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A Domesday Book for public service contracts – better data, better value for money

Report type
Research and reports
Issue date
Existing knowledge

No systematic monitoring takes place inside the NHS, either of contracts between NHS trusts or let by trusts to private and third sector suppliers. Procurement has itself been outsourced, which has complicated and perhaps compromised the flow and quality of data. Regulators demand lots of information from trusts and could in theory find out how contractors perform. Yet in a recent appraisal, the King’s Fund did not identify any oversight of contracting by a major regulator, the Care Quality Commission. [1] NHS improvement (NHSI) publishes ad hoc studies, which incorporate some data on contracting (for example, Lord Carter’s analyses of procurement). The boards of Foundation Trusts may see local data on contracts but have no access to systemic data from within the NHS or from other local bodies.

In other domains, it is a similar, fragmented picture. HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services, the criminal justice inspectorates and Ofsted are all concerned with performance and so, implicitly, with the work done by contractors. But none focus on or instigate the collection of data about their performance.

External auditors of public bodies possess knowledge about contracting practice and performance but they report it only intermittently, if at all. Outside central government, audit is now carried out by private firms. Most carry a responsibility to report on value for money or ‘use of resources’ but not, it seems, contracting. Local authorities publish raw contracts data (but schools and others bodies don’t). Raw is the word: it is not easy to make sense of the undifferentiated list of items on the spreadsheets made available by a council.  

 

[1] King’s Fund/University of Manchester (2018).” Impact of the Care Quality Commission on Provider Performance

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