HMRC has spent over £3.7BN with Capgemini over the last five years on the Aspire contract. The contract was originally valued at £2.8BN.
As per Computing the spend was:
-2008/09: £777.1m
-2009/10: £728.9m
-2010/11: £757.8m
-2011/12: £735.5m
-2012/13: £773.5m
HMRC won't reveal a more detailed breakdown of its costs:
"It is considered that disclosure of details about cost breakdown of payments made by HMRC to Capgemini would prejudice the commercial interests of HMRC as a contracting authority and our ability to deliver best value.Does this spend represent value for money?
It is also considered that release of such information would weaken our supplier's position in a competitive environment by revealing market-sensitive information or information of potential usefulness to its competitors."
Tax does have to be taxing.
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To be fair HMRC did not exist when the Inland Revenue signed the Aspire contract in 2004. Its scope has been extended to cover all the former Customs and Excise systems so the original cost estimates are unsurprisingly out of date.
ReplyDeleteI'm not often fair to HMRC but they need to spend on IT it's appalling at the moment, the internet regularly crashes, the systems are so dated it's a wonder they can cope with 40 millions taxpayers records. They are moving to the cloud which isn't going smoothly, they have installed multi printer/photcopier/faxes which are dodgy and slow.
ReplyDeleteThey are also moving to the VOIP phone system which crash all the time, the HR system is being upgraded next month, the intranet is due to be upgraded plus they have a duty under government proposals for the civil service to move as many HMRC services online as possible.
With all this done and to do it's not surprising everything is over budget when you arrive at work and your computer is taking 30 minutes to log in it shows that there is still a long way to go I think most people with a computer knowledge would be very surprised how dated some of the systems used are in fact they are so dated they are going to be forced to upgrade as Microsoft won't support them very soon.
Just to let you all know there is serious embarrassment in the management of HMRC at the moment after HMRC only managed to answer 10.2% of telephone calls on Tax Credits deadline day last week, this has not gone unnoticed by staff and management who have admitted that things need to change but question is will they learn?
There are some good IT systems too but they are licenced so costly for all HMRC employees to have. Pacesetter does not help either. Time wasted talking about productivity when it would be better spent working. The printer/fax problems are widespread & yet again the impact of trying to save money when buying a product but spending more supporting it when it constantly breaks. False economy!!
Delete"plus they have a duty under government proposals for the civil service to move as many HMRC services online as possible"
ReplyDeleteThe £200 Million given by the government to achieve this isn't likely to go far then!!!
I left in 2009 and they couldn't get the fax and printer machines to work then. There was a guy who made everything work brilliantly but they sent him round to a call centre office.
ReplyDeleteWhen the fax machine chugged back into life once a month it was like the jackpot with faxes sent weeks previously pouring out.
I had the unfortunate luck to sit beside the fax machine so the cunts all of a sudden expected me to deal with it as if I had nothing else to do.
Ah halcyon days!
ReplyDeleteThis lot can no more admit they have got it wrong than realise that their best assett is almost crushed beyond hope, it's staff, they have been ground down by p!$$ poor managers for far too long.
Yet even now they worship the pacesetter idol? It ain't working, how much money, time and effort wasted? Take a brave politician with cojones to stop the rot, and there are not a lot of them left in the world!
Not all managers a poor & a lot work really hard & are under extreme & unacceptable pressure. They are under the same pressure to promote the emperors clothes as the staff are to embrace it. Pacesetter is not appropriate to all areas & higher up they fail to see this. Shame really.
ReplyDelete