4.7 As noted above, value for money can be defined as the optimum combination of whole-life cost and quality (or fitness for purpose) to meet the user’s requirement, and does not always mean choosing the lowest cost bid. While there is general agreement and reference to this high-level definition within the public sector and value for money is a concept often deployed across government, there is little actual detailed guidance on what value for money is and how it should be achieved, beyond the Value for Money Assessment Guidance5 for PFI. While value for money is often a function of the delivery model and the contractual structure used, the procurement process itself, and the way in which it is managed and undertaken, can also have a major impact on delivering value for money.
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