Eighty Per Cent on Standing Still
A study of how the upkeep of old systems takes most of a public technology budget, from the public record: the US auditor's figures, the UK government's own review, a tax authority that buys its upkeep, the options a public body has, what we would advise against, and the benchmark we would set.
1. At a Glance
Issue study · From the public record. None of the bodies named here was an IOanyT client, and IOanyT had no part in the events described. The cases are a national government, a national authority and one government’s review of its own public bodies, far larger than the departments, municipal bodies, utilities and boards we write for. We found no public record of what an Indian public body, or a body of our readers’ size, spends on upkeep. Each case is reported as the public record gives it, without judgement on any government, body or official.
| Organisation type | The US federal government’s IT spending and the UK government’s review of its public bodies, set beside the position of a mid-size public body whose technology budget is mostly taken by the upkeep of its own applications |
| Size band | The cases: national. Our reader: a state department or directorate, a municipal corporation or council, a public utility, a board or authority, or a public-sector undertaking |
| Region | The cases: US and UK, with one Indian figure on demand for e-services. The reader: anywhere |
| The decision at stake | What to do about upkeep that takes most of the technology budget: keep paying it in full, cut maintenance contracts, build workarounds beside the old systems, or compare the cost of keeping and replacing each application and move the costliest in stages |
| The public outcome | About 80% of the more than 100 billion US dollars the US federal government spends on IT each year goes on running existing systems; in the UK, some bodies spend as much as 70% to 85% of their technology budgets on upkeep |
| Why it matters to a mid-size public body | If national governments spend most of their technology money standing still, a smaller body with fewer people and older contracts is unlikely to be better placed. While upkeep comes first, new services wait for a year with room in it |
2. The Business Problem, in the Buyer’s Words
“Every year the technology page begins with one line: maintenance of existing systems. It is the largest line, and it is passed first because it is committed. I have never been shown what is in it. I cannot say which application costs us most to keep, or what it would cost to leave it. The online service we announced is proposed for next year, again. And two of my people are in the office until two in the morning at every month-end, keeping the billing application going by hand. None of that time is in any budget.”
These words are imagined. They describe the decision as the research shows it, not a real conversation.
The body is caught between a line it must pay and cannot open, and new work it is asked for and cannot fund, because nobody has set the cost of keeping each application beside the cost of leaving it.
3. What We Found
Method. We went through the public record on what governments spend keeping their existing systems running: the US national auditor’s July 2025 report on the most critical federal legacy systems, the UK government’s own review of the state of its digital services (January 2025), an elected councillor’s account of local councils (2025), and an answer given in India’s Parliament in December 2025 on e-services. The sector research behind this study holds no Indian public body and no body of our readers’ size with an upkeep figure.
Most of the money goes on running what exists. The US national auditor reported in July 2025 that about 80% of the more than 100 billion US dollars the federal government spends on IT each year goes on running existing systems. It also put a figure on a named set of systems: the 11 most critical federal legacy systems together cost about 754 million US dollars a year to run, according to the agencies that run them. Some of those systems are written in languages and run on machines that are not IOanyT’s kind of work.
Some bodies spend most of their budgets on upkeep. The UK government’s own review, published in January 2025, found that some bodies spend as much as 70% to 85% of their technology budgets on upkeep. The same review found that “28% of red-rated legacy systems lack remediation funding”: systems rated high risk, paid for every year to keep running, with nothing set aside to fix them.
Upkeep bought from outside. The same review says the UK tax authority “relies heavily on costly third-party services to maintain outdated systems”.
The councils’ view. An elected member of an English council, writing anonymously in 2025, said that budget pressures and competing priorities leave many councils struggling to modernise outdated systems or to recruit skilled security staff. That is one councillor’s account of UK councils, not a survey.
Demand for new services keeps rising. In India, the government told Parliament in December 2025 that “between April 2023 and October 2025, the number of e-services offered by States/UTs increased from 11,614 to 23,919, which is over 105 % growth.” The figures come from the states’ and union territories’ own reports. The answer says nothing about the systems behind those services or what they cost to keep. That upkeep competes with new services for the same money is our reading, not the answer’s.
Our reading of why upkeep takes so much. These four are our reasoning from the record above. None is a finding of any source.
- Nobody can itemise it. Costs are filed by contract, supplier and budget head, not by application, so the line cannot be examined or set against an alternative.
- It is provided for first. Treated as committed, upkeep is funded before anything new, whatever it buys.
