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Government Contracting: Public data, private providers: Whitehall Monitor with Spend Network

This report looks at government spending with private service providers. 

This Whitehall Monitor, produced with Spend Network, looks at published transaction data to work out which private companies received most government spend and what spending with private providers looks like by government department. Our analysis is based on spend statements from 247 entities from central and local government. Around 38 million transactions were examined.

The analysis in this Whitehall Monitor is the first ever attempt to use published transaction data to understand government spending with private providers. Its accuracy is constrained by a number of factors outside our control, which we detail below. We make a number of recommendations on how government can better facilitate this kind of analysis in future.

We have used the data from every Whitehall department, plus all of local government in England, with the exception of district councils. Our local government spending features just three authorities in Wales and no authorities from Scotland as there is no requirement to publish spending under these devolved administrations. Some Whitehall departments also publish the data of their arms-length bodies within their own statements, and we have therefore included some additional spend beyond the 17 core departments. A full list of these bodies is published at the end of this document.

About the data in this report

Following the release of information published in this report by Spend Network and the Institute for Government, the Department of Work and Pensions highlighted a significant discrepancy between our figures on their expenditure with HP and their own data.

The Institute and Spend Network want to emphasise that the exercise leading to our publication was to identify how clear and how accurate a picture the public could get regarding public sector spending with private companies.

As we state in the bulletin, some of the figures in the report will not be accurate. All the companies listed in the top twenty and all government departments were given the opportunity to comment well in advance of the bulletin going to press and we are grateful to the many who responded. We look forward to working with all departments to improve further the quality and accuracy of the data they publish and we report.

We apologise in advance for any inaccuracies contained in this document. With the cooperation of government departments we will be verify the figures further with a view to updating the report.

The spreadsheet and PDF of slides linked below give an updated top 20 suppliers to central and local government, prepared for the IfG/Spend Network event, 'Government Contracting: Where does your money go?', held on 26 June 2014. The caveats above still apply.

Associated files

 

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