The UK's public spending watchdog is investigating the troubled transfer of the Civil Service Pension Scheme (CSPS) to Capita. In a notice, the National Audit Office (NAO) said problems had persisted since the outsourcer took over administration in December 2025. The Cabinet Office awarded Capita the seven-year £239 million contract in November 2023, allowing two years to prepare for the transition. The scheme serves 1.5 million current and former public servants. "Key service levels have been repeatedly missed, leaving many members struggling to access the information they need to plan for their retirement," the NAO said. Capita promised AI and automation, but the takeover brought a glitchy online portal, while some members struggled to receive pension payments. Capita missed its deadline to restore normal service by the end of June. It subsequently told MPs that all but the most complex cases would return to normal service by September. Responding to the investigation, Capita said it "accepts that performance remains below the standards that scheme members and the Government rightly expect" and that fixing the problems was its top priority. Scheme members interviewed by the BBC last month described feeling upset, frustrated, and ignored, with some waiting months for payments. One woman had been waiting six months for her widow's pension after her husband died in March. Capita said it would cooperate with parliamentary and regulatory investigations, and continue to engage fully and transparently with the NAO, Cabinet Office, and relevant stakeholders. "Capita recognises the need for continued service improvement, and we are implementing further automation along with stronger governance including improved management information. This will continue to improve operational output and member experience," it said. ®

Palantir's newly appointed UK senior vice president Tom Watson has accused Labour MP Clive Lewis of making "incorrect claims" about the company – while repeating NHS performance figures that the statistics regulator has said require careful caveats. Watson, the former deputy leader of the Labour Party, advised Palantir from 2024 before joining it full-time last month. He now works alongside Louis Mosley, the company's executive vice president for the UK and Europe. His letter to Lewis was reported by The Nerve after the MP discussed it at the Labour Party conference this week. Watson challenged Lewis's statements about Palantir's UK contracts in healthcare, policing, and defense. Lewis said the level of detail in the letter felt like a message that "we're watching you." Palantir's Gotham or Foundry software would not have been needed to compile the dossier: Watson cited statements made in Parliament, written questions, interviews, opinion pieces, and social media. Watson also described Palantir as a major UK investor and said its software had helped convict a gang stealing money from ATMs, support victims of domestic abuse, and improve the availability of Royal Navy vessels. In rebutting what he described as misinformation, Watson said the NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP) was live at 142 trusts and that "137 are already reporting benefits." The broad claim echoes figures promoted by NHS England, which the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) subsequently told to communicate the platform's purported benefits more carefully. Following complaints about NHS England's use of data to promote the FDP, the OSR noted that the health service had added a caveat to its published figures on June 6: "We cannot therefore draw conclusions about cause and effect as other variables have not been controlled for." NHS England also updated its methodology and agreed to identify before-and-after comparisons more clearly in public communications. The OSR asked to be kept informed of its progress. Watson's letter did not include that caveat. Data obtained by campaign group Foxglove illustrated why the qualification matters. NHS England said an Inpatient Care Co-ordination Solution based on the FDP was associated with 111,589 additional patients undergoing procedures in operating theatres. Of the 41 trusts using the tool, however, 13 reported carrying out fewer operations after its introduction. Other factors – including staffing, case complexity, and bed capacity – could have affected those results in either direction. Foxglove also found that Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust accounted for 84 percent of the reported fall in outpatient waiting lists across the 16 trusts using the relevant tool. Watson may therefore want to apply the same scrutiny to the figures he deploys when accusing others of misinformation. The Register asked Palantir to comment. ®

