Councils are paying too much for IT products, research suggests

The annual IT margins survey found that on average local authorities pay 21 per cent above the trade price for IT products, with some town halls spending as much as 323 per cent more than the industry standard.

The Society of IT Managers suggests that margins should exceed no more than three per cent of the trade price.

Al Nagar, head of benchmarking at KnowledgeBus, said: “The size of some of the margins is a concern. In all likelihood these will be products that fall below the scrutiny radar - the one-off or low volume purchases, which may be a distress item or spontaneous buy. They may also be smaller items like extension cables, USB flash drives and SD cards.

“The scrutiny of spending on these items cannot be neglected, however, as they often make up a larger than expected percentage of the budget - in some cases as high as 25%.”

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