Successive governments have allowed a culture to develop where a small number of large companies run a lot of public services. There is a growing acknowledgement that the issue needs to be addressed - the lack of accountability, transparency and the fact that too many are too big and too important to fail. The committee continues to see contracts which are performing poorly but where there is little option but to continue. Many companies failing on one area of Government continue to win contracts elsewhere. If a supplier is performing poorly on a contract (and the Government's own dashboard of strategic supplier performance highlights every concerning contract) then there needs to be, at least, far more rigour applied when letting a future contract.
For critical services the Government is always the supplier of last resort and thus always the ultimate holder of risk. But for Brexit this issue would, and should, be getting more attention.