How does one reboot an entire market? In theory, this might be possible if customers and suppliers could return to using simpler and better understood forms of contracting, focused on public services where the relationships between inputs and outcomes are better understood. In reality, that is probably not possible.
Some attention has recently been given to building a code of conduct for the public service sector, but overwhelmingly this relates to government's suppliers and not to procurement officials and those involved in contract management. And in any case, it is unclear what difference it will make in the field.
Working in collaboration with government, the ICT sector introduced a Code of Conduct in the 2004 to regulate providers' conduct. There was talk of the code being used as a quality assurance mechanism and incorporated into the Expression of Interest process. It was supported in principle by the Office of Government Commerce but it was (for example) utterly ignored in the NHS National Programme for IT, one of the largest ICT procurements of the time.
A more practical solution, suggested by a senior civil servant in the course of this review, might be to bring government and industry together to concentrate on rebuilding trust and resetting market conditions in one or two sectors. These would serve as small-scale experiments for testing different ways of resolving the problems, and by focusing on only one or two sectors at once, senior executives on both sides could be involved. However, if such a process were to succeed, it would require careful design.
It would be important to select the right test cases. The services in question should be relatively complex and/or close to the front line, so that there can be no suggestion that they were better suited to a highly transactional approach. It would be helpful if they were areas where contracting is already well-established, with a history of trust and a past reliance on strong relationships. However, they should also be services where it is acknowledged that there have recently been problems (on both sides). They should be services where there is a widespread belief that contracting will continue into the foreseeable future.
Participants should know that they are operating under a strong mandate from senior levels in government and industry. As far as industry is concerned, this might be organised through the BSA. Both sides should be clear about the objectives for each of the task forces.
The objectives should be: to identify and hopefully document recent and anticipated problems in these sectors, on both sides; to identify which of these issues matter and why; to explore alternative approaches; and to investigate how to make the transition from one market model to another.
It is vital that in selecting the participants and in developing the early work programme, that there is a high level of personal trust and close communication between members. Each task force should be chaired by an independent and widely-respected figure who is committed to establishing and maintaining this trust and communication.
Task force members should be senior figures with considerable experience in public service contracting, and the authority to speak on behalf of their organisations. They should all be of broadly comparable seniority, and they should give a personal commitment to the work of the task force, with no room for substitutes. Ideally, the membership should extend beyond the companies and agencies directly involved in the services in question.
Each of these task forces should be supported by a working party of somewhat more junior executives and officials who would undertake the detailed work.
As mentioned elsewhere in this report, government and industry have somewhat different understandings of trust and integrity, and it would be important that, in the early stages of the task force's work, an effort was made to explore and understand these differences.
It would also be important to ensure that participants in the task force and working group meetings were frank with each other, with participants acknowledging their own mistakes as well as identifying perceived issues on the part of others. It would be essential, however, that such conversation and research was directed to exploring the underlying issues, not the assignment of blame.