public sector

Whitehall's biggest IT suppliers are overwhelmingly foreign, and Uncle Sam is making a killing

The UK government talks a good game about buying British, but less than £1 in every £6 spent with its biggest technology suppliers goes to British firms, according to research exposing how much Whitehall relies on foreign tech.

A report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) found that while 42.5 percent of spending with the public sector's 150 largest technology suppliers appears to go to UK companies, that figure collapses to just 15.4 percent once you look beyond where those businesses happen to be headquartered.

A UK headquarters doesn't necessarily make a company British. Some are owned from overseas, others have most of their staff abroad, and many simply resell technology from US giants such as Microsoft.

In fact, 43 percent of the spending attributed to UK-headquartered suppliers goes to resellers.…