David Crausby – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Crausby on 2014-06-26.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what Government spending was in reform of the process of procurement and across central Government in each year since May 2010.

Mr Nick Hurd

The Cabinet Office has been working with central Government departments to implement a demanding Commercial Reform agenda which is aimed at leveraging the Crown’s buying power, deriving better value for money and savings for the taxpayer to support deficit reduction and growth. This work has been carried out across departments and costs are not held centrally.

As a result of our work to date, we have made the way we buy goods and services in central Government quicker, more competitive, more transparent, better value and far simpler than before. This has saved the taxpayer £2.9bn in 2010-11, with a further £3.0bn in 2011-12, £3.8bn in 2012-13 and £5.4bn in 2013-14. These savings are all calculated against a 2009-10 baseline and include both recurring and non-recurring items.

All of this could have been started before the 2010 General Election. However in May 2010 there was no effective central oversight of procurement, commercial skills were lacking and Government didn’t even know who its strategic suppliers were, let alone how much was being spent with them.