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UK Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has unveiled areas of government IT spending being targeted under the efficiency and reform group.
Speaking at question time in the House of Commons, Maude revealed that different sections of the government had purchased computer monitors with a price variation of 170 per cent.
Last week the minister met with bosses of the 19 largest suppliers to government departments in order to discover ways in which the leading firms can assist in realising the planned savings of £6.2b by reducing procurement costs.
Measures identified by the minister included improving "the procurement of goods and services for the whole government using our aggregated scale to drive down prices, removing discrepancies such as the variation of 170 percent in the cost of a standard computer monitor, and renegotating with the government’s biggest suppliers on a portfolio basis to take out excessive cost," said Maude.
Also under the coming under the gaze of the new Efficiency and Reform Group is the governments spending on consultants and the various governmental web sites, some of which had been found to be competing with each other.