Silicon.com report a Gartner Group report that suggests the UK government will pick up a $20bn bill for UK government IT spending this year:

Di Maio said projects that while it is easy to calculate return on investment, on projects such e-procurement systems for example, there can be wider and often detrimental repercussions.

"It can have a negative effect on local economies, where the authority is now buying through a central marketplace rather than locally and it can have a negative impact on local economic development," he said.