Case studies

Our 2014 report on procuring new trains recommended that the Department for Transport improve its planning of major procurements. We also highlighted a need to better understand project requirements before fixing a timetable and starting the tender process. We found that a lack of clarity over the wider strategy undermined the department's commercial strategy and led to a perceived gap between the Department's stated commercial strategy and how it acted. Greater clarity would help the industry make plans and reduce costs.

The shared service programme (2016 report) planned to bring back-office services together across many departments into two shared centres. We found that when it launched the programme in 2013, the Cabinet Office did not develop an integrated programme business case that consolidated the cases for each shared service centre and all potential customer departments. The lack of an integrated programme strategy meant that there was no clear overall commercial strategy, with responsibility for different aspects held by different departments. This contributed to delays and relationship issues between departments later in the programme, which ultimately meant that the contracts had to be renegotiated.

The Department for Work & Pensions' Work Programme (2014 report), a scheme to help long-term unemployed people to find and keep jobs, was introduced quickly with limited time for commercial planning. During the early months, suppliers continued to establish their operations and were unable to fulfil minimum service standards. We found that the contractual performance measures set up by the Department were flawed, because of a lack of planning and initial performance expectations being set too high.