Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 31
31
Accepted
Government's buying power is hindered by lack of reliable future digital procurement demand forecasts.
Recommendation
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
Government Response Summary
The government agrees and the GCF Digital & Data Team will, by December 2025, set out a process to leverage commercial insights from data, including developing a standard framework for procurement platforms and delivering a central digital platform, with further details to be provided to the committee.
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.