Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 7
7
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
A response document is linked to this report, dated 8 March 2024. Response attribution to this conclusion has not been verified. Read the response document ↗