1st Report - Public procurement as a tool to stimulate innovation

Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.

The Government welcomes the Committee's report and agrees that a fundamental culture change in public procurement is needed, while declining several specific structural recommendations.

• On ministerial responsibility, the Government states it "does not therefore have any plans to assign a Minister overall responsibility for both procurement and innovation", and considers it "more appropriate for individual departments" to be responsible for their future needs.
• On Innovation Procurement Plans, it has "decided to end the requirement for Departments to produce IPPs", citing variable quality of the Plans, as part of the wider reform of government procurement.
• On departmental Chief Scientific Advisers, it agrees they have a role in encouraging innovation in procurement, but whether they hold responsibility or a more advisory role "will be for individual departments to determine".
• It is developing a lean sourcing process for all central government procurements "for implementation from January 2012", currently being tested on departmental pathfinder projects.

Read the government's response ↗ Report an error