Maude will add: "Technical standards for document formats may not sound like the first shot in a revolution.

"But be in no doubt: the adoption of compulsory standards in government threatens to break open Whitehall's lock-in to proprietary formats. In turn we will open the door for a host of other software providers." Maude will also hail changes designed to increase the number of small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) winning public sector contracts.
"In the civil service there was a sense that if you hired a big multi-national, who everyone knew the name of, you'd never be fired.

"We weren't just missing out on innovation, we were paying top dollar for yesterday's technology.

"One great example of the potential from small businesses was when we re-tendered a hosting contract.

"The incumbent big supplier bid £4m; a UK-based small business offered to do it for £60,000.

"We saved taxpayers a whopping 98.5%. I don't think we can make savings of that scale everywhere but hard-working people expect us to try as hard as we possibly can."

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