IBM dominates Defra supplier list

Big Blue now receives almost a quarter of the funds allocated to external suppliers by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs' (Defra), new figures have revealed.

Defra paid IBM £99.1m in 2010-11 for its ICT services, according to figures released by the department through a Freedom of Information re quest by Guardian Government Computing. The figure marks a 21% year-on-year increase, up from £82.2m in 2009-10.

The seven-year IT and modernisation contract with IBM came into effect in October 2004. Under the terms of the deal, IBM was to manage, support and improve Defra's desktop IT infrastructure and business systems, develop a range of new business systems, provide the infrastructure to help facilitate a more flexible and mobile workforce and provide a continuous source of technology and business process innovation.

No other IT companies feature in the top 10 of Defra's suppliers for 2010-11, although several consultancy firms appear. Property firm DTZ, which provides the department with facilities management services saw income from the department increase a staggering 52%. DTZ received £57.8m in 2010-11, compared with £38m in 2009-10.

Accountancy firm Deloitte was ninth, receiving £5.03m in 2010-11. Buying Solutions saw a slight increase in the money it was given by the department, receiving £1.77m in 2010-11, compared to £1.55m in 2009-10.

Other IT firms in the top 100 suppliers include Parity Resources (47th, £781,420); Logica (53rd, £627,726); Vertex Data Science (74th, £420,051); Elan Computing (84th, £376,516); and Oracle (89th, £347,507).

Despite appearing last year, Serco and Capita dropped out of the top 100 list for 2010-11.