4.3 The partnership should deliver improved services at a lower cost. The benefits in cost terms arise mainly from the replacement of contract staff with a more economic and efficient alternative. Improvements in the delivery of services are difficult to measure as there is a lack of information on the levels of service before the partnership came into effect.
4.4 To assess the potential value for money the Agency commissioned their financial adviser, Capita, to compare the cost of a partnership with a private sector IT supplier with two in-house options. Capita produced two main reports, the first in August 1997 before negotiations with CMG commenced and the second in May 1998 on the completion of the negotiations. As the partnership with CMG was not arrived at through a competitive bidding process the comparison of the expected cost of the partnership with in-house options was particularly important in determining whether a good deal was obtained. We examined how the savings were estimated and how the partnership was performing against expectations.