etc? And how much money is utterly wasted by business on pointless (and often cancelled) IT projects?
Govt. spending per se is of no great relevance to anything. How the Gvt spends the money is, of course, very relevant. A bit like how business spends its money is too :)
Cheers
M
Mike, this is for one single year, it;s an astronomical figure when you factor in that alrge portions of it have been frittered away with EDS, Crapita, CapGem and god knows who else to produce no delivered systems.
I can't find the number of taxpayes, but in the 2001 census there were 21,660,475 households:
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=350
So cost per househood is about 570 pounds.
Single pensioner households are at 14.4% so we can take these out.
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=351
That gives 18,541,367 households and so 669 pounds per household!
Mike, forgive me for pointing this out, but that is not £206 per employee, which would be more than fair enough, but per man woman and cild in the land. It is enough to buy a cheap NEW laptop for every one in the country (at PC World sale figures any way).
Were a company to spend taht much on IT per customer (Save providing IT services which is different) they would go bust.
None of us would doubt the worth of this Government-funded website though, right?
http://www.playgroundfun.org.uk/
Personally I think it should have a .gov.uk domain... and as for the discussion forums on there WOW!
"Playground Fun is one of many initiatives to complement the Government's aim of increasing physical activity and improving behaviour."
Source: http://www.cultureonline.gov.uk/2005/07/traditional_gam.html
How much did it cost?
Don't know. But David Lammy tells us that it's part of the £6mn a year 'Culture Online' project. (http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2006-12-18b.109357.h&s=section%3Awrans+speaker%3A10678#g109357.r0)
What a lot of bollocks.
And unsurprisingly:
"Three projects do not collect hits—Origination, Playground Fun and Plant Cultures."
So I guess we'll never know whether more than a couple of people actually use it.
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