Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 11
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 ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
In January 2025, the government published its ‘Blueprint for modern digital government’. This announced the creation of a new Digital Commercial Centre of Excellence with an objective to “identify opportunities for further reform and improvements needed to enable tech startups, scaleups and [small–and medium–sized enterprises] to access government contracts.” 16 The new Digital Centre of Excellence will be staffed by experts in digital procurement. We asked the Cabinet Office how it would ensure that Departments and their commercial teams were able to get a consistently good deal that provides value to the taxpayer. It told us that it wanted the Centre of Excellence to bring together commercial digital procurement 13 Qq 6–8 14 Q 1, 2 15 Qq 1, 47 16 Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, A blueprint for modern digital government, January 2025 11 and enable departments and their commercial teams to have a stronger voice when working with suppliers. It also told us that it had “some strong ambitions to look at the whole digital landscape” and identify where it could buy better and more effectively.17 We believe this transformation is one of the most important in the whole of Government.
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.