1 We reviewed key documents including:
• our back catalogue of reports on government contracts;
• reviews of government contracts, including the detailed reports on the contracts reviewed;
• departmental plans produced in response to the review; and
• plans produced by the Crown Commercial Service.
2 We did more detailed interviews with 5 government bodies, the Department for Work & Pensions, the Department of Health, the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. At each of these we met some of the main decision-makers including:
• commercial directors and their teams;
• senior managers responsible for contract management; and
• internal audit.
We also drew on the more extensive work conducted as part of our separate report on contract management in the Home Office and Ministry of Justice.
3 We interviewed Cabinet Office and Crown Commercial Service senior management to understand work they are planning to provide leadership across government. We reviewed supporting papers and data to verify information given in interviews.
4 We interviewed senior managers at G4S and Serco to understand the actions they are taking to respond to the discovery of issues in their contracts.