Case studies

Our 2016 investigation into the UK Trade & Investment's specialist services contract found that its governance of the procurement was weak, the procurement team had a poor understanding of the bid and requirement, and there was no effective handover to the contract management team. UKTI ultimately decided to terminate the contract on the basis that it no longer considered the contract to represent value for money.

The Department for Transport cancelled its franchise competition for InterCity West Coast (2012 report), following technical concerns about the procurement process. We found no one person oversaw the whole process, or could see patterns of emerging problems, partly because of inconsistency in committee membership and requirements.

The Major Project Authority's reviews of E-Borders (2015 report) found governance issues including unclear roles and responsibilities and prolonged disagreements about critical issues. This was not helped by a lack of continuity of key staff and programme reliance on suppliers for staffing.

Recent reports recommended the need to clarify roles and responsibilities, such as whether commercial should act as advisers or take more ownership with support from operations. When managing contracts within operational teams, managers need to be well-equipped and understand the commercial levers to get the best from contracts. We have seen some good practice:

National Offender Management Service -Transforming Rehabilitation (2016 report)

We found that operational contract managers are supported by analytical, finance and data assurance specialists that give an improved view on contract performance. This is backed up by operational assurance teams, which assess contract compliance, data quality and service quality, including links with other agencies.

Department for Work & Pensions - Contracted-out health and disability assessments (2016 report)

The Department reorganised responsibilities so that each contract has a senior contract owner and business partners provide expertise and challenge financial reports. Dedicated commercial teams within programmes are responsible for commissioning commercial services and performance management teams act as primary contacts for suppliers.

In our 2016 report on the Emergency Services Network we thought that the commercial arrangements in place created a risk that the emergency services did not have sufficient control over the service they received. They did not have commercial levers over the full service received, limited contact with suppliers across the end-to-end service, and no direct recourse to suppliers for poor service. This reduces the benefits available from the new services.

We found in 2009 that the Department for Education's building schools for the future programme had a shortage of the commercial and project management skills needed by local authorities to implement the programme. Projects were delayed because of a lack of capacity, reliance on consultants and continuity issues. Inadequate attention was given to operational activities such as community consultation. We highlighted a danger of benefits not being achieved without clear responsibilities, accountability and commitment.