Survey participants are frustrated at the high rate of churn among civil servants - they no longer expect that there will be continuity on major procurements or throughout the life of a contract. This is yet another issue of long standing. It was identified by the NAO at least as early as 2004, when it advised against moving contract staff unnecessarily.59 But it was also being raised by industry. A paper by the Confederation of British Industry, submitted to the Prime Minister's Office in April 2006 following a meeting between the PM and industry leaders, included the following:
There is some concern at the rapid turnover of procurement and contract management personnel within government, and the apparent lack of weighting given to public officials with these skills. We believe that government should find ways of stabilising the engagement of senior personnel involved in major procurements, and in the management of major contracts.
It has been mentioned at regular intervals ever since. In his report on the Universal Credit scheme, Nick Timmins wrote that being the senior responsible owner for this project proved to be 'only too like being one of Henry VIII's wives: divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived'.
Over little more than five years, two retired through ill-health. Two were interims, although one of those was key to the attempt to rescue it. One died in harness. One survives. Over little more than five years, Universal Credit has had six senior responsible owners. At one point it had five within a year. And at a level just below that, it has had six programme directors.60
The NAO has continued to document similar high levels of churn on other major government contracts, most recently in its 2016 report on e-borders, where the problem did not improve when the service was taken back in-house.61
One of the consequences of such high rates of turnover is a lack of experience and competence. It is not unusual, the author was told, for external advisers to be the custodians of corporate memory. In complex public service systems, where there is an ongoing history of deep engagement between customer and suppliers, corporate memory matters. The example was given of a government department with a diverse supply chain, where the two most senior civil servants responsible for system design and management moved on within six months of each other. Given that staff turnover is a significant issue within government, one survey participant suggested that continuity is one of the benefits that private providers might bring to public service delivery.
A second implication is that there is less accountability for results - one participant referred to it as a game of 'pass the parcel' - the medium-term consequences of a decision (or non-decision) are someone else's problem. Another - a former civil servant, who has worked in the Cabinet Office and in Treasury - asked the author whether he could name any senior public officials who had suffered in any way because of a failed procurement. Between us, we could only think of one, and he secured a remunerative job in the private sector. It is likely there are others, but with a long background in the public service contracting, we could not think of any.