UK Inquiry Tracker

Lessons learned: competition in public procurement

Public Accounts Committee Closed Inquiry

Opened: 27 Jul 2023 Closed: 8 Mar 2024 Parliament page

The Government is committed to supplier competition in its £259 billion procurement spending, but could deliver significant savings by better understanding how departments use competition in practice. The Committee’s recent reports on Improving the performance of major defence equipment contracts and Local auditor reporting on local government in England highlighted … Read more

18 Recommendations

19 Conclusions

1 Report

1 Oral session

3 Letters

1 Event

Activity timeline 6 events

8 Mar
2024

Report published

Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Sixth report from Session 2023-24

5 Feb
2024

Correspondence

Correspondence from Gareth Rhys Williams CB, Government Chief Commercial Officer and Non-Executive Director, Crown Commercial Service, re C…

29 Jan
2024

Correspondence

Correspondence from Gareth Rhys Williams, Government Chief Commercial Officer, Cabinet Office, re Competition in Public Procurement inquiry…

29 Jan
2024

Correspondence

Correspondence from Dame Meg Hillier, Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts to Gareth Rhys Williams, Chief Executive Officer, re Compet…

13 Dec
2023

Report published

Sixth Report - Competition in public procurement

23 Oct
2023

Oral evidence

Lessons learned: competition in public procurement

Oral evidence sessions 1 session

23 Oct 2023

View on parliament.uk

Lessons learned: competition in public procurement

Gareth Rhys Williams · Crown Commercial Service Simon Tse · Crown Commercial Service Sir Alex Chisholm · Cabinet Office

Reports 1 report · click to expand

Title	HC No.	Published	Items	Response
Sixth Report - Competition in public procurement	HC 385	13 Dec 2023	37	Response document linked

Recommendations & Conclusions

37 results

2 Recommendation

Sixth Report - Competition in publ…

Publish guidance and mechanisms for public authorities to conduct appropriate early supplier engagement.

Public authorities have often not been effective in engaging with markets and potential suppliers, and government has not provided clear guidance on how to meet requirements to treat suppliers equally while best supporting value for money. Departments and other public … Read more Public authorities have often not been effective in engaging with markets and potential suppliers, and government has not provided clear guidance on how to meet requirements to treat suppliers equally while best supporting value for money. Departments and other public bodies often take an overly cautious approach to engagement and are not always clear on how to understand the markets and suppliers they buy from. Engaging with potential suppliers throughout the commercial lifecycle can help departments and other public bodies understand what the markets can provide, while providing suppliers with an opportunity to 6 Competition in public procurement highlight potential innovations and efficiencies they can bring to the contract. Without this engagement, it is harder for departments and other public bodies to craft sufficiently clearly defined requirements that the market is able to provide. Overambitious requirements can reduce competition and distort the market by limiting the potential supplier pool. Particularly deterring smaller businesses that may think they cannot meet the requirements from engaging with public bids. Recommendation 2: The Government Commercial Function and Cabinet Office should set out, as part of its Treasury Minute response, further details explaining the guidance and mechanisms that it has put in place to promote best practice for public authorities to appropriately conduct early engagement, without distorting the market, such as: • carrying out discussion of problems facing the contracting authority, to help identify solutions, or give the market an opportunity to develop solutions to solve the problems. • asking important questions to potential suppliers to allow contracting authorities to refine their requirements and create clearer specifications. • gaining a better understanding of what the market can supply, any contractual constraints and whether the budget, resourcing and timescales are achievable. • raising awareness of the potentia Show less

HM Treasury

Lessons learned: competition in public procurement

Activity timeline 6 events

Oral evidence sessions 1 session

Reports 1 report · click to expand

Recommendations & Conclusions

Publish guidance and mechanisms for public authorities to conduct appropriate early supplier engagement.

Issue a 'Framework Playbook' to guide government buyers on managing framework agreements effectively.

Update Sourcing Playbook to balance socio-economic benefits with SME access to public contracts.

Publish plans for Procurement Act 2023 implementation, costs, and commercial capability development.

Committee heard evidence on government's competitive procurement of goods and services.

Poor quality of government's published contract data reduces transparency and hinders best practice.

Cabinet Office lacks analysis of competition and single bidder trends in major procurement markets.

Existing procurement data is incomplete, hindering effective analysis and comparison by government.

Inconsistent supplier identities in databases hinder procurement, requiring a single unified system.

Significant gaps in public procurement data quality and completeness remain despite ongoing improvements.

Single supplier database will primarily benefit suppliers, particularly SMEs, through cost savings.

Data migration to the single supplier database is manageable but critical for KPI tracking.

Departments inconsistently follow market engagement guidance and are unclear on pre-contract interaction.

Government often fails to adequately understand market capabilities before designing procurement requirements.

Strategic outline business cases serve as crucial intervention points for procurement requirement scrutiny.

DfE awarded single-supplier contract for free school meals without sufficient capacity evidence.

CCS employs sector experts to monitor market competition and identify areas with thin supply.

Non-mandatory use of CCS frameworks hinders competition for government buyers in low-value procurement.

Cabinet Office addresses excessive supplier concentration in critical sectors like defence to improve competition.

Government's increasing reliance on framework agreements doesn't always guarantee best competition.

A proliferation of procurement frameworks exists, with varying quality and insufficient differentiation.

Framework agreements are a significant but not sole government procurement vehicle needing proper utilisation.

Lacking accurate cost-benefit analysis and transparency for direct awards from procurement frameworks.

Government prioritises competition within frameworks, encouraging mini-competitions for optimal pricing outcomes.

Framework contract publishing requirements are currently limited to central government organisations.

Efforts to enhance SME access to frameworks show progress, with dynamic purchasing systems offering future potential.

Government procurement mandates specific supplier requirements to advance broader social and environmental objectives.

Government policy allocates at least ten percent of contract evaluation to social value criteria.

Smaller businesses face significant barriers in tendering due to contract size and guarantee requirements.

Embedding social value in small contracts remains challenging for businesses.

Diverse metrics available to assess public procurement transformation success.

Effective implementation of new Procurement Act requires quality data collection.

Government Commercial College delivers widespread training to public procurement staff.

Departments demonstrate varying success in public procurement and supplier appointment.

Government Commercial Function actively improves departmental performance through workshops and learning.

GCF uses professional standards and assessment centres to enhance commercial staff competence.

Extensive training programme prioritised for implementation of the new Procurement Act.

Correspondence 3 letters