HP Joins Others In Signing Government MoU

More big name tech firms have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) as part of the government’s drive to improve efficiencies and save money.

The MoU came about after negotiations were launched by the Minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, back in July. These discussions saw Maude meeting with 19 of the biggest government IT suppliers and consulting firms, in an effort to discuss how they can reduce the cost of the services they provide, as the coalition government looks to rein-in the massive spend on IT by the previous Labour government.

This includes scraping hundreds of unnecessary and expensive government websites and slashing the cost of the remaining sites to save millions of pounds. But the main focus of the MoU is to improve efficiencies by centralising procurement.

Single-Client Approach

This is dubbed as the ‘single-client approach’ to engagement with central government.

Essentially what this means is that the government will in future procure IT projects as a single customer, rather than as separate departments, which is the current practice. The thinking is that this will allow the coalition government to gain cost savings, as it seeks to reduce the UK’s record budget deficit.

In September Atos Origin became the first IT services supplier to sign the MoU, and was quickly joined by Cap Gemini and then Logica. However, the MoU has not just been limited to IT services players, but now other big name IT suppliers have also signed up.

HP is the latest to sign on the dotted line, and joins other vendors such as Oracle and Microsoft.

HP’s decision comes as reports emerged that HP is to cut a further 1,300 jobs in the UK. The cuts come on top of up to 900 UK job losses announced in June.

Largest IT Supplier

“HP will continue to deliver all of its existing UK government contracts and will work closely with the Cabinet Office and other government departments to implement the cost savings,” said the company.

HP also said that it is the largest supplier of IT solutions to the UK government.

“In addition to addressing the immediate requirements of the government to achieve significant cost savings, our MoU also includes proposals to help them achieve their wider reforms and transformation plans,” said Nick Wilson, vice president, HP UK & Ireland.

Oracle signed the MoU earlier this week.

“Following meetings with Francis Maude, minister for the Cabinet office, we are pleased to announce that we have signed a joint MOU,” said David Callaghan, Senior Vice President for Oracle UK. “Under this agreement Oracle will continue to work to deliver innovative products and services that can drive the efficiencies that the government is committed to achieve. We take very seriously our role as a long term strategic partner for UK government and look forward to establishing further initiatives in support of this.”

Another part of this cost saving process is the government’s confirmation that, when costs are similar, it will opt to purchase open source rather than proprietary software.