Sopra Steria has expanded its legal challenge to a major UK government contract award after obtaining an unredacted copy of the agreement between Capita and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The company alleges that previously undisclosed terms gave Capita preferential treatment, reduced the outsourcer's exposure to risk, and left the DWP carrying more of it. One clause could allow the department to fund technology needed to compensate for deficiencies in Capita's tender, Sopra Steria claims. Capita values the deal at £370 million, although government documents put its potential value as high as £873.4 million. Sopra Steria has been challenging the award since March, alleging that the DWP accepted an "abnormally low" bid based on staffing numbers "significantly below the current levels." The dispute concerns a contract to provide finance, payroll, HR, procurement, and other shared services across four government departments. Capita, which is also responsible for the troubled transfer of the Civil Service Pension Scheme, beat incumbent provider Shared Services Connected Ltd (SSCL), a former joint venture with the UK government that is now wholly owned by French-headquartered systems integrator Sopra Steria. At the time of the award, Capita said it had participated in a robust procurement process and was ready to deliver value for money. The DWP maintained that it had conducted a fair competition and that the deal represented value for the public. The DWP leads the Synergy shared services program, which is intended to put the DWP, Ministry of Justice, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Home Office onto a common SaaS ERP and HR platform with shared business processes. All four departments are defendants in the case. Oracle and IBM previously secured a £711 million deal covering the ERP software and systems integration. Synergy forms part of a wider program to move central government departments and arm's-length bodies onto cloud-based shared services, creating contracts worth about £1.7 billion for technology suppliers. Sopra Steria said the DWP agreed to a Project Change Clause allowing the department to amend the contract to "expand Capita's technology base and/or otherwise compensate for the deficiencies in Capita's tender." Sopra Steria alleged that the provision reduced Capita's exposure, cutting "the contingency that Capita may otherwise have needed to price into its tender" and providing "a means for Capita to boost its margin despite its abnormally low tendered price." It further alleged that responsibilities assumed by the DWP allowed Capita to bid on the basis of a contract that "has a materially reduced level of risk borne by Capita but a materially greater level of risk borne by the [DWP]." Sopra Steria argued that, across a number of the responsibilities accepted by the DWP in the contract, the same or equivalent terms were not offered to Sopra Steria. The DWP denied treating the bidders differently. It said each received equal time and opportunity to negotiate, and that when they raised the same question or request, both were given the same response. General clarifications were shared with both bidders, the department said, while concessions secured through negotiation were disclosed only to the bidder that requested them. Any differences therefore related to the particular points raised by Capita rather than unequal treatment, it argued. A DWP spokesperson said: "We don't comment on live legal proceedings." A spokesperson at Capita told The Register: "We took part in a robust procurement process and stand ready to work with the DUP to ensure a smooth transition of service. Our priority remains to ensure value for money for the public." The filings also highlight competing descriptions of the contract's value. In March, Capita said the deal was worth £370 million over ten years, including all extension periods. That figure was its IFRS 15 transaction price, or order-book value, and excluded change and expansion services expected during the contract. The DWP said it had no record of approving Capita's announcement and denied Sopra Steria's allegation that the agreed price remained unclear. According to the department's filing, the estimated undiscounted value is £606.6 million over the initial seven-year term and £873.4 million over the maximum ten years, including estimated projects and optional services. It stressed that Capita has no automatic entitlement to that additional work. ®

Singapore’s digital transformation agency, GovTech, is piloting a dating app. GovTech says the app came about after discussions among its staff, who apparently “shared an interest in exploring some of the challenges people can face when meeting someone new.” “They wondered whether a different approach that places greater emphasis on compatibility through values and preferences, and offers fewer matches at a time, could give users more space to consider each introduction and decide whether they would like to take the next step.” The staffers took those ideas to GovTech’s annual hackathon, and the result was “FirstDate,” billed as “An initiative to support singles aged 21-35 in their dating journey.” The app asks users to complete a questionnaire that GovTech says “covers users' interests, habits, values and preferences to curate matches based on compatibility.” “Once completed, leave the matching to us,” the agency urges. That’s not strictly true because the app applies the Gale-Shapley Stable Matching algorithm, a method that imagines a group of people hoping to pair off in some way. In the 1962 paper [PDF] that proposes the algorithm, the authors offer the following scenario: “A certain community consists of n men and n women. Each person ranks those of the opposite sex in accordance with his or her preferences for a marriage partner. We seek a satisfactory way of marrying off all members of the community … if under it there are a man and a woman who are not married to each other but prefer each other to their actual mates.” The algorithm aims to produce stable relationships by sifting all participants’ preferences to find viable couples. It’s not perfect, by any means, but is widely used in economics. Readers who imagine that algorithmic matching can’t replace the mysteries of romance may wish to note that the OECD ranks Singaporean high school students as the world’s second-most proficient at mathematics. GovTech, however, allows that the algorithm can’t “guarantee chemistry or a match leading to a relationship.” The app operates on a 72-hour cycle, during which users will see info about one person the algorithm suggests they might find interesting. If both participants agree, the app reveals contact details. “Take it from there, reach out and get chatting!” GovTech urges. “If you do meet up, try our Date Quests to break the ice.” Date Quests are suggested activities for a first date. For now, the app is only available to single members of Singapore’s civil service. There’s no word on when or if Singapore might decide on wider release and take on Tinder. GovTech’s most famous app before FirstDate was probably TraceTogether, which used smartphones’ Bluetooth radios to track people during the COVID-19 pandemic in the hope of identifying people who had been exposed to the virus. Singaporean authorities used the app to contact those at risk of infection, and requred them to enter isolation to slow the spread of the virus. TraceTogether, and similar apps deployed around the world, mostly flopped. It’s unclear why Singapore has decided to test this app however one of the island nation’s five shared values is “Family as the basic unit of society.” That’s more than a platitude: a program called Made for Families offers grants to purchase housing, funding for pre-natal care, and tax rebates for parents. Those incentives haven’t prevented Singapore’s birth rate from falling to record lows. Singapore is not the first jurisdiction to try this sort of thing: the City of Tokyo did likewise in 2024. ®

