Biggest spenders on IT in government revealed

The government spends more that £12bn per year on IT, with the NHS and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) among the biggest spenders.

In the financial year 2005/06 the parts of the public sector represented on the CIO Council (not including the Government Communications Headquarters, GCHQ) spent £12.4bn on a range of IT, according to figures published today in the Transformational Government progress report.

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Among the biggest spenders were the NHS, which spent £1.4bn, not including the £1.1bn spent by Connecting for Health, the NHS IT upgrade that's underway. The DWP spent £1.1bn on IT, more that HM Revenue & Customs, which spent £989m and the Ministry of Defence, which shelled out £936m.

Government CIO John Suffolk said he was struck by the sheer scale and complexity of the public sector and the ubiquitous use of IT. "We operate in over 140 countries, spend some £12bn a year across the whole public sector and run many of the world's largest computer systems. The DWP makes 13 million benefits payments electronically every week - it's a complex operation," he said in a statement.

Local government spending on IT stands at £3.3bn. But not all agencies are spending giant sums - for example the Department for Culture, Media and Sport spends a mere £5m, as does the Treasury.

Top public sector spenders on IT:

• Local government - £3.3bn

• National Health Service - £1.4bn

• Department for Work and Pensions - £1.143bn

• Connecting for Health - £1.1bn

• HM Revenue & Customs - £989m

• Ministry of Defence - £936m

• Education - £850m

• Scottish public sector - £600m

• Police - £387m

• Home Office - £328m

• Department for Constitutional Affairs - £243m

• Department for Transport - £223m

• Welsh public sector - £165m

• Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs - £153m

• Department of Health - £116m

• Foreign & Commonwealth Office - £101m