3.22 The OGC has developed a significant programme of initiatives to support departments in improving commercial skills, but departments have ultimate responsibility for ensuring their staff have the commercial skills appropriate for their projects. Although departments were involved in the development of OGC's programme of initiatives, they are not making full use of them, with a number of OGC initiatives stalling due to a lack of departmental cooperation.
3.23 Fourteen of 16 departmental commercial directors believe that, overall, the OGC's initiatives have done little to address commercial skills gaps within their departments. The OGC considers that many of its current initiatives are focused on bringing benefits in the longer term.
3.24 The OGC has put in place a number of initiatives that could have a long term impact on commercial skills in government. The pay-related recommendations from Building the procurement profession in government, if implemented, should help to tackle movement of commercial staff between government departments. The proposed talent management programme could help to create a career path for commercial staff who will tackle future complex projects. There are also some good examples of commercial skills training initiatives within departments. There are, however, examples of departments carrying out initiatives that duplicate the OGC's. For instance, the OGC's graduate scheme, which costs £450,000 per year to run has spare capacity, while the MoD and the DWP continue to run their own schemes.
3.25 Our analysis shows that there are still a number of skills gaps and barriers that, between the OGC and departments, are not being addressed. Government is not in the position to deploy staff with the most suitable commercial experience to the most suitable project due to a lack of management information or a mechanism for doing this. There is also more that can be done to improve commercial awareness of Senior Civil Servants in the short term. While the fast stream procurement initiative may be effective in the long term, the Home Office's SRO training and DWP's use of Director General level sponsors for suppliers, could have a short term impact if rolled out in other departments.