The UK government’s decision to move the Government Digital Service (GDS) — responsible for creating digital services across the public sector — to its third departmental home in three years risks hemorrhaging talent and moving it further away from the center of power, MPs heard this week. The GDS “fell into a bit of a fray” during the reorganization ordered by incoming Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s team, according to Laura Gilbert, former director of data science at 10 Downing Street, the Prime Minister's office. She told the House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee: “It's difficult to know whether somebody won that fight and therefore won GDS, or it was more incidental and it was played off against something else. I was genuinely quite surprised by it.” The GDS was formed in 2011 under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition to help bring public services online. It sat within the Cabinet Office until Sir Keir Starmer became Prime Minister for Labour in 2024, when it moved to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). In January 2025, the government merged the GDS with the Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO), which led the digital, data and technology function of government and was responsible for strategy and standards. In the most recent government re-organization since Andy Burnham took over as Prime Minister, the GDS has moved to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). It falls within the remit of Stephanie Peacock, Parliamentary under-secretary for sport, tourism, place and digital Government. Gilbert, who left Downing Street in 2005 to take roles in Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and Larry Ellison’s Institute of Technology, told MPs the GDS was initially “significantly disempowered” when it moved to DSIT. “I was surprised to see it being moved further away [from the center of government], given how important digital delivery is to the government's agenda.” The GDS has become responsible for centralized spend controls on all large-scale government digital and IT projects. Although departments are responsible for making projects happen, they had to seek GDS sign off on major software or hardware procurement. Gilbert said that in the last move from the Cabinet Office to DSIT, there was a struggle to understand where the decisions take place and a failure to take into account “expert leadership” in technology who might understand the knock-on effects. “As far as I'm aware, there wasn't a conversation with the senior leadership of those teams that were actually moved,” she said. Meanwhile, any shift can be demoralizing for technology teams, adding to the risk individuals will leave. Gilbert told MPs: “You take a bunch of teams who are trying to do something, and you say to them, ‘right, what we're going to do is we're going to put you in a different building… we haven't decided which one... you're going to have a new email address… we haven't set up the servers yet. There's going to be a new office somewhere, and it's definitely going to be a bun fight of who can get themselves into the best office. And we're not totally sure what your remit is. There's probably a hiring freeze… and you don't know who your political sponsorship is anymore’. People are dissatisfied. They start looking for jobs in other departments. They start looking for jobs outside, and of course, the best people find those jobs very quickly." Also giving evidence to the Committee, Alex Thomas, Executive Director, Institute for Government, said: “There's been some concern in GDS about moving to DSIT originally, but [it] had established itself actually and… had found quite a successful home. Now moving that around again is risky. My main worry is of diffusion of responsibilities and the kind of grinding of gears that's going to be required to make that work.” While the GDS has been moved from DSIT to the DCMS, responsibility for AI implementation and policy has been given to Kanishka Narayan, who gets the Cabinet-attending role of Minister for Artificial Intelligence, working jointly in the Cabinet Office and BIST. In a letter to the Committee, ministers from the Cabinet Office, BIST and the DCMS said: “The Prime Minister has made a number of changes to the Machinery of Government to rewire the state to deliver a stronger, more strategic center which acts as the engine room for driving economic growth across the whole country. These changes include transforming how the Government is structured to approach science, innovation, and technology. This reflects that the UK stands at a critical juncture where unprecedented global changes demand that we secure our position as a world leader in AI, science and technology. In this context, we cannot see science and technology as an isolated issue, limited to one department.” ®