- Workarounds add to it. With no room to change an old system, small tools are built beside it, and each becomes one more thing to keep running.
- Much of it is people’s time, and nobody counts it. Releases done by hand, faults fixed at night and the old system explained to each new officer are paid in salaries, under no system’s name, so the applications that take most of a team’s year look cheap.
What this record does not show. None of the bodies is of our readers’ size, and none of the upkeep figures is Indian or from the Middle East. The 80% and the 70% to 85% are shares of spending; the record holds no breakdown of what upkeep consists of. The 754 million US dollars is a total for 11 systems, not a cost per system. The councillor’s words are one person’s view. The Indian figures count e-services reported by states and union territories; they say nothing about which systems are old or whether any service was delayed. We found no figure for the time a body’s own staff spend on upkeep, in any country, and no figure for what any body saved by replacing a system. This study does not claim that any mid-size public body spends the same share, or that replacing a system lowers its costs by any amount.
4. The Options a Body in This Position Had
| Option | When it fits | What it risks | Our view |
|---|---|---|---|
| Keep paying upkeep in full and wait for a larger budget | The old systems are close to retirement, or a larger allocation is already promised | New services keep waiting; the share taken by upkeep does not change by itself | Right only where the systems will soon be retired anyway |
| Cut maintenance contracts to free money | Some contracts cover systems nobody uses, or more than is needed | Cutting cover on a system still in use moves the risk to the public counter, and the money often returns as an emergency purchase | Right for contracts the comparison shows are not needed; wrong as a cut across the board |
| Build workarounds beside the old systems | A need is urgent and small, and changing the old system is out of reach this year | Each workaround is one more thing to keep running; upkeep grows | Right as a bridge with an end date; not as the way out |
| Compare the cost of keeping and replacing each application, highest upkeep first, then move the costliest in stages so its old platform can be retired | The body must make lasting room and show what each system costs to keep and to leave | It costs money before it frees any; for a time the body pays for old and new together; the comparison may show that keeping is cheaper | Our recommendation |
What we would have advised against: for a body in this position, passing the upkeep line each year without asking what is in it; cutting it by a set share across the board, which falls on the cheap and the costly alike; building workaround after workaround beside a system nobody has costed; and promising that a replacement will lower upkeep before anyone has set keeping beside leaving.
5. Our Recommendation, and the Decision It Asks of the Board
For the applications a body built or had built (billing and property tax applications, licence registers, citizen portals, grievance and case-management systems): open the upkeep line by application. Itemise what each one costs to keep, using the body’s own finance section’s figures, and set the time the body’s own staff spend on it beside the invoices. Set the cost of keeping each beside the cost of replacing it, beginning with the applications whose upkeep is highest. Where keeping is cheaper, keep it, and stop waiting for it to change. Where replacing is cheaper over the life of the service, rebuild it one module at a time, beside the old application, with a traceability matrix to prove each module does what the old one did. Plan from the start which old platform the body’s own team will switch off at the end of each stage, and which contracts end with it. Upkeep falls only then. How each stage is bought is the body’s own decision under its own rules.
The decision it asks of the board: approve a fixed-price assessment of the applications that take the largest share of upkeep. Then approve each stage on its own evidence, with the freedom to pause after any accepted module. The body stops passing one line it cannot open, and starts retiring old platforms one stage at a time.
6. Benchmark: Where You Are Now, and Where You Should Be
These are targets, not results. In an engagement the starting points are replaced by the body’s own figures, taken in the first review.
| Measure | Typical starting point | Where it should be | How it is checked |
|---|---|---|---|
| Upkeep of each application | One line, listed by contract and supplier | Itemised for each application, using figures from the body’s own finance section | The cost comparison |
| The body’s own staff time | Not counted | Estimated by the IT section for each application and set beside the invoices | The cost comparison |
| Cost of keeping beside cost of leaving | Not compared | Set side by side for each application, highest upkeep first | The cost comparison |
| What each application does | Known to a few people | Written down and confirmed by the body’s own experts | The specification |
| Old platforms retired | None planned | One old platform retired per stage, by the body’s own team, when its last module has moved | The staged plan and the filled-in benchmark |
| Proof that a stage is done | A go-live date | Each module accepted, every old function linked to its replacement | The traceability matrix |
7. How IOanyT Would Work
- We listen: a free Reliability Review. A first conversation about the upkeep line, the applications behind it and what is waiting for room. You leave with a short written note of what we found. You can start with a conversation about the system; we ask for read-only code access only when the assessment begins.
