2.13 Commercial staff within departments who have the skills to deliver complex projects are in short supply. Of the first 12 complex projects assessed by the MPRG, eight project teams were identified as having a shortage of the necessary commercial skills.
2.14 This reflects a general under supply of commercial skills across departments. In 2008, OGC estimated that approximately ten per cent of procurement positions across central government were vacant at that time.14 There is a wide variation in individual departments' reliance on both interims and advisers. Thirteen departments have provided information showing that 35 per cent of their commercial directorate's staff cost is on interims.15 Often these are roles that would otherwise be carried out by civil servants. Some departments also depend heavily on the support of specialist advisers. Recognising this risk, departmental permanent secretaries have committed to reducing the number of interims holding posts in core procurement teams to no more than 10 per cent. This followed a recommendation by the OGC in the Building the procurement profession in government report. The OGC plans to monitor and support this process.
2.15 Consultants and interim staff often provide valuable skills to a department that would otherwise be difficult to obtain. Overreliance on them can, however, lead to:
• greater project staff costs: for example, in 2009 the PAC criticised the Department for Children, Schools and Families and Partnerships for Schools for excessive spending on consultants to make up for shortfalls in the organisations' skills and resources. One consultant employed over a three-year period had cost £1.35 million.16 The 17 interims working within another major government department's commercial directorate in early 2009 cost on average 140 per cent more than civil servants;
• a lack of proper accountability in decision-making: reliance on external commercial staff means departments' staff are not always fully engaged in important commercial decisions. For example, our 2007 report on central government's use of consultants found that in May 2005, the Home Office's Identity Programme's procurement, marketing, business requirements, resilience and security teams were all led by consultants. The Home Office has now replaced them with civil servants to regain greater control and accountability in this project;17
• continued dependence on consultants: reliance on external staff also means that there are instances of departmental staff not receiving the opportunity to build up commercial experience and skills to take a leading role in future projects. It can also lead to the understanding of projects that resided with the consultant being lost.
2.16 Some departments have taken steps to ensure that there is a strong departmental commercial presence on project teams. For instance, the MPRG found that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)'s Enabling Retirement Saving Project used secondees from its commercial unit alongside interims and consultants to good effect. The DWP Commercial Director also sits on both the project Board and the procurement Board of the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority, the body created to deliver the project.
2.17 Many capital projects are delivered as part of nationwide programmes, such as schools, hospitals and waste treatment centres. These programmes are now generally led by officials with commercial experience who are also able to draw upon private sector experience of individuals within their senior management teams. Programme leaders play an important role in planning the rollout of projects and developing good practice.
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14 Building the Procurement Profession in Government, GPS Reward Strategy (December 2008).
15 Based on 2007-08 data which was the latest available when we requested information from departments. Excludes figures for the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform, who were unable to provide this data.
16 Building Schools for the Future: renewing the secondary school estate, PAC (HC 274, 2008-9).
17 Central government's use of consultants, NAO (HC 128, 2006-7).