Government's approach to technology suppliers: addressing the challenges

In view of government?s decision to locate responsibility for the digital centre in DSIT, to provide effective leadership for government?s digital commercial activities, the digital centre, GCF and CCS should consider who should take responsibility for addressing the issues in this report and the recommendations below: a) decide who should take ownership of the strategic relationship with suppliers and responsibility for collecting and analysing data about government?s overall digital commercial activities, ensuring clarity on what is done centrally to gather demand and supply data, assessing the demand pipeline against supplier capacity and evaluating what that means for government?s use of suppliers;

b) produce a sourcing strategy including how government is better able to maximise its ability to negotiate with ?big tech? and strategic suppliers;

e) address recruitment shortfalls and develop a plan to better equip and train decision-makers with responsibility for initiating digital commercial and contracting. This should include education on legacy data and systems, the importance of understanding the business requirement at a sufficient level of detail, and the risks of ?build before buy? and of opting for unproven technology.

c) identify what actions it needs to take to secure improvement in governance, processes, guidelines and supplier engagement, to ensure that contracts for different categories of digital activities reflect a planned approach that addresses the business problem to be solved;

d) work with departments to identify what further negotiation levers they would find useful beyond headline volume and pricing agreements. This should include guidance for contracts for digital procurement setting out how best to navigate options and negotiate on aspects such as payment terms and flexibility to ensure that departments are not paying more than necessary;