Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 27
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)
We asked whether government had the digital expertise needed to negotiate with suppliers and global ‘big tech’ corporations. The Cabinet Office told us that this was a “complex and big–scale set of challenges” and that the picture was “mixed”. It explained that it was confident that in the centre of Government there were some “incredibly senior, experienced people who spend a lot of their time on the big strategic suppliers”.45 GCF told us that it had a “complex transactions” team of 20 digital experts that it can deploy to departments. When asked whether these experts were being deployed effectively, the Cabinet Office told us that this was “clearly dependent and clearly inconsistent”, and it would look into the example we raised.46
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.