Ten years ago, government had little in-house digital capability and outsourced most technology programmes.47 The Cabinet Office blamed the failure of many programmes in the past on too much outsourcing of poorly understood services, and insufficient resourcing of the intelligent client function within departments.48 For example, NHS England did not believe it had the skills in-house to transform primary care services, but also did not know enough about those services to be able to set the su...

Ten years ago, government had little in-house digital capability and outsourced most technology programmes.47 The Cabinet Office blamed the failure of many programmes in the past on too much outsourcing of poorly understood services, and insufficient resourcing of the intelligent client function within departments.48 For example, NHS England did not believe it had the skills in-house to transform primary care services, but also did not know enough about those services to be able to set the supplier achievable performance standards. The supplier underestimated the scale of the task, and patient safety was potentially put at risk.49 The Nationa Type: conclusion | Number: 19 | Response status: not_addressed Government response: 5: PAC conclusion: Departments have failed to develop a modern professional approach to IT operations needed to support business change and transformation and have created an over-reliance on outsourcing. 5: PAC recommendation: The Central Digital and Data Office