Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 9
9
The Department recognised that it had paid more for the new contracts, but told us...
Conclusion
The Department recognised that it had paid more for the new contracts, but told us that as a result it was getting a better quality service, with better support for vulnerable people. We saw little evidence of this and the Department22 accepted that its ability to determine whether this was the case had been affected by the ability of contractors to share data about the services that were being delivered. The Department was overclaiming success and justifying a higher fee on the basis of an improvement in the quality of service which it could not evidence.
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
4.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Ta rget implementation date: July 2021 4.2 The contracts contain mechanisms by which the department can ensure value for money, including to apply service credits where provider performance fails to meet contractual standards, to assess providers’ profits using open book accounting principles, and to share profits. The work on using the contractual ‘open book accounting’ clause to ensure value for money has been temporarily paused as the department experiences system wide stress and prioritises what is most important in response to the many challenges of the pandemic. The department intends to restart this work in 2021 and will look back through the period since the contracts became operational. The department is also taking significant steps to strengthen its contract management approach and commissioned external expert advice which was received in September 2020. The department is revising the structures through which the contracts are managed to ensure that roles are more clearly defined and sufficiently resourced for all aspects of contract management to operate fully effectively. It is developing more robust operating procedures with more formalised operational training to be provided, as well as taking steps to improve the capture and sharing of information.