Hague promises a techno government

A marketplace-style e-procurement system would force government suppliers to cut prices as they bid for contracts.

Much of the saving would also come from cutting the cost of government buying. For example, it currently costs the Ministry of Defence £70 to buy a single nut and bolt, as each individual purchase costs £68 to administer and organise.

The announcements came as the Tory Party launched a mini-manifesto at the London offices of a B2B marketplace software company.

However, the Tory Party was not prepared to commit to achieving this £8bn saving, which includes possible savings across the entire public sector, including the NHS.

In fact, today's announcement is very short on concrete targets. It pledges to "set new objectives" for e-government, based on "quality, take-up and cost reduction", but party spokesmen refused to be drawn on what those targets would be.

Their only commitment was to pledge to reduce the cost of government by ten per cent over three years.

At the same time, shadow Cabinet Office minister Andrew Lansley attacked the current government's method of setting targets for the electronic delivery of public services.

"Their targets are defined in ways which make it very easy for government departments to meet them," he said. "Many governments were able to say that they complied with interim targets without making any changes at all."

The report called for greater involvement of the public sector. It also called for local government to be the principal e-government delivery channel, despite some well publicised IT nightmares within various London boroughs, especially Hackney.

Today's announcement is the latest in a long-running campaign by the Tory party to paint itself as the natural political home for the IT community - a campaign which has been short on specifics.

However, the Conservative Party has won some plaudits from parts of the IT world with its pledge to repeal the controversial IR35 tax rules, and more recently its promise of a more favourable tax regime for share options.