The days of large IT contracts are over, according to cabinet office minister Francis Maude, who has issued a warning to those in the industry.

The government's biggest IT suppliers should scale down their offerings to the government and approach new deals with a different perspective, he claimed.

Thirty one suppliers were asked to make their projects smaller and open source where possible.

In addition, the companies, which include HP, Accenture, Capita, Fujitsu and IBM should open up to smaller companies, he said.

"You will all have experienced procurements that seemed to go on forever, cost millions of pounds and took countless hours of your employees' time and energy," said Mr Maude.

"I know how frustrating this can be and I can promise you here today that we will do things differently."

This comes after Michael Baxter, editor of InvestmentandBusinessNews.co.uk, said that the UK's failure to switch to the euro could harm economic recovery in the country, which could impact negatively on contractors.