Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 20
20
Accepted
Lack of standardisation across police forces impedes national procurement efficiency and savings.
Recommendation
The Home Office told us that about that half of the planned £354 million of savings will come from commercial savings, such as national purchasing, with the remainder from cost recovery and improved productivity.48 We asked whether there has been any investigation into policing’s purchases of basic services, noting the previous Committee’s work on similar issues in the national health service.49 In written evidence, stakeholders also identified the inefficiency of police forces running separate procurement exercises.50 The Home Office said it is using national purchasing frameworks and seeking to standardise specifications for some equipment, including laptops and vehicles. 44 C&AG’s Report, para 3 45 Q 40 46 Q 70 47 Qq 45, 70; C&AG’s Report, para 2.8 48 Q 70 49 Q 75 50 The Productivity Institute, University of Manchester (IPP0009); Leapwise (IPP0013) 13 It is also working with the Crown Commercial Service on energy purchasing, with 39 forces signed up. However, the Home Office acknowledged that there is no standardisation across the 43 police forces and that it does not know exactly who is doing what. It said it will need up to two years to gather data on the scope for standardisation, the level of variation across forces and whether it was better to purchase nationally, while recognising the benefits of competition between suppliers.51
Government Response Summary
The Police Efficiency and Collaboration Programme (PECP) has an annual cashable efficiencies target of £354 million by 2028-29 and a non-cashable efficiencies target of saving thousands of officer hours to support government priorities such as neighbourhood policing.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
4.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Recommendation implemented 4.2 The Police Efficiency and Collaboration Programme (PECP) has an annual cashable efficiencies target of £354 million by 2028-29 and a non-cashable efficiencies target of saving thousands of officer hours to support government priorities such as neighbourhood policing. In addition to PECP, more recent government announcements in the Police Reform White Paper on AI and automation in policing are anticipated to drive additional productivity benefits. 4.3 PECP will achieve savings through four workstreams: commercial including cost recovery, productivity, data and the enabling services of the National Police Service. PECP uses the government’s collective buying power and leverages Crown Commercial Service frameworks. PECP is standardising and aggregating demand across the 43 police forces to achieve better value by buying once, buying well and buying better thus resolving the fragmented national capabilities landscape. It is funding the first national e-Commercial tool that will replace different systems (for example, contract management, pipeline management and e-tendering) and an unknown number of spreadsheets with one single commercial pipeline for policing. This, together with an increasing focus on national buying, will mean the police service becomes a better customer and will allow suppliers to reduce their whole lifecycle costs on policing services and contracts, driving better visibility and commercial relationships and delivering better value for all. 4.4 PECP is exploring what opportunities in Shared Services can be capitalised on to reduce administration burdens on forces, improve service provision and drive cost efficiencies. Although during the current spending review period (SR25) PECP expects modest gains from these areas as it will be establishing the foundations for Shared Services to enable efficiencies in future spending review periods. 4.5 The Home Office is planning greater consistency across policing in the following categories of spend: IT, fleet, and energy, The initial focus has been on energy (where 39 forces are now following the same national strategy with two more joining it this year), End User Devices (where PECP have held a pilot for centralised buying aggregating demand to a cross government standard with further aggregations this year), and fleet (where PECP have undertaken a first large scale aggregation event against common standards). Further categories of spend will be addressed in 2026-27 and beyond. 4.6 Mandating approaches to policing will be considered where there is a case to do so and where the use of Home Secretary powers is appropriate.