It’s little wonder that, with global security high on the agenda, the UK defence budget is set to increase from £29.7 billion in 2004/05 to £33.4bn in 2007/08. In real terms (after inflation) this represents average annual growth of 1.4 per cent and will amount to the UK’s longest period of sustained real term growth in planned defence spending.
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In the four years since top civil servant Gus O’Donnell, then permanent secretary at the Treasury, concluded that merging the former Inland Revenue with Customs & Excise would create a more efficient and effective tax collection and enforcement organisation, Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has faced a multitude of supplier and management-related IT challenges.
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The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), the UK’s second largest banking group, in line with other players in the market, saw its profits rise again this year. It reported a pre-tax profit of £9.2 billion, 16 per cent up on figures last year.
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BT’s IT function has had an impressive 12 months. It has ‘upskilled’ more than 5,000 IT professionals, so that now 3,100 are engaged in customer-facing, revenue-generating work rather than internal IT projects. It has also achieved a first-time, net reduction in the systems estate, savings of approximately 19 per cent in unit costs two years in a row, while simultaneously tripling its output, and doubling its delivery speed.
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The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) pays out £115 billion a year to more than 26 million customers. While its IT systems may not always have been in the spotlight for all the right reasons this past year, the department headed by Joe Harley has certainly been central to some major changes.
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With its market now open to competition, the last year was a bit strange for the Royal Mail Group business but in IT terms it was pretty good, according to its group technology director David Burden. “We still managed to cut 10 per cent from our costs, while at the same time absorbing a range of new technologies and systems,” he says.
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Lloyds TSB is currently the fifth largest banking group in the UK, operating in England and Wales as Lloyds TSB; and in Scotland as Lloyds TSB Scotland. Its other subsidiaries include the mortgage bank Cheltenham & Gloucester; life assurance company Scottish Widows; and finance house Blackhorse.
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HBOS is the UK’s largest mortgage and savings provider and the number one provider of new investment products. It provides retail, business and corporate banking, and insurance and investment services through its multi-brand strategy in the UK and internationally.
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Anglo-Dutch consumer goods giant Unilever produces 400 brands in 14 categories of food, home and personal care products. It operates in nearly 100 countries, has 365 manufacturing sites, and employs more than 220,000 people.
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BP is one of the largest integrated oil companies in the world, with an estimated global market share of around three per cent of oil and gas production and four per cent of refining capacity in the major global markets in which it operates.
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