Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 9
9
Acknowledged
MoD's data gaps persist and major contract lacked competitive tendering process.
Conclusion
However, we do not see how this step alone will address the existing gaps in the MoD’s data. For instance, when new systems were introduced in DE&S’s central warehouses through the Team Leidos contract, DE&S stated that it had to engage a private company to do a lot of work on the data for them.18 We were also concerned to hear that the contract for the Bridging the Gap programme, valued at £515 million, was awarded to a large defence prime contractor without a competitive tendering process.19 The Bridging the Gap contract was a five-year contract extension with the same supplier—Boeing Defence UK—of the £800 million Future Logistics Information Services (FLIS) that was signed in 2010 and due to run until 2022.20 The MoD explained that the contract extension would “provide capability that Bridges the Gap between the FLIS contract and the future long-term strategic solution, known as the Business Modernisation for Support (BMfS) project”.21 The MoD told us that it intended to competitively procure the suite of contracts relating to its larger future transformation of its legacy IT systems, with its contract for engineering support and asset management software currently out to tender.22 Transformation plans
Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the committee's observations and will provide an update within six months by July 2024. It primarily provides corrected inventory stockpile data to demonstrate better management than reported, rather than directly addressing concerns about data gaps or non-competitive contracts.
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
2.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: July 2024 2.2 The Ministry of Defence (the department) will provide the recommended update, covering the topics listed above, within six months of the date of the Committee’s report. 2.3 In following up queries raised during the hearing, the Permanent Secretary has written to the Committee to notify it of error in the department’s reporting of inventory stockpile holdings on its systems, which has been reflected in the NAO report that underpinned the Committee’s work on this issue. The correct data, shown in the table below, demonstrates markedly more success in managing down its inventory holdings than have claimed. Financial Year Type of Items Number of Items 2022-23 517k 457m 2021-22 523k 507m 2020-21 528k 550m 2019-20 557k 559m 2018-19 598k 559m 2017-18 640k 740m