Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 18
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)
The NAO found that Cabinet Office does not have a plan for how it will develop the specialist digital skills or commercial capability required. In an area as important as digital procurement, it found that it was essential that government had “a clear view of the skills it needs, the gaps and the actions required to fill them”.27 We therefore asked what Cabinet Office and DSIT were doing to address that gap. Cabinet Office told us that it was 24 Qq 51, 57 25 Q 57 26 Q 51 27 C&AG’s Report, paras 11, 2.21 14 looking at introducing annual capability assessments for every government function, and it was hoping to re–introduce departmental capability reviews to enable it to “understand what the landscape looks like”. When asked how long this would take, Cabinet Office said that it did not think that it would take a long time to implement, but that the harder thing would be to make it work effectively.28
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.