Comment Last week, UK minister for science, innovation and technology Peter Kyle spoke at Google Cloud Summit in London to tell the audience: “Now, sometimes I’m accused of being ‘too close to big tech’,” with the Chocolate Factory’s multi-colored logo looming behind him.
He went on to justify his 28 meetings with big tech companies in six months by saying: “Now, to this crime, I plead guilty.”
A result of these twice-weekly meetings was his “partnership” with Google, in which the search, ad and cloud giant will “aim to upskill up to 100,000 civil servants in the latest tech by 2030.”
The government also said Google’s DeepMind AI subsidiary would work with technical experts in government to support them in “deploying and diffusing” emerging technologies, driving efficiencies across the public sector, including accelerating scientific discovery.
It promised Google’s “advanced tech” will help shake off decades-old “ball and chain” legacy contracts that leave essential services vulnerable to cyberattack.
“Just as with Google on this strategy, when I negotiate with tech companies, I am negotiating on behalf of the British taxpayer,” he said. “For too long, too many governments haven’t done enough to build the positive business relationships that Britain needs to prevent the taxpayer being short-changed when it comes to procuring tech.”
But for all the talk of tough negotiations with big tech, details were lacking. After probing the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), The Register received a response from an official.
They said the agreement with Google “defines how we will work together going forward, but doesn’t comprise any specific commercial agreement.” Meanwhile, the “government is not paying Google anything for this partnership,” they said, adding that any resulting contracts would be subject to competitive tender. No government data would be shared with Google, they promised.
What then of accountability, service levels, and guarantees?
“Seriously, who thought that this was a good idea?” asked one seasoned procurement professional with experience in negotiating tech contracts for the UK public sector. “It’s a type of non-committal ‘charter’ but Google gets to look inside the government much more intrusively.”
The government might have good reason to give Google a leg-up when it comes to winning contracts. Last year, The Register exclusively revealed that the government’s negotiating power with AWS and Microsoft was hobbled by vendor lock-in.
A document from the Cabinet Office’s Central Digital & Data Office (CDDO), circulated within Whitehall, said the “UK government’s current approach to cloud adoption and management across its departments faces several challenges,” which combined result “in risk concentration and vendor lock-in that inhibit UK government’s negotiating power over the cloud vendors.” It added that “the existing dominance of AWS and Azure in the UK government’s cloud services is set to continue.”
The government might argue its “strategic partnership” with Google adds some much-needed competition in the market, but getting more competition among suppliers takes more than a partnership with no contract.
In February, Andrew Forzani, chief commercial officer in the Cabinet Office, told spending watchdog the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that if the government wanted to use its spending power to strike better deals with the top cloud providers, individual departments needed to align their requirements. That’s tougher than standing on stage and offering some grand-sounding but ultimately empty words.
This is where the government’s plan comes unstuck. Kyle said deals like the one with Google would “transition public sector organizations trapped by the ball and chain of legacy products and services, and to migrate to the cloud.”
But changing the way the government buys is not only about talking to tech suppliers.
In January, DSIT launched a Digital Commercial Centre of Excellence (DCCE) designed to spot opportunities to reform government tech buying and support growth. Meanwhile, the Cabinet Office’s CDDO has since been rolled into the Government Digital Service also within DSIT. This is the digital government empire Kyle is supposed to lead.
Whether it will be enough is an open question. In 2023, the PAC reported on barriers to achieving greater efficiency through digital transformation. Dame Meg Hillier MP, chair at the time, said digital ambitions were “hobbled by staff shortages, and a lack of support, accountability and focus from the top.”
She said the civil service was “actively cutting the very roles which could help achieve” its ambition in digital.
It seems little has changed. Earlier this year, the PAC reported that the government employs just 15 commercial staff with direct expertise in digital procurement dedicated to dealing with the largest technical suppliers.
Such a lack of knowledge was laid bare when His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC) handed a £35 million deal to Accenture without competition to run a system it was supposed to “disaggregate” from. The extension to the legacy contract was awarded because there had “been a significant increase in the project work which was not envisaged and catered for at the time of the direct award.”
In other words, the tax collector doesn’t have the skills to understand its own tech plans.
Working with public sector spending researcher Tussell, The Reg revealed that the vendors in the legacy £10 billion Aspire deal with HMRC have bagged £3.8 billion since the arrangement was supposed to end in 2017.
This is the real ball and chain of legacy relationships, but Kyle’s speech said nothing about how he would break it or what power he has over the largest government tech buyers, such as HMRC.
When he reaches out to Google to “upskill” as many as 100,000 civil servants with no contract or guarantees, what are those he should inspire – the public sector’s tech and commercial experts – supposed to make of it?
Even if he gets nothing out of his deal with Google, at least he can be proud that by trying to execute his so-called “blueprint for modern government,” he managed to alienate the very people he so badly needs. ®