4.12 The Department has plans under way to increase the skills and capabilities of its workforce in key aspects of commercial management and programme delivery. In particular:
• the Department's Commercial Function is rolling out commercial training. It believes the Department needs 362 accredited commercial 'experts' and a further 1,383 'practitioners'. As at January 2021, 42% of the required staff had completed 'expert-level' training and 48% had completed 'practitioner-level' training;
• the Department has let a contract for a commercial delivery partner, operational from August 2020, to provide a pool of SQEP available to address urgent staffing requirements and longer-term recruitment and resourcing difficulties;
• the Department's Project Delivery Function is undertaking work to identify delivery professionals' skills and competencies in order to develop career paths supported by training; and
• the Department's Cost Assurance and Analysis Service is seeking to improve the quality of cost assurance and cost management capability available to delivery agents and the Commands.