UK government departments are still struggling to implement the tax laws governing IT contractors years after the controversial rules were introduced. IR35 has become hated by freelance tech workers who feel it removes the tax benefits of contracting, without offering the employee benefits of in-house roles in its stead. The latest accounts from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) show that the UK tax collector is reviewing its implementation of IR35 for a second year after the department decided to place hundreds of workers inside the reach of the rules. In its 2024 -25 annual report, the FCDO said a total of 243 were found to be in scope of IR35 following “a full review of all IR35 off-payroll status determinations.” “This resulted in a high number of engagements that had previously been assessed as out-of-scope being reassessed as in-scope. A voluntary disclosure advising His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC) of these changes in assessment has now been made, and the FCDO have accrued an estimate of the potential backdated tax owed within our 2024-25 accounts,” the report said. However, the most recent set of figures for 2025 -26 said workers determined as in-scope of IR35 has now leapt to 441. The continuing review “resulted in a significant reduction of out-of-scope engagements in the Department.” It said HMRC was also continuing to review its interpretation of the rules. Dave Chaplin, CEO of tax advisory company IR35 Shield, said: “The Foreign Office’s IR35 problems are becoming increasingly difficult to explain away. A year ago, roughly half its contractors were considered outside IR35. Now that figure has collapsed to just 12.” Chaplin said Freedom of Information requests had revealed the FCDO’s process used HMRC’s Status Tool (CEST), which organizations have had problems implementing. Use of the tool has dropped around 70 percent in two years, research revealed. “Businesses are expected to get IR35 right and face potentially significant tax bills when they don’t. The Government should expect no lower standard from its own departments,” Chaplin said. Government departments have long struggled to implement IR35. In 2022, the Public Accounts Committee found that difficulties meeting the rules in central government reflect poor implementation by HMRC and other government bodies. "Central government is spending hundreds of millions of pounds to cover tax owed for individuals wrongly assessed as self-employed. Government departments and agencies owed, or expected to owe, HMRC £263 million in 2020–21 due to incorrect administration of the rules," the report from Parliament’s spending watchdog said. Earlier this year, the UK’s competition regulator gave a conditional thumbs up to the government providing an extra £104.4 million to the Post Office — a publicly owned company — to settle a tax liability under IR35. ®

The UK government opposed a proposal to make air traffic control provider NATS reimburse airlines for passenger compensation arising from its failures, weeks before a massive tech glitch led to 2,000 flight cancellations. During a House of Commons debate, Liberal Democrat MP Luke Taylor pointed out that the government had opposed the amendment in the months before this week's computer outage, which disrupted travel for around 330,000 passengers. The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) told affected passengers: "We consider that disruption caused by the NATS outage is likely to be considered the result of 'extraordinary circumstances' under passenger rights rules. "This means that although passengers should be looked after by airlines, they are unlikely to be entitled to compensation for delays or cancellations that were directly caused by the incident." NATS is a public-private partnership in which the government owns 49 percent and a consortium of airlines holds 42 percent. Computer outages have hit the organization three times in three years, beginning with an August 2023 failure that disrupted hundreds of thousands of passengers. NATS said it had fixed the latest technical problem, but warned that the resulting disruption could continue for several days. Taylor told MPs that after earlier NATS computer problems, the government said it had been assured that "NATS took the necessary steps to prevent a recurrence of those particular circumstances." He explained that while the Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill was passing through the House of Lords, Lord Young of Cookham had proposed an amendment that would require NATS to reimburse airlines for compensation paid to passengers following cancellations caused by its failures. The government opposed the amendment, which Lord Young subsequently withdrew. Taylor quoted the government's earlier response that it had been "able to place considerable pressure on" NATS. Taylor told MPs: "Following the third major failure of our airspace management in the past three years, it is imperative that this Bill is amended to include measures to stop that happening again. NATS is quite clearly not fit for purpose. We cannot suffer a major air traffic outage once a year." Also speaking in the debate, transport secretary Heidi Alexander said she had asked the CAA to conduct an independent review into the cause of the failure and report within six months. NATS was also ordered to give the CAA an initial account of the failure within a week. The minister told MPs that she did "not believe this issue was unavoidable." In a statement yesterday, NATS said: "Our operations are stable and we continue to work closely with airlines and airports to support their recovery from the ongoing disruption to their operations. We would also like to reiterate our apology to all those affected – passengers, airlines and airports – by our system issue. While our immediate focus is on safely managing today's flights, a full investigation will be conducted to establish what happened and identify any further action needed." Ryanair, meanwhile, called for NATS CEO Martin Rolfe to resign after "yet another UK ATC system failure caused widespread delays and cancellations across UK airspace… disrupting over 65,000 Ryanair passengers and cancelling over 50 scheduled flights." Wizz Air said in a statement that it was "extremely disappointed that another NATS technical failure has caused widespread disruption across the UK aviation network. Passengers are once again facing delays and cancellations because of a failure entirely outside airlines' control." It added: "This is not the first time NATS has failed during a peak summer period, and here we go again. A critical national infrastructure provider should not repeatedly bring the aviation system to a standstill." ®

