Recommendation 9

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.