Philip Virgo Quotations

Big Bang contracts nearly always end in tears. You hardly ever make any money out of them. Whereas with the incremental growth path, some of that business is incredibly profitable.

Except for those who have got skills that are in short supply, such as project management, business understanding and multimedia skills, we will see a permanent shrinking in demand. If it can be moved offshore it is moved offshore.

The solution is to limit public sector ambition to that which can be reliably delivered given the human beings available and rebuild the available UK skills base, including user management and information systems - because technology is rarely the problem.

The big raids will be for project management staff so you need to ensure these staff are content and that means providing clear career paths and training opportunities. Many firms haven't been doing this because over the past few years they haven't felt the need to, but that is going to change with all these public sector projects.

This makes updating workforce skills particularly important. People really need to have their skills fine-tuned to have skills that are in demand and match those available overseas.

If firms were training people in the higher-value management skills, it would not be quite so bad, but we are not.

The UK could face a digital winter of discontent during the run-up to the next general election.