Letters: Stop paying out without result
[Re: Deloitte wins £9m contract with government, April 12]
Last week, Deloitte won a new £9m contract with the government, having previously won a £4.8m deal, for work on One Login – a type of digital identity system for across government services.
Currently, around half of the 370 different services on gov.uk have their own login systems. The government’s previous £175m attempt to unify logins, known as Verify, was halted last year – eight years after it started.
One Login is already behind schedule; a minimum viable product version of the One Login system was due to be released for testing by the end of March which hasn’t happened. Apparently, this delay is to make sure the system is up to scratch.
The government needs to get more creative than just outsourcing these projects to large consulting firms and paying extortionate fees in the process. The UK has a thriving fintech sector recognised as one of the most innovative communities in the world. Unlike larger consulting firms with thousands of staff covering a myriad of industries, fintechs are small, agile and laser-focused on specific issues and would bite off the government’s hand at the opportunity to work with it.
Many are building or already have built the identity verification capabilities the government is attempting to create with One Login. Relying on tech-savvy experts at smaller, agile firms would not only improve the delivery of digital services, it would also save taxpayers millions of pounds.
Martin Wilson