Public policy and Open Source Software
The Open Source Consortium calls on all political parties to support our manifesto for growing the UK's IT industry. Download the full report (PDF, 160KB) Our vision - The OSC wants to see UK IT companies competing against larger multi-nationals on a level playing field.
- Mandating open standards wherever possible across the public sector will free government from vendor lock-in and reduce costs for larger projects.
- We believe free and open source software is superior in many situations and offers a unique opportunity for UK IT companies to regain some of the ground we have lost to overseas competitors over recent decades.
- We want to see UK talent and innovation benefitting UK companies and the UK economy.
The problem - Public sector IT procurement is 55% of the UK market and is largely controlled by 11 companies.
- Most public sector UK spend goes to overseas companies : the UK government is effectively financing our competitors.
- The current procurement rules and culture make it very difficult for SMEs to compete and win tenders against larger companies, even when they offer better value.
The solution Our recommendations are that the public sector should : - Reward public sector buyers for intelligent risk taking.
- Reduce the cost and time involved in tendering for public sector contracts.
- Actively help SMEs to successfully tender for public sector contracts.
- Ensure that all submitted tenders for a contract are evaluated fairly.
- Make it easy for SMEs to find out about public sector invitations to tender.
For ICT tenders, we additionally recommend : - Open standards be mandated where relevant standards exist.
- Open Source Software (OSS) not be excluded as an option.
- Buyers be aware of the benefits and issues around open standards and open source software.
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