Socitm finds dissatisfaction at outsourced IT

26 May 05
Councils that have privatised their IT services are 'significantly' less happy with their contracts than those that manage them in-house, the Society of IT Management said this week.

27 May 2005

Councils that have privatised their IT services are 'significantly' less happy with their contracts than those that manage them in-house, the Society of IT Management said this week.

The latest benchmarking study from Socitm found a large number of councils that had opted for privatisation were dissatisfied with the service they received.

Martin Greenwood, Socitm Insight programme director, told Public Finance: 'There is a perception that the outside contract is not value for money, that it is not so responsive and feels more remote.'

Four out of ten councils that have outsourced achieved a user satisfaction score of less than four (out of seven) compared with just three out of 75 in-house providers.

Greenwood said the perception that an outside contract would be better was often to blame.

'Often these contracts are hyped up at the start, and the end result is not that different, which leaves people wondering what the fuss was all about,' he added.

One unitary authority IT manager, who did not wish to be named, said his council's biggest problem with outsourcing was the lack of control.

'We have a number of IT outsourcing contracts and our greatest issue of contention is how little ability we have to dictate what we want and when,' he said.

The survey found that councils most satisfied with their IT service tended to have 'excellent' Comprehensive Performance Assessment scores.

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