Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 29
29
Accepted
Government lacks precise data on digital procurement spend and future demand pipeline.
Recommendation
Government lacks data on spend and the pipeline of supply and demand. Available estimates from third parties suggest that government spends at least £14 billion annually on digital procurement, but government has not been able to provide a more precise figure. There is also insufficient information about the pipeline of demand from departments for digital services.50 The Cabinet Office accepted that, until government gets better at collecting such data in order to analyse it, then there would be inefficiencies within procurement, which cost money. The Cabinet Office accepted that government could do much more to bring together a plan for formally assessing government’s digital procurement needs.51 The NAO report highlighted that GCF did not have demand data from departments and only had data from some suppliers on spend. GCF told us that it did not consider that it had a lack of data across government, but acknowledged that the challenge was to pull together the data it collected and to analyse it as quickly and effectively as it would like, which historically it had not been able to do.52
Government Response Summary
The government accepts the recommendation, committing to the GCF Digital & Data Team setting out a process to leverage commercial insights from data by December 2025. This includes developing a standard framework for procurement platforms and delivering a central digital platform to address the current lack of comprehensive data.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
5.1 The government agrees with the committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: December 2025 5.2 The GCF Digital & Data Team will set out the process to leverage commercial insights from data held across the eco-system, which will include the development of a standard framework for procurement platforms as well as the delivery of the central digital platform, leveraging data held in procurement and back-office systems for use across government. Further detail will be provided to the committee in December, in line with the target implementation date.