From the outside, having gone from Gov Gateway, to briefly being forced to share my information with a commercial third party in the name of "competition", only to return to Gateway a couple of years later, yeah I can't say the idea fills me with joy
That's because you're not an overpriced tech contractor. We were paying £600-900 a day for people on the previous programme. I assume the current one is paying similar if not more (I'm not there any more - sold my soul to finance).
Having worked on digital identity in government all I can really say is it's an expensive shitshow. The latest attempt is called OneLogin.