Achieving value for money through procurement – Part 1: DFID’s approach to its supplier market
The Department for International Development (DFID) has developed a credible approach to enabling fair and open competition in its supplier market and to achieving value for money in its procurement.
Read the approach paper
- PDF download (1 MB)
- Published: 19 Apr 2017
Our approach
We set out to review DFID’s approach to ensuring value for money in the management of its supplier pool. Our aim was to provide Parliament and the public with an assessment of whether DFID is able to attract the best suppliers with the required skills at competitive prices, and how large suppliers are held accountable.
It is part one of a series of reviews on achieving value for money through procurement.
The review considers the diversity of DFID’s supplier pool, looking at geographical spread, size and type of supplier. In addition, it looks at whether DFID’s approach to its suppliers promotes its own policy objectives in areas such as environmental standards, anti-corruption, transparency and its commitment to ‘leaving no one behind’.
The review focuses on bilateral aid spending delivered by private sector, non-governmental organisations and think tank suppliers, and did not include contracting through multilateral organisations.
Review questions
We sought to answer the following questions:
- Relevance: Does DFID’s approach to managing its supplier market support the objectives and priorities of the aid programme?
- Effectiveness: Does DFID’s management of its supplier market support value for money?
- Effectiveness (Learning): Does DFID capture and use learning and knowledge from its interactions with suppliers to improve its use of suppliers and its management of its supplier market over time?