Overview

  Know what suppliers are doing - To manage a contract it is important to understand performance and costs

Government needs a 'hands-on' approach to understanding suppliers' performance. It has been increasingly aware of the need to do this but can go further. Assurance requires investment of both time and resources so government needs to think carefully about how to get the right approach. We have seen both cases where there is not enough assurance over reporting and cases where there is too much compliance testing without it being targeted effectively. Decisions need to be made, for example, on the balance of self-reporting with independent monitoring and of the use of detailed controls testing with a proportionate approach.