The UK government has told MPs that Fujitsu has promised not to pursue contracts with new public sector customers through frameworks potentially worth billions of pounds while its voluntary bidding moratorium remains in place. In July, The Register revealed that the Japanese supplier had won a place on a UK government framework worth up to £14.9 billion despite its role in the Post Office Horizon scandal, one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in modern times. The supplier's place on the Digital Outcomes and Specialists 7 (DOS7) framework came after it won spots on two other frameworks, including Technology Services 4, worth up to £19.08 billion, and Transport Technology worth around £2.3 billion. In January 2024, Fujitsu voluntarily committed to stop bidding for contracts with new government customers until the public inquiry into the Horizon scandal had concluded. After Fujitsu secured places on the three government frameworks, House of Commons Business and Trade Committee chair Liam Byrne wrote to the government seeking assurance that the company would not use them to pursue work from new public sector customers. He also asked what discussions the government had held with Fujitsu about its participation and compliance with the moratorium. Horizon is an EPOS and back-end finance system that was first implemented in the 1990s by ICL, a UK tech firm majority-owned by Fujitsu at the time and fully acquired in 1998. It has since undergone two upgrades. Between 1999 and 2015, the Post Office prosecuted 700 subpostmasters in cases in which Horizon evidence may have featured, while almost 300 more cases were brought by other bodies. Hundreds were wrongfully convicted, devastating lives in the process. A statutory inquiry into the scandal was launched in 2021 and remains ongoing. The inquiry's first report said the families of at least 13 people believed their deaths by suicide were linked to their experiences with Horizon and the Post Office. Fujitsu has apologized for its role in the scandal. Frameworks are procurement vehicles that let public bodies buy from pre-approved suppliers under agreed terms, although a place on one does not guarantee any work. The Government Commercial Agency (GCA) – which replaced the Crown Commercial Service – is the Cabinet Office agency that manages the framework and receives a 1 percent levy on sales made through it. In a letter published this week, Cabinet Office Parliamentary Secretary Mark Ferguson said: "While appointment to a GCA framework, such as DOS7, places a supplier on a list of approved providers, Fujitsu has assured the GCA that its voluntary moratorium fully applies to call-off contract opportunities that arise via its participation on GCA frameworks. Consequently, inclusion on a framework does not override Fujitsu's commitment not to seek work with new public sector customers." He added that the GCA monitors Fujitsu's compliance with its self-imposed bidding restrictions and that agency officials were in regular contact with the company to oversee its framework activity. "To date, GCA can confirm that Fujitsu have kept to these self-imposed restrictions," Ferguson wrote. In April 2025, The Register revealed that Fujitsu had won a £125 million contract to build Northern Ireland's new land registry system for the Department of Finance, a new government customer, more than a year after its voluntary moratorium came into effect. At the time, a spokesperson for Fujitsu told The Register: "Fujitsu was named preferred bidder for this contract in 2023, before the voluntary restrictions came into place." Fujitsu's 2024 letter said the company would assess its continued involvement in procurements that were already underway when the moratorium began. However, it also said Fujitsu would bid for work with a new government customer only if asked to do so. Fujitsu said it had been named preferred bidder for the Northern Ireland contract before introducing the restrictions. The Northern Ireland government subsequently confirmed to The Register that it had not asked the company to continue bidding. Ferguson's letter does not explain how that award was reconciled with Fujitsu's undertaking. The Register has asked the Cabinet Office for clarification. ®

