The government reduced its IT spend by £249m in 2011/12, with savings of £104m coming from its move to digital services and contract renegotiations, and £145m from its moratorium on contracts above £5m.
The Government Digital Service (GDS) saved the Department for Environment and Climate Change £5.1m by building its Green Deal website in-house, and saved Business Link £6.3m in agile project management costs as part of its work on Gov.uk, according to a Cabinet Office spokesman.
"GDS has enabled significant savings for departments in 2011/12, such as maintaining the Business Link website for a fraction of its usual cost, and redesigning the G-Cloud store cheaper and quicker in-house instead of using large service integrators," said the Cabinet Office.
The savings were driven by the Cabinet Office's Efficiency and Reform Group (ERG), which was set up in 2010 to apply spending controls to IT contracts, property, marketing, temporary staff and consultancy.
