The UK government is seeking to implement cost-cutting measures which aim to save billions of pounds in public spending, with IT services cited as a key area.

It is understood the government is looking to follow the private sector by making efficiency savings of up to 50 per cent on back office operations and IT services, according to an IT Pro report.

Chief secretary to the treasury Yvette Cooper commented that the taxpayer "has a right to expect value for money".

Leading in the back office and IT areas will be Martin Read, who added: "The private sector has made significant strides forward in this area in recent years and my work will examine the scope for the public sector to benefit from this experience."

Meanwhile, it was reported last week that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has launched a competition for its IT contracts.

IT Pro said the DWP is looking to fill five vacancies, which cover desktop services, datacentre and hosting, voice and data networks, application maintenance and support-integration services.

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)