Fujitsu CTO slams UK government for application overlap errors

The government is wasting a considerable amount of taxpayers' money by hosting multiple overlapping IT applications, according to Japanese computing firm Fujitsu.

Fujitsu is one of the UK public sector's largest IT contractors, and the company's chief technology officer of applications, Andrew Brabban, was quick to highlight the large amount of technology duplication in government.

"Most organisations have a large portfolio to manage and there is a lot of duplication in it. The complexity of managing it creates unnecessary cost," he told V3.

"Many managers don't have a clear view of the application portfolio they are in charge of."

Brabban suggested that most of the overlap happens accidentally.

"Multiple buyers in organisations do not integrate with the corporate backbone, and suddenly a department will have half a dozen applications all managing the customer. So in the end you don't get a good view of the customer at all," he said.

Brabban explained that application overlap exists in the private sector as well but that the situation is not as bad.

"It's strategically worse in the government than in the private sector as government cost pressures are so tight that it doesn't want to spend money trying to rationalise the applications," he explained.

Brabban added that the government often does not integrate applications because of certain strict regulations to which it must adhere.

"Data protection issues stop it integrating some applications. The government often finds it easier to do nothing," he said.

Brabban acknowledged that the Cabinet Office's drive towards Shared Service Centres will reduce application overlap in the future, but warned that the strategy is too little too late.

"Shared services are the right idea, but the pace is likely to be too slow. Every chief information officer needs to understand what applications he has," he said.

"Half the people I speak too don't have enough visibility of their IT portfolio. They actually need to step back and look at what they have got in order to make cost savings."

In related news, nearly 400 Fujitsu workers in Manchester and Crewe affiliated to the Unite union have gone on strike over a series of long-running disputes relating to contracts and alleged victimisation of union representatives.