Yup. My employer is undertaking a massive IT project (many many many millions of USD), and it's my understanding that training accounts for over half of the budget.
It doesn't mean you should pay, or plan, to spend 20,000 man hours in meetings and devote huge chunks of your budget to expensive licenses for something that could take 200 man hours, especially when it's taxpayers money.
Sure there are unavoidable overheads but why does our government keep splashing billions on them and failing, with little accountability?
Training is going to be expensive, sure, but perhaps plow millions of pounds into that after the program is finished. Maybe don't use the same massive, costly consultancies that fail to deliver? The Obamacare website was a great example of this IMO. Costly consultancy failed to deliver, small agile teams brought in to save the day - if only a bit too late.
Here is the simplest example. Say you need a device that does X. Now, I can go down to the local hardware store and pick up a device that does X (and Y and Z) for $40. But the law is written so that I can't just buy it where I want, because I might be wasteful and I might buy it from my buddy. So instead, I have to put out a bid that says I want a device that can do X and only select whom ever wins a bid. But there are a lot of regulations in who can bid, so the local hardware store doesn't ever even try. So I say I want a device that does X, and I end up getting a couple offers, the best of which is a device that barely does X for $200. That is the best offer I receive, so I have to take it. So now I have a much worse device at a much higher cost. Now, multiply this with every single thing you need to pay for in a software project (including other software, licenses, hardware, manpower, even the paper to print specs on).
OK, after we did the bid, and that's the result, why can't i just go buy something if it's less than half the price ? even if i buy it from my buddy, as long as it fits ?
That's the theory anyway.
*I know UC is British and while I suspect they have similar constraints I won't swear to it.
Which, IMO, are extremely important investments in any 20,000-developer undertaking. Valve Software is famous for having a relatively flat hierarchy, but they also have ~330 employees.
Just because one team of developers could do something in 200 man hours doesn't mean you can't spend and bill 2000 for it.
And that's just development. Data migrations and user training/support are going to be massive issues if you replace or newly introduce a widely used system.