3.31 Government has a permanent disadvantage in its commercial capability compared with its contractors. It therefore needs to ensure that it uses the people that it does have to best advantage. Previous experience has shown the benefit of central centres of expertise. They can provide guidance and support to other teams, and deploy people for the most complex negotiations.48
3.32 The Cabinet Office is building up central resources to provide support to departments. The Crown Commercial Service's (CCS) complex transactions team (paragraph 3.3) consists of around 20 experts with skills in finance, law, engineering and ICT, all with significant experience of working on commercial issues. The CCS also supports crown representatives to provide help with negotiations with strategic suppliers. Infrastructure UK, part of HM Treasury, provides support for private finance projects.
3.33 The CCS's development of standard data on contract management (paragraph 3.6) could also help it to deploy specialist commercial staff with particular experience more effectively. It could use this information to identify patterns across an individual contractor's portfolio. It could also use it to monitor milestones and plan the deployment of its resources.
3.34 The CCS is starting to provide greater guidance to departments. It has published a standard contract for digital services and business process outsourcing. It has also updated its standard operating procedures to include lean sourcing.49 This is starting to fill the void in central guidance since the Office for Government Commerce's guidance was abolished.
3.35 Departments will always need to retain a significant amount of capability to manage their own contracts and provide oversight and scrutiny of their portfolios. Some departments are working to improve their guidance and support for contract managers. For example:
• The Department of Health has created a senior responsible officer checklist for its contract managers and has started to promote contract management in events aimed at its procurement network.
• The Home Office has revised its commercial manual and collated new guidance on an updated intranet page for the commercial directorate.
• The Ministry of Justice has hosted commercial awareness events for senior civil service staff.
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48 For instance, Partnerships UK was important to the successful implementation of PFI projects. Local Partnerships provides support to local government commercial projects.
49 Available at: ccs.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/about-government-procurement-service/lean-capability/lean-sourcing/lean-sourcing-standard-solution