Commons Sense

House of Commons · Ministers' Questions

Public Sector Procurement: Digital Goods and Services

Thursday 25 April 2024 · 2 questions

Summarised by AI from the official record, so it can contain mistakes.

Read the full transcript on Parliament.uk

At a glance

Answered 0 Partly answered 2 Not answered 0

Key points

  • The Government recognises the importance of digital products and services for public service delivery.
  • The digital, data and technology playbook provides best practice guidance for procurement and is updated annually.
  • The Government claims a successful commercial function that drives up value for money and monitors contracts to reduce issues like lock-in.

Topics (select to filter)

Questions & Answers

Q1 Chi Onwurah Lab Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West
Science & Technology
Context

No specific background event or incident is mentioned, but the question refers to the adequacy of public sector procurement practices.

Question

What recent assessment has been made of the adequacy of public sector procurement of digital goods and services?

Answer from Alex Burghart

The Government recognise how vital digital products and services are for delivering public services. The digital, data and technology playbook provides best practice guidance for the procurement of digital products and services. The playbook is updated annually, most recently in June 2023. Departments are responsible for ensuring that public services delivered by the private sector represent value for money.

Partly answered

Not addressed: The adequacy of procurement practices was not directly addressed with specific assessments or figures.

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Q2 Chi Onwurah Lab Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West
Science & Technology
Context

The MP highlights issues such as lack of competitiveness in procurement, dependency on single-source providers, and the National Audit Office's criticism.

Question

Digital services procurement should be a win, win, win: the British public get better services, businesses get a good and reliable customer, and public services are reduced in cost. However, that is not the case under this Government. Departments are locked into single-source providers and dependent on legacy systems. The National Audit Office itself said that procurement was not competitive enough. As an example of that, can the Minister say how competitive cloud service provision is across his Government? Will he set out how he is using open source to boost competitiveness in digital services procurement?

Answer from Alex Burghart

We have a highly successful commercial function in Government, which is driving up value for money across all our commercial arrangements. It monitors contracts, before, during and after they have been in place, to ensure that we reduce the chances of issues such as lock-in.

Partly answered

Not addressed: The competitiveness of cloud service provision and the use of open source were not specifically addressed with details or figures.

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