Committee publication · Correspondence · 4 June 2026
Letter from the Permanent Secretary at the Cabinet Office and the Permanent Secretary at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology relating to recommendations from the Government's relationship with Digital Technology Suppliers report, 18 May 2026
From: Public Accounts Committee
Inquiry: Government services: Identifying costs and generating income
Summary
The Cabinet Office and DSIT provide a progress update on recommendations from the Public Accounts Committee's 'Government's relationship with Digital Technology Suppliers' report. They mark six recommendations as closed, clarifying roles between the Government Commercial Function and Government Digital Service, establishing the Digital Commercial Centre of Excellence, and launching the National Cloud Infrastructure Procurement (NCIP), expected to underpin £10–40bn in contracts over ten years.
Key findings
- GCF leads tier 1 strategic supplier relationships; DCCoE leads engagement with SMEs and scale-ups; individual departments manage single-supplier relationships, creating clear accountability structure
- Over 5,000 GCF colleagues completed digital commercial training phases 1 or 2; Commercial Digital Capability Board established to determine additional departmental digital procurement needs
- Digital Suppliers Playbook produced and being launched; Central Digital Platform now has 3,500+ contracting authorities, 74,000+ suppliers, and 66,000+ published notices
- National Cloud Infrastructure Procurement identified as key priority, with potential to coordinate £10–40bn in contracts over 10 years and drive sovereign cloud and AI infrastructure growth
- Implementation date for NCIP extended from December 2025 to April 2027 to allow contract award conclusion; recommendation 2 deadline extended to December 2026 due to programme scale and leadership restructures
Tone
ProceduralTopics
Key actors
Catherine Little CB, Emran Mian, Cabinet Office, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), Government Commercial Function (GCF), Government Digital Service (GDS), Digital Commercial Centre of Excellence (DCCoE), Public Accounts Committee
Notable line
“NCIP could underpin £10-40bn of contracts over a 10-year period, giving the government a materially stronger position from which to influence supplier behaviour and investment.”
Key Quotes
“GCF are responsible for delivering the commercial outcomes for these recommendations, GDS via the DCCoE in each of these interventions, is accountable for developing the technical standards, specification, outcome statements and requirements”
“Cross-government strategic supplier (tier 1) relationships will be led by the GCF, with both the Markets, Sourcing and Suppliers team and customer experience team working closely to coordinate supplier strategies”
“DCCoE will lead on engagement with digital Scale-Ups, Emergent, and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME). This will support the UK Business growth agenda”
“NCIP could underpin £10-40bn of contracts over a 10-year period, giving the government a materially stronger position from which to influence supplier behaviour and investment.”
“Over 5000 colleagues in GCF have completed either phase one or phase two training. The DCCoE is also leading the development of a category-based structure to unify digital skills and capabilities with commercial technical skills”
Source · parliament.uk record ↗