Government questioned on EDS contracts

The House of Commons Public Accounts committee (PAC) has expressed concern that IT supplier EDS might be becoming the dominant supplier of IT services to the Government.

EDS recently won a £20-£25m contract to supply IT services to all crown and county courts in England and Wales.

In a critical report on the outsourcing of social security work by the Government Information Technology Services Agency, PAC says: "We put it to the agency that there were problems associated with having one dominant supplier.

"We recommend that the implications of concentrating sources of supply in one or a few contractors should be given full consideration."

PAC has demanded information from the Government on what business it has outsourced to EDS, saying: "We are surprised that the Treasury were not able to provide more than fragmentary information on the extent of work done by EDS, given the scale of that business."