3.24 The decision to terminate the Magnox contract ultimately rests with the NDA Board. As with the decision to settle the claims, the NDA's decision to terminate the contract was approved by the Department's accounting officer and Secretary of State, as well as HM Treasury. To support the NDA's decisions on issues pertaining to the litigation and the risk of material variation, a cross-government group chaired by the chief executive of the civil service met repeatedly to discuss the NDA's options for settling and terminating the Magnox contract, and what to replace it with.
3.25 Events surrounding the Magnox contract took place against a backdrop of recent failures in the government's management of major contracts. This includes the Ministry of Justice's announcement in 2013 that it had found significant overbilling in its electronic monitoring contracts dating back to 2005. These failures led to a cross-government review of the management of major contracts.11 The government's chief procurement officer wrote to government departments in December 2013 with the recommendations from the review, which included expanding the scope of the commercial director role in government departments. In early 2014, the NDA's chief executive removed the commercial director role from the organisation.
3.26 Following the decision to terminate the contract, the NDA has asked Government Commercial Function (GCF), part of the Cabinet Office, to help it improve its commercial capability. GCF is working with the NDA to produce a 'commercial blueprint', a workforce plan for commercial staff and training for senior commercial specialists in the GCF's development centre. The NDA has also recently decided to reinstate the role of commercial director within the organisation.
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11 Comptroller and Auditor General, Cabinet Office: Transforming government's contract management, Session 2014-15, HC 269, National Audit Office, September 2014.