The Department told us that the reason it had yet to sign any new gigabit infrastructure contracts was largely that commercial operators hadaccelerated their plans for expanding gigabit coverage very rapidly. It explained that this has meant that it needed to re-plan on the basis that the private sector has picked up more than was originally expected. The Department informed us that it wanted to ensure that taxpayer money was not wasted, and that public funding was used only when absolutely needed.37 The Department told us that the level of change in commercial operators and the market in the last year had been unprecedented and that it did not expect in future to have to re-plan to the degree that it has in the past 12 months.38