Recommendation 21

We further questioned CCS if it was normal when dealing with what is, effectively, a financial product, to end up with only one supplier, with no resilience built in. CCS told us that it does not like putting single suppliers on a framework, but it was its engagement with the marketplace that meant that on this occasion, it made sense for it to be a single- supplier framework. CCS stated that market intelligence had suggested that, because of the thin margins, splitting the agreement into two suppliers would likely lead to no market to award the contract to.22