Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 19
19
The Cabinet Office also drew on external expertise where required.
Conclusion
The Cabinet Office also drew on external expertise where required. We heard that the Chief Commercial Officer happened to have a background in running engineering and product development companies that meant he was well placed to develop and initiate the programme. Additionally the Cabinet Office’s ‘technical design authority’, put in place to support decision making as part of the ventilator challenge, drew on the expertise of NHS clinicians, the Medical and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and PA consulting (acting as a programme manager) as well as other government departments; it also drew on data from device-testing experts.32 The Cabinet Office emphasised that it believes it was having cross-functional teams working on the project from the beginning that “really proved successful”.33 Intellectual property
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
5.1 The government agrees with this recommendation. Target implementation date: March 2023 5.2 The Government Commercial Function and associated central employment model of the Government Commercial Organisation enables the Cabinet Office to continue to optimise the skill development and deployment of staff with these skills accordingly. Further activity is underway to ensure that assessment and associated capability building in the commercial space continues in both government departments and across the wider public sector, with a target date of March 2023 to have achieved scale. This will ensure that in the event of future crises more commercially trained /assessed and accredited staff will be available for deployment.