- We research. We research your sector, the regulator’s position and what the public record says about firms in your situation. This study is an example of that work.
- We read the system and propose: the Legacy System Specification Assessment. Here the system is the set of applications that take the largest share of upkeep. It produces a map of the system as it stands, a written specification of what it does, a risk register, a cost comparison between keeping and replacing the system, and a staged plan with a fixed quote. AI does a first pass, our senior engineers review it and trace it to the code, and your own experts confirm it. Code access is read-only and logged, never used for training, and deleted within 30 days of the evaluation ending unless we engage.
- If you approve, we build. We replace a system one module at a time while the old one keeps running. We never do a single cutover. A traceability matrix links every old function to its replacement. The work is billed by milestone, each milestone tied to a module you accept, and you can pause after any accepted module.
- We review against the benchmark. Before work starts we set the benchmark. After each module we show you where each measure stands, and the filled-in benchmark is yours at the end.
The Review is free. Every paid step is fixed price, agreed at scoping. Stop after any step. The findings are yours. The assessment fee is credited in full against the first build stage if it starts within 90 days of the report.
8. What the Client Would Own
- The map and the specification: each application, what it does and what it stands on, in writing. The body can show it to any supplier.
- The cost comparison: the cost of keeping each application set beside the cost of replacing it, built on the body’s own figures.
- The risk register: the risks of keeping and of moving each application.
- The traceability matrix: for every module IOanyT rebuilds, every old function linked to its replacement, with how it was checked.
- The code: the rebuilt modules are the body’s. No runtime or platform fee.
- The filled-in benchmark: each measure, where it started and where it stands.
Switching off each old platform, and ending the contracts that go with it, is the body’s own team’s step.
9. What This Approach Does Not Cover
- IOanyT does not maintain, monitor, patch or run an old system, does not run releases, and does not take over upkeep.
- IOanyT promises no saving, of money or of time, and gives none as a figure. A replacement costs money before it frees any, and for a time the body pays for old and new together.
- IOanyT does not switch off the old platform. The body’s own team does, and upkeep of that platform stops only then.
- IOanyT is not an accountant or an auditor. The figures for what a body spends come from its own finance section, the staff time from its own IT section, and the comparison is an estimate built on them.
- IOanyT does not supply staff, and does not build the workarounds weighed above.
- IOanyT does not work in COBOL or assembly language or on mainframes.
- IOanyT does not say it is empanelled, registered or approved as a supplier to any government, or that it meets the conditions of any tender. It gives no advice on budget or procurement rules.
- IOanyT has not stated that it delivers on a government cloud or on a body’s own servers.
- This study does not say IOanyT would have prevented or changed anything described. IOanyT has no published case of this work for a public body.
About this study: IOanyT did not work on this case. It is drawn from published findings, cited below.
10. Sources
| Source | Used for |
|---|---|
| US Government Accountability Office, GAO-25-107795, 17 July 2025 | The 80% of federal IT spending; the 754 million US dollars for the 11 most critical systems |
| UK State of Digital Government Review, 21 January 2025 | The 70% to 85% on upkeep; red-rated systems and funding; the tax authority’s reliance on third-party services |
| Prospect, 5 August 2025 | One councillor’s account of councils |
| Lok Sabha, Unstarred Question 1653, 10 December 2025 | E-services offered by states and union territories |
IOanyT is a consultancy with its own engineering team: we study the problem, recommend, and prove it by building only what you approve. We open your upkeep line by application, set keeping beside leaving, and plan each stage so that it ends with an old platform your own team can switch off.
Read the research notes on this issue
Upkeep absorbs the budget
Research note 1
The Largest Line in Your Technology Budget Is the One Nobody Can Explain. Here Is What the Public Record Shows.
Where the total is known, upkeep takes most of a public IT budget, yet its parts rarely are. What we found, four ways to open the line, our benchmark.
Research note 2
Every New Service Waits Because the Budget Is Already Spent on the Old Ones. Four Ways to Make Room, Weighed.
Upkeep is provided for first, so new public services wait. We weigh four ways to make room and explain why we start with a keep-versus-replace cost comparison.
Research note 3
Your Team Spends Its Year Keeping the Old System Alive. Here Is the Benchmark We Would Set.
Invoices are only part of what an old system costs; the rest is staff time nobody counts. Four ways to lighten the year, and the benchmark we would agree.