DOGE cut federal IT contracts. Don’t count on the government to pick up the slack

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has wrapped up its cuts to federal job roles and completed its push against consulting firms. Next on the list: IT service providers supplying systems and services to federal agencies.

Following a directive from DOGE, the General Services Administration (GSA) sent letters to Dell, CDW, and other IT vendors, asking for evidence that their contract pricing is competitive and that their services can’t be performed by government employees. The GSA argues that federal tech needs are often less complex than what vendors deliver, and not everything needs to be outsourced.

The move marks a shift toward bringing more digital services in-house. “I’m fully in alignment with the need to in-house government capacity and government services,” says Merici Vinton, a former U.S. Digital Service official. But, Vinton adds, “with the situation right now, I have not seen DOGE build anything or actually do anything in-house.” DOGE may have ambitious goals, but a working model could come from an unexpected source: one of former DOGE chief Elon Musk’s least-favorite countries: the U.K.

Before 2010, the U.K. government’s digital services were fragmented. A 2010 report recommended a unified online platform. Two years later, the beta version of GOV.UK launched and has since won multiple awards. “Digital is a core function of a modern state,” says Richard Pope, author of Platformland and one of the original architects of GOV.UK. “That’s as true now as it was in the 2010s when GOV.UK was built by an in-house GDS team.”

It’s a model the U.S. could follow. Whether it will is another question. Ann Kempster, a U.K. consultant with experience delivering digital services both inside and outside of government, notes that while DOGE wants to mirror the U.K. model, it also laid off the very staff who could have made it work. “They had things like the U.S. Digital Service and 18F, the internal consultancy, that were born out of Government Digital Service and all of the work that we did here [in the U.K.],” she says. Both teams were early casualties of DOGE’s cost-cutting. “They had that expertise in house, and they sacked them all. You have to wonder why they’ve done that.”

A recent report from the Niskanen Center, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, echoes that concern, advising against slashing consulting contracts without first ensuring adequate in-house expertise.

The U.S. is hardly alone in rethinking digital public services. “It’s a pattern that’s visible around the world,” says Pope, “from India and Ukraine, who have been investing heavily in digital public infrastructure, to Germany and South Africa, who have recently announced similar efforts to build state digital capacity.”

Having governments, not outside vendors, build and maintain digital infrastructure is not just smart policy, Pope argues; it’s essential. “To outsource digital public services and infrastructure—things like data exchange, welfare systems, and healthcare—is to outsource the capacity to govern.”

Vinton shares that concern, pointing to the federal government’s deep reliance on contractors. “The vast majority of systems are built, run, and maintained by vendors,” she says. “I think that is a threat to our government capacity, our national security, and our economic security.” Still, she cautions, bringing services in-house won’t work unless the government builds the teams to do it well.

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