On March 9 2016 the National Audit Office published a report, "Government's spending with small and medium-sized enterprises", which calls into question claims by the Government that it has met its targets a year ahead of schedule.

 

According to the NAO, the Cabinet Office said that 26% of government spending reached SMEs in 2013-14, surpassing its 2010 aspiration of 25%. The next year this figure rose to 27% of total procurement spending.

 

The NAO's report casts doubt on the accuracy of these figures:

 

"We cannot be certain that the amount government spends with SMEs has increased over the last Parliament. The reported annual increases in spending with SMEs happened in parallel with the CCS’ work to improve government’s understanding of its spending with SMEs. As a result, we do not know how much of the reported increase is due to the changes in approach and how much is an actual increase in SME activity."

"For indirect spending, the Cabinet Office has surveyed a larger group of providers each year since 2011-12 so annual figures are not comparable. The CCS’ methodology for direct spending has not changed since 2011-12, but we cannot be certain that numbers are directly comparable due to the structure of the underlying data."

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Welcome to the "Not Acceptable" campaign, which represents the interests of SMEs supplying services to the government through contract frameworks. The Campaign is committed to central government users (and the wider public sector) having the quality of service they need. It believes that SMEs deliver better quality and value for both users and the tax payer.

 

The campaign's starting point is the Civil Service Learning (CSL) contract, which is run by Capita and which Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office Minister, has admitted is working in a way that is "not acceptable". As a result, the National Audit Office is undertaking a review of the contract and will look at four specific areas: late payment of invoices, the level of adminstrative fees, the amount of open competition and the presence of non-compete clauses. 

 

These non-compete clauses might constitute a cartel. The CSL SME Consortium has filed a complaint with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) claiming that the clauses are a breach of the UK Competition Act 1998 and Article 101 of the EU Treaty. 

 

CSL, however, may just be one part of a wider issue. Non-compete clauses, as well as a ban on restrictive covenants, which leave Capita free to bypass suppliers and deal directly with their contractors, are also present on the much larger Contingent Labour One (CL1) contract and legacy CIPHER contracts. The complaint to the CMA also covers these issues.

 

Does your business supply goods or services to the government under a contract run by Capita? Are you satisfied with the terms of the contract? If not, get in touch and let us help your voice be heard.