Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 3
27th Report - Government’s relationship with digital technology suppliers
Published 6 Jun 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Government’s relationship with digital technology suppliers All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
Cabinet Office and DSIT’s approach to preparing for the opportunities and risks presented by new technologies is not yet being developed alongside addressing more immediate digital procurement challenges. Government faces uncertain but profound technological changes, particularly around artificial intelligence, and rapidly needs to develop the skills to deliver the next generation of programmes for digitally enabled change and the significant task of replacing legacy IT systems 4 with modern equivalents. At the same time, it needs to bring the skills of its people up to an acceptable standard to enable them to successfully deal with historic programmes and challenges from its legacy digital environment. Addressing the existing issues and challenges within government’s digital procurement will be critical to being able to successfully deal with emerging technologies in future, but government is not yet widely thinking in these terms. Cabinet Office does not yet have a plan for how it will develop the specialist digital skills or commercial capability required. The government has published a ‘digital, data and technology playbook’, but this lacks the level of detail needed to offer practical support to officials in departments undertaking procurements. GDS and GCF acknowledge that the playbook needs to be fit for purpose and expanded, to provide clear guidance across the commercial lifecycle and to reflect both the supplier and customer perspective. It intends to update the playbook accordingly. recommendation a. The Cabinet Office and DSIT should develop a comprehensive plan for securing the digital commercial skills that government needs, drawing together assessments of priority capability needs, existing capability and skills gaps. b. The Cabinet Office and DSIT should, within 3 months, set out how they will ensure that the playbook is pitched at a sufficient level of detail to be of practical help and cover the whole commercial lifecycle, and who will be responsib
From: Public Accounts Committee, 27th Report - Government’s relationship with digital technology suppliers (HC 640), 6 June 2025
Government response
Latest Treasury Minutes progress report to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Twenty-seventh Report of Session 2024-26
The government responded to the whole report on 4 June 2026 (deadline 6 August 2025).
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Twenty-seventh report from Session 2024-26
Published 18 September 2025.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government states that it "agrees with the Committee's recommendation" on each of the recommendations in the report, with most carrying a target implementation date of December 2025.
- On roles and responsibilities, it says the Digital Commercial Centre of Excellence (DCCoE) has been launched as a joint Cabinet Office and DSIT team and is "working to formalise the roles and responsibilities" between digital and commercial teams.
- On skills, it sets a three-phased approach for the Government Commercial Function: a first phase by September 2025, a second by March 2026, and a final phase "to be confirmed".
- On the Digital, Data and Technology Playbook, it says a team is working with GDS "to launch a publication in December 2025", bringing it up to date with current practices.
- On spending data, it says the GCF Digital & Data Team "will set out the process" to use commercial insights from data held across government, with "further detail" to be provided to the Committee in December.