Sixth Report - Competition in public procurement

Select Committee

Public Accounts Committee HC 385 13 December 2023

Report Status Response document linked Recorded deadline: 13 Feb 2024

Missing links do not establish that no response was published. A linked document does not verify responses to individual findings.

Conclusions & Recommendations 37 items (18 recs)

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Government response

Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Sixth report from Session 2023-24 · published 8 Mar 2024

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Recommendations & Conclusions

37 results

2 Recommendation

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

Recommendation

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

Sixth Report - Competition in public procurement

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.