Spending watchdog to review government contracting with smaller providers

The National Audit Office has announced plans to examine how the Government commissions and contracts with smaller providers including SMEs.

The move comes two years after the Government accepted Lord Young’s recommendations that the public sector develop a set of “single market” principles to be applied to all public sector procurement.

The Government has also committed to ensuring that a wider range of providers, including Small & Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) and Voluntary, Community & Social Enterprise organisations (VCSEs), have a much greater role in the public sector marketplace.

This includes having a target for 33% of central government’s procurement spending to reach SMEs by 2020.

The NAO said its study would “examine where government uses these providers and why, highlighting barriers to successful commissioning of these organisations, and reviewing the effectiveness of government initiatives to address these barriers”.