Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 31
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 Cabinet Office is responsible for maximising the buying power of the state. We therefore asked the Cabinet Office how government could negotiate volume discounts with large suppliers or cloud suppliers, or aggregated contracts, without data on the expected future demand which GCF has been unable to do in the past. DSIT recognised that the data “gets weaker as we go out in forecast”. It told us that it would work with departments to get much stronger forecast data, using both investment forecasts from the upcoming Spending Review, and operational trends. It recognised that what people may be spending now, for example on AI solutions, will “not tell us perfectly what they are spending in the future unless we actually track that”. Nevertheless, without reliable information about future demand, government will find it harder to fully make use of its consolidated buying power because it will not know how much it can commit to spending in the future in order to secure the best deals. It explained that part of the work going forward would be to add forecast data and build a reliable forecast for digital spending but recognised that this would be difficult.54 Making best use of government’s buying power
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.