Source · Select Committees · Home Affairs Committee
Recommendation 5
5
Deferred
Institute systematic approach to enhancing Home Office commercial and contract management capability and accountability.
Recommendation
The Home Office should set out plans for enhancing and maintaining its commercial and contract management capability, to ensure that it has the skills and resources necessary to effectively manage the delivery of the contracts and control the costs of asylum accommodation. This essential capability should be embedded as a core function of the department’s operations, with clear accountability to prevent a decline in operational effectiveness over time. The Home Office should institute a consistent and systematic approach to the performance management of its officials and internal capabilities. Given these contracts will continue to cost vast sums of taxpayer money, the Home Office must ensure it acquires the capacity to manage them in a competent way. (Recommendation, Paragraph 44) 96 Oversight of provider performance
Government response summary AI-generated
The government committed to finalising robust amendments to Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for service providers by February 2026, and to incorporating enhanced KPI frameworks into future asylum accommodation contracts. However, this response did not detail plans for enhancing the Home Office's own commercial and contract management capability.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government · verbatim extract
Deferred
The Home Office recognises the critical importance of robust contract management in ensuring value for money and operational effectiveness of its accommodation suppliers. To ensure this remains a core function, we have taken a series of steps to strengthen our approach and embed best practice across the Department. Over the past year, we have invested in expanding our internal operational and commercial contract management capacity, supported by a surge consultancy team, to ensure the teams have the skills and resources needed to manage complexity and control costs. This includes ongoing training and accreditation for contract managers, ensuring recruitment into roles focuses on the qualifications required to deliver the role and all officials working on the contract have the correct level of training with robust procedures in place to monitor. The introduction of clearer accountability frameworks, and the professionalisation of roles responsible for contract delivery. These improvements have enabled us to recover £74 million in profit share and service credits in the current financial year – the largest restitution since the contracts were mobilised – demonstrating the effectiveness of our strengthened controls. We have also implemented systematic performance management processes, including regular reviews of supplier performance, enhanced inspection regimes and the use of integrated performance databases to support intelligence-led assurance. These measures ensure that officials are held to account for delivery and that operational effectiveness is maintained over time. To further strengthen governance and drive continuous improvement, we have commissioned an independent review of our contract management arrangements, led by Mark Beaton, a Non-Executive Director at the Ministry of Justice with extensive consultancy experience. This review will provide external assurance on the robustness of our systems, help us identify opportunities for further enhancement and ensure that our capability remains resilient and fit for purpose. The Home Office is committed to ongoing investment in skills, resources, and professional standards, so that our teams are equipped to manage contracts competently and deliver best possible outcomes. Oversight of Provider Performance
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