One of the few proven use cases for generative AI is automating customer service inquiries to reduce costs even further than it’s been possible to achieve by offshoring jobs to low-wage companies like the Philippines – which yesterday bet that its outsourcing industry will thrive even as it plans a massive investment in AI. The nation’s government yesterday delivered the PAIIM – aka the Philippines AI+ Infrastructure Masterplan [PDF], a policy that calls for $34.4 billion of investment in infrastructure, connectivity, and datacenters. Current government programs and private investments dedicated to funding network and energy spending already cover $18.2 billion of the planned spend. The government hopes the remainder “will be mobilized through targeted public investment and private sector participation, particularly for hyperscale AI datacenter infrastructure.” The plan assumes private enterprise will invest $21 billion of the total spend. The likes of Amazon, Google and Microsoft currently spend roughly $20 billion on AI infrastructure each quarter. Chinese clouds also expect to spend tens of billions each year. The Philippines is bidding for less than a month of their combined spending to fuel its national plan. The Philippines’ government nonetheless thinks this plan will turn the nation into a regional AI hub and see the national datacenter fleet surge from today’s 50MW to 1.5 GW by 2033, and for the new bit barns to house around 152,000 GPUs. Again, these are small numbers: American and Chinese AI players have committed to acquire and operate millions of GPUs that require multiple gigawatts of energy. Government officials said the plan means the Philippines can compete with regional competitors Singapore and Thailand. They didn’t mention nearby Malaysia, where the Johor datacenter province already has almost 4GW of datacenter projects in place, with similar capacity in the planning and construction pipeline. Citizens have been told that the plan will see over 1.3 million professionals receive training on how to use AI, and will generate half a million AI-related jobs – 175,000 of them working on AI infrastructure projects. “These investments will further produce spillover benefits such as improved public service delivery, greater international connectivity for all businesses, and enhanced cybersecurity and data governance frameworks in line with global best practices,” the plan promises. Those outcomes are made possible, the plan suggests, by the fact that the nation already has a million-strong tech workforce – including its outsourcing industry that will apparently both make the AI plan possible and benefit from it. “PAIIM does not position AI as a replacement for the Philippine IT-BPM industry;” the policy document states. “Rather, it enables the sector to move up the value chain by using AI for first-level, repetitive, and data-intensive interactions while empowering Filipino workers to handle complex, empathy-driven, and higher-value customer experience functions.” That’s a very old assumption about the impact of automation on customer service. Yet the Philippines owes the existence of its business process outsourcing industry to the fact that automation alone didn’t drive down the cost of customer service to levels that some businesses were willing to pay. And AI will likely enable even more automation at even lower costs. ®

Britain's publicly owned energy system operator has awarded Palantir a £21.2 million contract without competition, extending a relationship that began under private ownership three years earlier. The National Energy System Operator (NESO) handed the US spy-tech firm the £17.7 million contract – £21.2 million including VAT – to continue licensing and supporting two "critical business processes," Connections and Skip Rates, running on its Foundry platform. NESO said it was preparing a competitive procurement for a replacement platform but needed to continue working with Palantir in the meantime to avoid disruption to customer-facing services and regulatory obligations. "A contract will be put in place to enable continuity of the existing critical platform services whilst a competitive procurement is undertaken," a tender notice said. The organization has already begun sounding out potential suppliers. "Palantir possesses the specialist knowledge, technical expertise and the system knowledge required to maintain and support the solution effectively," the notice said. The Financial Times reported that the original contract began in March 2023 but was not publicly disclosed. NESO said it was part of National Grid at the time and therefore did not publish the contract award notice. A NESO spokesperson told us: "Palantir has supported both connections and skip rates since the original contract was put in place by National Grid ESO in March 2023 and transferred to NESO at separation from National Grid and, while this extension provides continuity of these services as NESO develops procures any long-term solution through a competitive procurement process, it does not determine the future supplier of these services." Palantir told The Reg: “We’re proud to be supporting Neso’s efforts to improve energy efficiency, drive down costs and transition to net zero.” The new contract is due to run from September 8, 2026, until July 31, 2027, with six-month extensions available until July 31, 2028. "Due to the complexity of legacy data structures and potential security, data quality, or regulatory compliance issues, the data modelling process may encounter unforeseen challenges. Should these risks materialize and impact data integrity, security, regulatory compliance and/or the successful transition of services, the contract may be modified, including to extend the transition timeline," the notice said. NESO was established under the Energy Act 2023 as an operationally independent public corporation responsible for coordinating and planning Great Britain's electricity and gas systems. It is wholly owned by the government but funded through regulated industry charges. According to a "preliminary market engagement notice," it has begun discussions with suppliers about a new Strategic Enterprise Modelling Capability. The proposed platform would provide enterprise-wide modeling, decision support, audit trails showing how source data informed decisions, and tools for comparing scenarios. The notice, published last month, also mentions "AI-enabled innovation." The resulting contract is expected to begin on July 31, 2027, and run until July 2032, with a possible two-year extension. The procurement path has echoes of Palantir's route to the NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP). Following a competitive process, the company won the principal contract, worth up to £330 million ($412 million), while several consultancies secured related awards. That award followed £60 million in contracts handed to the US company during and after the pandemic, some without competition. Critics argued that Palantir's incumbency allowed it to influence the later procurement and gave it an unfair advantage. The NHS maintained that the FDP competition was fair and open. ®

