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OGC has published the first three Procurement Capability Review (PCR) reports for the Department for Education and Skills (DfES - as was) the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), along with agreed departmental Improvement Plans and an overview report on key emerging themes from the first tranche.

Procurement Capability Reviews were announced for all Government departments in January 2007 as a key enabler of HM Treasury's Transforming Government Procurement report. Focussing on where a department's money is spent, and how it achieves value from that spend, a PCR provides an independent, strategic view of the overall procurement capability of the organisation and its wider network of agencies, identifying exemplars as well as areas for improvement. The second tranche of reviews is now underway and OGC is committed to delivering 18 reviews by December 2008.

The programme of Procurement Capability Reviews was announced in HM Treasury’s publication
Transforming Government Procurement, in January 2007. That document set out that:
the reviews will assess how far procurement in central government meets the demanding standards
required to deliver value for money now and in the future. They will involve the deployment of a small
team of high quality experts engaging intensively with departments over a short period to assess their
current operating capability within their commercial functions. Reports and departmental action plans,
following the reviews, will be made public.

The programme is central to the Government’s aim to ensure that procurement drives public service
improvements. Focusing on where a department’s money is spent and how it achieves value from that
spend, a Procurement Capability Review (PCR) provides an independent, strategic view of the overall
procurement capability of the organisation and its wider family, identifying exemplars as well as areas
for improvement.

Recommendations from PCRs will result in improvements to leadership, systems and skills,
and ultimately to greater value from procurement. The potential gains are huge: the public sector
spends £150 billion a year on procuring goods and services, so even proportionately small
improvements in capability represent large sums of money which can be rerouted to providing
better public services.

The reports from the first three reviews – of the Department for Education and Skills (as was1),
the Department for Communities and Local Government, and the Department for Work and Pensions –
are now published with the departments’ Improvement Plans. This completes tranche 1 of the
programme. These departments deserve significant credit for volunteering to help pioneer this new
process. All three departments have engaged positively and productively with the review teams
throughout the process, and all have developed Improvement Plans that are robust and challenging.
Some changes have already been made, and so the PCR programme is already enabling results.

This report draws out the high level common themes identified from the first three of 18 reviews.
It is, clearly, too early in the programme to draw firm conclusions. Similarly, any attempt to compare
departments is unrealistic and unhelpful at this point – and this report does not seek to do this.
Indeed, the most obvious emerging feature of the programme is how different departments can be in
the scope of the challenges they face, and the way in which their commercial functions are organised

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