All IT contracts to be made public

The new Government has announced that it plans to make all Government contracts open to the public. New IT contracts will be published within the next few weeks, as will tenders for procurement over £10,000. The changes are expected to apply to local Government contracts from 2011. David Cameron said: ‘Greater transparency across Government is at the heart of our shared commitment to enable the public to hold public bodies to account and deliver better value-for-money in Government spending.’

Paul Gershlick, a Partner at Matthew Arnold & Baldwin LLP and editor of Upload-IT, comments: ‘This is great news for citizens and the media, but this raises concerns for suppliers to the Government that confidential material within their documents may be disclosed to their competitors. On the other hand, it may provide an opportunity to spy on what their competitors are doing!’