Case studies

In our 2015 report on the provision of out-of-hours GP service in Cornwall we reported that supplier staff had made unauthorised changes, which were inappropriate and lacked justification, to performance data. The Primary Care Trust relied on the supplier self-reporting and performance was overstated on multiple measures.

Our 2014 report on the Department for Work & Pensions' Work Programme showed the merits of validating performance data, in particular job outcome payments. The Department checks job outcome claims and extrapolates rates of invalid claims to reduce payments to suppliers. The Department estimates that its approach has saved it £21 million up to March 2014. The validation regime may also have deterred suppliers from claiming some job outcomes. It continues to improve its approach.

We found in 2016 the Department improved assurance over supplier data for its contracted-out health and disability assessments through independent quality audits. We had previously recommended the Department improves its validation of key performance data.

Government can obtain assurance through substantive testing or a controls-based approach. Our 2014 report Transforming government's contract management reported that the Cabinet Office and Confederation of British Industry were producing a set of principles to improve transparency. This led to the Institute for Government recommending transparency to be included in government contracts alongside existing confidentiality and freedom of information clauses, in its report Enhancing transparency in public service contracts. We also described how the Department for Work & Pensions required major suppliers to commission external reviews to receive independent assurance on performance and on their controls. This improved the Department's level of assurance and supported performance management.

In the Ministry of Justice's Transforming Rehabilitation (2016 report) programme, directly contracted suppliers use a complex supply chain of private and third sector organisations. We recommended that the National Offender Management Service combine its supply chain analysis with feedback from voluntary organisations to identify and address gaps in provision.