Recommendation 20

We recognised that the Government Chief Commercial Officer was new in post but noted that it was reasonable to expect them to have considered how they intended to address issues surrounding digital commercial skills. We therefore asked how the new Government Chief Commercial Officer would bring the sea change needed. The Chief Commercial Officer agreed change was needed and recognised that while some areas already had “deep expertise”, the priority would be to “bring the floor of that experience up across the whole 6,000” and ensure that there was a “digital thread” across all commercial training in future. They committed to providing milestones showing what this would achieve, and by when.31 The Cabinet Office wrote to us after our evidence session to confirm that the Chief Commercial Officer would write to us within 8–10 weeks, to set out a plan and approach to digitally upskilling the 6,000 members of staff in GCF.32 Serious consideration should be given to the vast majority of new recruits in GCF having digital expertise.