40. Our evidence identified a lack of clear data on the scale of the government's exposure to strategic suppliers, both in terms of contract value and the companies' involvement in the whole of the public sector.45 The NAO's report into the collapse of Carillion identified lack of basic information as a barrier to the early stages of contingency planning.46
41. This Committee has previously recommended that the Government publish more information about contracts. In our report on Contracted out health and disability assessments, we noted that while information was collected to manage contracts there was a lack of information made available to claimants and the wider public. We recommended that the Department "publish quarterly national and regional data on contractor performance".47
42. Parliament and the public do not have access to straight forward, comprehensive and comprehensible information about government contracting.
43. Transparency is key but still too many contracts are secretive or opaque. Quite frankly the taxpayer deserves better. A standard set of contract information should be made publicly available after a contract has been agreed. That information must include the contract value, length and KPIs, together with a list of other public sector contracts won by the successful company. The Government should consider more "open book" methods of running contracts.
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45 Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, Open-book accounting and supply-chain assurance Session 2015-16, HC 91-I, p. 7; Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, Transforming Contract Management, Session 2014-15, HC 268, p. 42; Qq 61, 68ff.
46 Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, Investigation into the government's handling of the collapse of Carillion Session 2017-19, HC 1002, 7 June 2018
47 Public Accounts Committee, Thirty-Third Report of Session 2015-16, Contracted out health and disability assessments, HC 727, p. 5