Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 7
7
Accepted
Cabinet Office lacks analysis of competition and single bidder trends in major procurement markets.
Recommendation
The Cabinet Office’s central commercial teams also collect some aggregate contract information from departments’ own data systems. It uses this data for some analysis of overall trends, but does not use the more detailed contract information to conduct any analysis of competition or markets. Of 235 large contracts recorded on Find a Tender between January 2021 and January 2023, 20% of contracts using open competition received only one bid. The Cabinet Office has not assessed the expected level of single bidders within government’s major markets or analysed trends in numbers of bidders.12 The GCF acknowledged that the data in this area is not good. The GCF told us that with the Procurement Act, it plans to put in place a better transparency platform that collects bidder information at multiple stages.13
Government Response Summary
The government accepts the recommendation, stating that new legal requirements under the Procurement Act will mandate data upload to a central digital platform by Spring 2025, with secondary legislation laid in Spring 2024 and supporting guidance to follow, which will provide a better transparency platform for bidder information.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: Spring 2025 Much of the requested data will now be required as standard as part of the Procurement Act. Contracting authorities will have clear legal requirements to upload information on procurements to the central digital platform within certain timescales, this includes publishing contract award notices for above threshold contracts (those generally above £213,000), contract details for contracts over £5 million, Key Performance Indicators for contracts over £5 million. This list is not exhaustive and will be achieved via the submission of notices within the system - simply put, if a contract authority does not upload a particular notice, it will be in breach of statutory requirements in a way that is not the case now. The requirements for notices will be set out via secondary legislation, expected to be laid in Spring 2024. The Cabinet Office will publish a range of guidance notes and provide learning and development materials setting out these requirements.