Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 22
22
Acknowledged
BlueLight Commercial services are underutilised by police forces, lacking mandatory engagement.
Conclusion
We asked the Home Office whether BlueLight Commercial had been a success. The Home Office said it has made some progress changing the behaviours and culture of police forces to generate savings, but it had not been used to the extent that was intended.55 BlueLight Commercial manages 300 contracts on behalf of policing but forces are under no obligation to engage and not all are using the services it offers.56 The Home Office told us it had increased its oversight and scrutiny of BlueLight Commercial and is analysing which forces are using procurement frameworks. As part of the forthcoming police reforms, it will consider what BlueLight Commercial is providing and whether to use the Home Secretary’s powers to mandate police forces to use BlueLight Commercial’s services. The Home Office acknowledged that it would need confidence in the value of what BlueLight Commercial is offering if it is going to adopt an approach that is stronger than ‘persuasion’.57
Government Response Summary
The government agrees and states that the Police Efficiency and Collaboration Programme (PECP) aims to achieve savings through various workstreams and greater consistency across policing in IT, fleet, and energy spend, with consideration given to mandating approaches where appropriate.
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
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.