The UK government has considered the evidence and concluded that it spends far too much time considering the evidence. In a letter sent to all ministers on Monday, Chancellor John Healey, First Secretary of State Louise Haigh, and Attorney General Ellie Reeves said "consultation culture" had become an "industry of dither and delay" and told departments that the default should be to make a decision and get on with it. The ministers argued that formal consultations too often fail to reach those with the most relevant perspectives and can drag policies towards a "lowest common denominator outcome." The proposed cure is fewer formal consultations. These should generally take place only when legally required, when not holding one would be "conspicuously unfair," or when ministers decide there is a good reason to seek outside input that way. Previous promises to consult aren't necessarily safe either. Departments have been told to consider each case afresh rather than assume that past consultations or commitments require another. The government also wants to start removing what it says are thousands of unnecessary consultation and reporting requirements from the statute book. Its starting position is that these requirements should be repealed and retained "only by exception," with departments asked to look for opportunities to bin them through legislation already in the works. This is separate from Whitehall's other effort to wean itself off consultants, although the timing invites comparison. The government promised in 2024 to tighten controls on consultancy spending and deliver annual savings of £1.2 billion by 2026. As The Register reported in July, that didn't stop the Home Office from awarding Deloitte and PA Consulting contracts worth up to £200 million and £150 million respectively for data and analytics services. The National Audit Office also warned last year that the Treasury lacked comprehensive data on consultancy spending, while Parliament's Public Accounts Committee said in March that departments weren't complying with Cabinet Office controls designed to rein it in. Consultations aren't consultancies, of course. One involves asking interested parties what they think before making policy; the other can involve paying them rather a lot of money for their advice. Whitehall appears keen to cut down on both. The new drive doesn't stop at consultation. Ministers are also being encouraged to accept a higher risk of legal challenge when pushing ahead with policy. The letter says that where there is a "tenable legal argument," ministers can choose to proceed even when government lawyers assess the legal risk as high. Guidance for government lawyers is due to be updated this week to make that explicit. Judicial review is getting attention too. The government wants to extend reforms limiting challenges to nationally significant infrastructure projects beyond energy schemes to transport, water, and other major developments. Having identified consultation, legal caution, and judicial review as obstacles, Whitehall will now begin the traditionally straightforward business of changing Whitehall. ®

The UK government has corralled £7.8 billion of cross-departmental spending into a new space strategy intended to boost growth and national security through to 2030. The package covers orbital collision warnings, low Earth orbit communications, military intelligence, launch capabilities, and space science. The strategy brings together activity across government, including the newly created Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BIST), the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the Department for Transport, UK Research and Innovation, and the Met Office. The government says the domestic space sector is worth £18.6 billion and supports more than 55,000 skilled jobs. In a prepared statement, BIST Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said space was becoming a new frontier of economic and military competition. "This plan will help keep Britain secure by strengthening our ability to launch satellites, detect threats and protect the services people rely on every day. At the same time, this plan will enable our excellent UK industry to seize the boundless opportunities of this new age in space, creating skilled jobs, driving growth and improving connectivity for all of us." The plans include work to strengthen space domain awareness – tracking and analyzing satellites, rockets, and debris in orbit – backed by £149 million for European Space Agency (ESA) space safety work, including the Vigil mission, and £85 million for the National Space Operations Centre. The funding is intended to improve warnings of potential satellite collisions, hostile activity, and solar storms, helping protect power, communications, and navigation services. The government has also allocated £880 million during this Parliament to space control and space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities. The investment is intended to help track military activity on the ground, identify potential attacks on satellites, and protect British assets in orbit. The strategy also identifies £2.8 billion for satellite connectivity, including the Connectivity in Low Earth Orbit program and the military's SKYNET communications system. Funding of up to £160 million through March 2030 has already been announced for the UK Space Agency's Connectivity in Low Earth Orbit (C-LEO) program, helping British companies and researchers develop satellite communications technology. The strategy also puts £40 million towards technology for servicing, assembling, and manufacturing equipment in orbit. The government says this could support everything from repairing satellites and clearing debris to producing semiconductors and pharmaceuticals in space. Another £148 million is allocated to European rocket programs, while SaxaVord Spaceport in Shetland is set to receive £30 million, subject to due diligence. A further £163 million will go toward space science and exploration missions, including delivery of the UK-built Rosalind Franklin Mars rover. The package also includes £57 million to improve rail connectivity, £190 million for astronomy and space science research, and £9 million to strengthen space weather forecasting. The government also plans to adopt a single approach to buying and developing space technology, beginning with satellite communications, in an effort to steer more work towards British suppliers, accelerate delivery, and secure better value for taxpayers. In July, the government's projects authority sounded the alarm over progress on Skynet 6, the £8.35 billion program to upgrade the military's satellite communications. The National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) gave Skynet 6 a red rating, meaning "successful delivery of the project appears to be unachievable" in its current form. Confidence had fallen from last year's amber rating because department-wide recruitment and resourcing constraints had created workforce shortages, while "sub-par supplier performance continues to delay delivery of the first SKYNET 6 satellite," the report said. The new document formally replaces the UK's 2021 National Space Strategy, which a House of Lords report warned last year had failed to turn its ambitions into reality. "The UK space sector lacks the strategic direction necessary for success," it said. ®

