Because, when the UK government hands it out to the private sector, it gets the money back. All of it. Except, along the way, that money gets exchanged in lots and lots of transactions which the government skims parts off as VAT, Corporation Tax, Income Tax, NI contributions, various duties, plus a million other levies.
If the government "saved" money by choosing efficient suppliers with smaller headcounts and tighter cost controls it would cut off millions from the treasury coffers. Taxes which are desperately needed to cover the UK government's rising interest bill (debt is something like 95% of GDP as of 2025).
Huge behemoths like Fujitsu and Capgemini and IBM actually help to drive the UK economy in its ever more desperate drive for "growth" (i.e. greater tax revenue) and we can expect more, not less, wonga to be unloaded on them to provide crude "value" from which those precious taxes can be distilled back out.
I have heard this suggestion before in the context of overcoming suboptimal risk intolerance (like right after a crash) but for it to work you would have to derive the tax revenue somehow from people who were not spending money. That's one thing I've never understood about Keynesianism.
Government spending isn't immune from opportunity costs. If fewer players receive all the money to provide fewer more expensive goods and services, then revenue may be flowing through the national coffers but the money doesn't cover what the government wants to do.
Unless you forgot a /s, in which case (thumbs up).
- All spending is equally productive
- All tax comes back efficiently
- Big contractors = better fiscal outcomes
In reality, value-for-money, fiscal responsibility, and economic multipliers are more nuanced. More spending doesn't necessarily mean better outcomes; how it's spent matters enormously.
Assuming that government spending is inherently productive is a deeply flawed view. Every pound the UK government spends is a pound it had to tax, borrow, or inflate.
If you were to look at the NHS's EPR procurement, you'd see hundreds of millions of pounds over a decade spent on American software.
I assume there is some reason this cannot be done. Do procurement rules prevent the outright banning of a company from making bids?
Because the people who are in charge of the decision benefit from the status-quo (or are influenced of people who benefit from it).
Generally if a government does something stupid it means someone somewhere is profiting off the stupidity.
Doesn't help that the UK's economic situation means that honest work is pointless and the only way to build wealth is to get up to grifts and shenanigans like these.
tiahura•6h ago
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rorylawless•3h ago