ICT savings of £490 million have been announced this week by Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude.

Current estimates on the overall annual ICT spend place the cost at over £17 billion. Total savings within departments are expected to reach £8 billion by the end of the year.

Francis Maude said: ““We have said we want to be saving £20 billion a year by 2015 and savings of this magnitude cannot come by trimming budgets here and there. That’s why we are working to transform Whitehall into a leaner, more efficient machine that manages its finances like the best-run businesses,”