Achieving value for money through procurement Part 2: DFID’s approach to value for money through tendering and contract management

International Development Committee

Parliament’s International Development Committee (IDC), or its ICAI sub-committee, hold hearings on all ICAI reviews. The IDC hearing into DFID’s approach to value for money through tendering and contract management is available to watch online.

ICAI follow-up

We follow up on the steps the government has taken in response to our recommendations for all ICAI reviews. This process is a key link in the accountability chain, providing Parliament and the public with an account of how well government departments have responded to ICAI reviews.

We published the follow-up for this review in July 2020, and rated the government’s progress towards meeting the recommendations for this review as ‘inadequate’ as a result of DFID’s failure to put in place a formal contract management regime, despite the risks this entails for programme results.

Further follow-up

We returned to Procurement 2 through the next follow-up process, which was published in June 2021. We found there had been significant improvements on instituting a robust contract management regime. A senior responsible officer for contract management had been appointed, a formal contract management regime was in place which included appropriate adaptive contract management techniques and training efforts were on an upward trajectory.