109. For the public sector to benefit from bundling services and maintenance together the private sector providers have to be managed to ensure delivery is up to scratch at the right cost.
110. The NAO argued that public authorities need to improve management of contracts: "A culture of focus on making the deal rather than thinking about contract management is still, however, prevalent in many quarters of the public sector" (p 81).
111. Contractors disagreed on the quality of staff they negotiated with in the public sector today. Mr Ian Rylatt, Balfour Beatty Capital and CBI, said: "The competency of the people we negotiate with and we bid to is leaps and bounds from what it was before." He attributed the improvement partly to greater experience with PFPs and the public sector recruiting staff from the private sector with procurement skills (Q 153). But Mr Dougie Sutherland, Interserve Investments and CBI, said: "I find it amazing that we are still finding people on the public sector side who are doing it for the first time. When I look across the deals that we get involved in I think that there are some really excellent teams and there are some very poor teams" (Q 153).
112. Monitoring and managing private finance contracts has long been a weakness of the public sector, although there have been improvements in recent years. We recommend that public authorities should do more to maintain and improve commercial skills of staff dealing with private finance projects, with emphasis on long-term contract management as well as contract negotiation.