As reported by the BBC, the UK government spends £2.3bn every year on keeping old technology chugging along.

While it spends £4.7bn altogether on IT across all departments, almost half of that goes to patching up systems – some of which date back three decades.

The Cabinet Office has stated that it’s taking action to reduce the reliance on outdated technology.

A report that the Office published warns that the spend on obsolete systems over the next five years could each £13bn to £22bn.

Some service, the report says, ‘fail to meet even the minimum cyber-security standards’.

The Home Office spends the most on IT, compared to other government departments, but still relies on 12 legacy systems. Attempts to retire them have repeatedly failed.

The report also reveals that the performance of government systems isn’t being monitored effectively.

A performance management system was implemented nine years ago, but is not only obsolete now, but it soon fell into disuse.

Commenting on the report, Labour’s Shadow Cabinet Office minister Fleur Anderson said Michael Gove had “created a culture of waste and inefficiency”.

“It is unacceptable that taxpayers’ money is being pumped into failing and outdated infrastructure.

“Keeping old and broken systems going is what this Conservative government does best. They desperately need an upgrade.”

A Cabinet Office spokesman said the government had accepted the report’s recommendations in full.

“We are reducing our reliance on legacy IT, moving away from costly, insecure and unreliable technology and laying the foundations for future digital transformation.”