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This is a normal post It makes a huge difference.
When you do things yourself you build up to a standard, when you contract out things are built down to a price. .. and then you still end up paying for endless feature changes to get your system to do what you wanted it to do in the first place. In-house IT has much closer links with the people actually doing the job and often have extensive background knowledge of business rules, so they have a better grip on what the specification really means.

You say "as long as the service works", but in my experience of government IT systems maintained by private firms this rarely actually happens. Quite possibly because they keep giving contracts to the likes of Accenture and Capita, who seem to fuck up everything they touch because, in the words of Sybil Fawlty, they're cheap (and about as good as Mr O'Reilly). If civil servants screwed up an IT system they could be sacked, but there seem to be no consequences when private contractors do.

The argument for out-sourcing IT has always been cost, but personally I think each big department would be much better served by having their own teams, or even one big team for all the departments.
 (I helped save b3ta! jonbob loves you, Wed 7 Feb 2018, 23:28, , Reply)
This is a normal post An excellent, well argued point.
Unlike Prutits, who seems to think that wanking into his soiled nappies in public makes him appear to be edgy and cool.

But seeing as we're here; big up our NHS! The people who work in it put in stupidly long hours, for less pay than they could get in the private sector simply because they actually care. Day in, day out. They truly put the Great into Great Britain.

Feel free to sneer, just keep in mind that it makes you look like a fuckwit.
 (UltimateMonkey Ban this sick filth!, Thu 8 Feb 2018, 1:05, , Reply)
This is a normal post Fully this^

(dyllon nice beaver., Thu 8 Feb 2018, 8:02, , Reply)
This is a normal post I'm just looking forward to seeing that £350m per week getting funnelled in.
That'll be great.
 (eViLegion Chief Commissioner of the Scottish Lunacy Board, Thu 8 Feb 2018, 11:45, , Reply)
This is a normal post Boris only promised £100m
The other quarter billion pounds seem to have gone missing.
 (I helped save b3ta! wheresthefish Partly filled with wrong, Thu 8 Feb 2018, 13:36, , Reply)
This is a normal post What’s a quarter billion between friends?
You can’t even buy a parliamentary majority with that.
 (I helped save b3ta! jonbob loves you, Thu 8 Feb 2018, 20:23, , Reply)
This is a normal post Nicely put.
I'd add to that the point that, as well as things being built down to a price, that price also includes a profit-margin, and it's maintaining the profit margin that becomes the primary concern.
 (I helped save b3ta! Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 8 Feb 2018, 9:48, , Reply)
This is a normal post "I think each big department would be much better served by having their own teams"
I tried that one. Got shut down comprehensively at every turn by senior management. This idea doesn't work by design in this political climate when you have to wait 16 weeks to gain approval to recruit permanent staff but can get a contractor next week, or approval for capital spend via tender by the end of the month. The public sector is geared to contract management rather than actually doing stuff by ideological design. This was 2013 under the coalition, I can only imagine it's got worse.
 (theswollenbeef where there's a will there's a wank, Thu 8 Feb 2018, 9:59, , Reply)