The recession has hit hard and the public purse has felt the strain. In an election year all parties are promising cuts of some sort, they claim that the cuts will be deep and meaningful but will only have some effect on front line services. So that begs the question, if we can make efficiency savings, then why do we let things bloat out of control in the first place. Non of us are stupid enough to believe that this will be enough, and even more we know that front line services have to be cut in order for the UK to get spending under control.

[singlepic id=10 w=320 h=240 float=left]One place we all know that the government loves to poor money into the black hole of ‘technology’. They have through local governments funded complicated IT systems, pointless websites that make no sense whatsoever. Then there are the countless projects that are cancelled last minute or even mid way.

Let’s play with some recent examples:

A cancelled ‘big brother’ database that was going to monitor and record all communications in the UK. Kicked into the long grass for fear it would cost £2bn over 10 years, not least the massive privacy implications. Cost of coming up with idea, to realise it was pointless.. no idea but I bet it’s more tax than you and I will pay in a life time.

Then you have the NHS computer database, the cost of which is also increasing, £12bn at last count. The big projects are one thing but then you have a number of small websites funded by local government all in the aid of resourcing local residents with information about their area. Great you might say, but is it really that great to have websites which act like search engines, just not as good. Is it even worthwhile creating, maintaining such websites, if they never really marketed to the people who will most likely use them?

Governments have a duty to their nations to keep their economy thriving, ensure living standards are optimum and to spend the tax revenues in a deliberate and meaningful way, to enhance then nations prosperity, ensure an ROI and not to waste these monies on black hole projects.

Elections are upon us choose wisely.