4 We reviewed the Aspire contract procurement in 2006, two years after HMRC let the contract. HMRC (then the Inland Revenue) had successfully replaced its existing outsourced technology supplier, reducing its expected ICT costs by £1.6 billion compared with costs of continuing the previous contract. We found that performance in the first year of the contract had been acceptable. However, costs increased as HMRC commissioned more work than anticipated. We warned that HMRC could spend over £7 billion, nearly twice the original projections of £3.6 billion to £4.9 billion. We recommended that HMRC closely monitor lifetime contract costs, and ensure it had robust project management arrangements to get the best supplier performance possible.1
5 In this report we examine whether the contract has been effective and economical in meeting HMRC's changing business needs, and HMRC's progress since 2012 to replace it.
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1 Amounts throughout this report have been updated to 2013-14 prices using the GDP deflator.