Government wants public spending to back British business, but the French supplier could remain at the tax collector until 2036.
When Andy Burnham became Prime Minister in July, he said in his first speech that public procurement would "back British industry."
The relationship between His Majesty's Revenue & Customs and Capgemini shows the scale of that challenge.
The Register worked with Otnox to analyze HMRC's published transactions above £25,000. The records show that HMRC paid Capgemini at least £4.2 billion across 15,726 transactions between 2014 and July 2026.
Aspire began in 2004 as a ten-year contract with Capgemini as the prime supplier, but HMRC later extended it to June 2017. The arrangement accounted for about 84 percent of HMRC's technology spending between April 2006 and March 2014.
In 2016, the National Audit Office said Aspire provided stable but expensive IT systems.
When HMRC appeared before MPs in March 2015, it said it planned to replace Aspire in phases rather than extend it. Yet agreements announced in August 2015 and March 2016 kept some Aspire services running beyond the contract's June 2017 end date.
In 2020, HMRC launched its Technology Sourcing Programme, promising to open its £900 million annual IT budget to a broader range of suppliers.
In August this year, Capgemini won a £200 million, five-year contract to migrate and decommission HMRC's legacy data warehouses.
In January 2022, Capgemini signed a £51 million agreement to continue supporting tax systems developed under Aspire.
In May 2024, HMRC awarded Capgemini another contract worth up to £245.5 million to keep legacy systems running.