Matt Clifford is stepping down as chair of the UK's taxpayer-funded Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), just days after saying he intended to keep the job while working for AI giant Anthropic. Clifford, one of the architects of the UK government's AI strategy, said in a LinkedIn post on Monday that he would leave ARIA, less than a week after his appointment as Anthropic's managing director of international affairs prompted warnings of a "clear conflict of interest." "Having completed my first full term last month, I have decided to step down to ensure my new role at Anthropic doesn't become a distraction from ARIA's incredible work," he said. The decision reverses the position outlined when Anthropic announced Clifford's appointment as managing director of international affairs last week. At the time, he intended to remain as ARIA chair, with safeguards put in place to manage potential conflicts between the two roles. He said the Secretary of State had asked him to remain until November 6 while a new chair is appointed, and that he had agreed to do so "with appropriate safeguards against potential conflicts in place." The overlap between the roles had already attracted scrutiny in Parliament. Dame Chi Onwurah, Labour MP and chair of the House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, warned last week that Clifford's plan to retain the ARIA role while working for Anthropic created a "clear conflict of interest." ARIA invests taxpayer money in high-risk scientific and technological research, including AI-related work. At Anthropic, Clifford will lead the company's engagement with governments outside North America. Onwurah welcomed Clifford's decision on Monday but said questions remained about how the original arrangement was approved. "It's right that the conflict of interest between the taxpayer funded ARIA and Anthropic has been addressed through Matt Clifford's decision to step down as ARIA's Chair," she said. "However, important questions remain. Last week, I wrote to the government seeking clarity on how this situation arose, what conflict of interest assessments were undertaken and what safeguards are in place to protect confidence in ARIA's governance. I expect a detailed response in the upcoming weeks." Clifford has become an influential figure in UK AI policy. As well as chairing ARIA, he helped establish the Frontier AI Taskforce, which later became the AI Security Institute, worked on the UK's 2023 AI Safety Summit, and wrote the government's AI Opportunities Action Plan. ®

Around 80 percent of UK teachers now regularly use AI in their work, although the minority say it has cut their hours. Research from YouGov shows that AI use among teachers has doubled in the past year. Among those who use it, just over half (51 percent) said it had reduced their workload, but only around a third (35 percent) said they were working fewer hours as a result, according to the poll of 1,033 teachers by YouGov. Although some time was saved with AI, that was more than made up for with demand to complete other tasks, resulting in 55 percent of teachers who say they use AI working the same hours as before, and 4 percent saying they work more. In April, the UK government launched a £23 million trial program for AI and educational technology it hoped would boost results and cut teachers' workloads. Many teachers work more than 50 hours a week, which is higher than contractual limits. But the YouGov survey — funded by education technology exhibition Bett — found reduced working hours do not necessarily follow from increased use of AI. Teachers said they were using AI across a spread of tasks: 76 percent to build lesson plans and worksheets, and around 39 percent to draft letters and emails to parents or write pupil reports. However, only 8 percent said they use AI to mark or grade pupils’ work. AI is not just for teachers, though. Pupils are using it too, and 71 percent of secondary school teachers (pupil-age 11-16 years) said AI had made it easier for children to cheat and get away with it. Fifty-seven percent of secondary teachers suspected at least one pupil of handing in AI-assisted work without permission in the prior four weeks, the report found. The research comes amid broader concerns about the effectiveness of AI across the economy. Despite the layoffs associated with AI in some tech companies, a study from the Atlanta Federal Reserve study found that about 90 percent of executives believe AI is yet to improve productivity in their organizations. ®

The Tories have pledged to tear up the requirement in the Equality Act for public-sector bodies to promote equality and diversity following the murder of Henry Nowak.

The post Tories Pledge to Scrap Diversity Rule After Nowak Murder appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

The first thing a future anti-woke UK government should cut is the billions spent on useless Left-wing research, says Charlotte Gill. For starters, here are 10 studies funded by UKRI's Future Leaders Fellowships.

The post Ten Expensive and Woke Studies Funded by the Government’s UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.