Poor information management is costing the UK economy a total of £67 billion a year, it has been claimed.

Research by Capgemini UK found that a "broken information culture" is rife in the Britain and costs the private sector £46 billion in profits and the public sector £21 billion in administrative costs.

Commenting on the findings, Ramesh Harji, head of information exploitation at the firm, said: "We found C-level executives freely admitting failings in their organisational information culture.

"Failure to properly exploit information is keeping Britain’s bosses in the dark and affecting our international competitiveness."

He added that firms must begin to value information as an asset as well as ensuring that IT investment actively enhances the information culture in a company and is not just a short-term fixed.

Last month, the Cranfield School of Management claimed that IT investment is vital if small firms are to be competitive.

A recent Connect survey found that the two major concerns about outsourcing services like IT support were 'loss of control' (56 per cent) and 'budget over-runs' (43 per cent).