Microsoft Wares May Be Uk Public Sector’s Only Viable Option

Register debate series Not for the first time, Microsoft is in the spotlight for the UK government’s money it voraciously consumes – apparently £1.9 billion a year in software licensing, and roughly £9 billion over five years.

Not surprisingly, there are plenty of voices challenging whether this is good use of public money. After all, aren’t there plenty of open source alternatives?

Faced with £40B budget hole, UK public sector commits £9B to Microsoft

READ MORE

It’s not that straightforward. There are two key factors at play.

Are the alternatives truly viable and comparable?

Technologists will often advocate for open source or even bespoke solutions. Yet the public sector hasn’t had a great history of avoiding the big tech brands. NHSmail, prior to its current reliance on Microsoft tools, demonstrated some of the issues – including the cost of support, managing upgrades, and delivering new features and compatibility.

Open source also comes with a range of less measurable costs – training, over-engineering, reliability, security maintenance, data interchange and interface complexity.

It is not that open source is not viable, but rather that the true costs often only come to light over time. Rather than a panacea, open source can create unforeseen risks of lock-in and incompatibilities across increasingly integrated systems. As the links between different public service organisations become more crucial, incompatibility creates all manner of problems.

Is Microsoft a good value for money, despite its seemingly high cost?

This can be hard to judge, especially when comparing it with the many difficult-to-measure costs and benefits of open source. Perhaps more important is the way in which government acts collectively to negotiate the best deal from core suppliers, such as Microsoft, only buying (and using) that which it needs.

It is very difficult, for example, to quantify the value that Microsoft brings indirectly, including a range of support and guidance, regulatory compliance, high levels of security and trust, case studies, support expertise, innovation such as AI, and cross-sector references.

I remember being involved in the national negotiations of the government license agreements with Capita, SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft in the early 2000s, which secured much better value than individual organisations could have achieved on their own.

Today, tools from Microsoft are bought by government bodies in a variety of ways, and this needs to be reviewed. Examples include direct local negotiation, frameworks, indirect purchase through licenced partners, and via the government digital marketplace.

In 2024, the Crown Commercial Service signed a five-year deal with Microsoft, which includes access to a range of future AI-enabled technologies and associated training. How do you put a value on the access to innovation that potentially will accelerate UK government’s digital progress and deliver public service efficiencies and improvements? This, Microsoft will argue, is a key driver of wider UK economic growth.

The benefits will only accrue if UK government agencies act consistently and can exploit the potential of this agreement. Procurement of all main software tools needs to be simplified and harmonised across the public sector if we are to be confident of delivering value for money, however innovative the agreement with the Crown Commercial Service may appear.

Certainly, Software as a Service (SaaS) is a good option for government, where some organisations have historically been keen to own, build, and even try to sell software, with serious downstream costs of tinkering and ‘optimising’ source code, because of the misplaced belief that the public sector is somehow unique.

The Answer?

Whilst we might not like the big IT suppliers, the public sector is not generally renowned for developing its own systems. Buying “off the shelf” (OTS) recognized and Industry standard proprietary solutions provides considerably better functionally, offers lower risks, and is more accepted by staff who use the same software at home.

Core digital and technology functions in government should be standard, using OTS software for major stuff like email and office productivity, focusing on innovative exploitation through recognised and proven tools, not using open source software.

There may be exceptions. There are also three provisos:

The contracts negotiated nationally must have fully transparent and published fee structures; contract management is exemplary – achieving outstanding value for the public; and public service organizations are accountable for how they use tools, ensuring that licencing is tracked, tools are used effectively and value for money can be demonstrated.

There is still a case for open source in specific areas, such as functional add-ons. But it should be limited and controlled, not led by the technologists, but by public sector business leaders, accountable for and able to demonstrate return on investment, benefits realization, and UK public value for money. ®

The Register will present an opposing view tomorrow and you can have your say on Friday.

Jos Creese has worked across central and local government, health, education, and non-departmental public bodies, as well as having held a variety of non-exec director roles in different industries. He has advised the Local Government Association on IT procurement and been a member of the Cabinet Office CIO Council. He has held high profile public sector IT roles, including CIO at Hampshire County Council and head of IT at Southampton City Council.

Original Source