Overcoming procurement Challenges to ensure value for money in Government IT contracts

Project Overview

Our consultancy was engaged by a central government department facing a critical challenge: ensuring value for money in a high-profile IT contract while navigating the complexities of public sector procurement. The department’s digital transformation programme required specialist delivery capability to modernise outdated systems, but legacy procurement approaches risked inflating costs and delaying outcomes.

We were brought in to lead an end-to-end engagement — from early discovery through to implementation support — ensuring that the final procurement strategy delivered a high-quality digital service at the best possible price. The work spanned a 16-week period, involving close collaboration with the department’s commercial, technical, and service delivery teams, as well as engagement with external suppliers.

Our objective was clear: remove barriers, streamline processes, and help the department contract with a supplier who could deliver effectively, efficiently, and in line with Government Digital Service (GDS) standards.

The Problem

The department’s procurement process was at risk of stalling. Previous attempts to secure IT suppliers had run over budget and over schedule, resulting in solutions that were not fully aligned to user needs.

The core challenges included:

• Complex procurement rules that limited flexibility and constrained supplier choice.

• Fragmented internal alignment, with delivery, commercial, and technical teams working in silos.

• Lack of supplier clarity on the problem statement, leading to proposals that were either misaligned or overpriced.

These issues carried real risk. Delays in procurement meant delays in service improvements — affecting both operational staff and the public users who depended on the service. A poor procurement outcome could have locked the department into an inflexible, costly contract for years, making future improvements harder and more expensive.

We approached the engagement with a focus on the public value at stake: creating a procurement pathway that was fast, transparent, and directly tied to service outcomes, not just contractual compliance.

Research and Discovery

We began with an intensive discovery phase, working alongside the department’s delivery leads, procurement specialists, and technical architects. This involved:

• Stakeholder interviews with more than 25 individuals across commercial, technical, policy, and operations. These sessions uncovered hidden pain points in the existing procurement workflow and revealed a lack of shared understanding of the service’s core requirements.

• Service mapping to visualise the full procurement journey from need identification to contract award. This highlighted areas of duplication, bottlenecks, and decision points that lacked clear criteria.

• Supplier engagement analysis reviewing past procurement exercises to understand why certain tenders failed to deliver the expected value for money.

From this work, we learned that the procurement process was overly focused on technical specifications rather than user outcomes. Suppliers were responding to a “shopping list” of features rather than solving the service problem. This misalignment was driving up costs and reducing innovation.

We also identified that early collaboration between procurement and service teams was rare, meaning the commercial strategy was often set before the service vision was fully articulated. Addressing this became a cornerstone of our approach.

Design Approach

Our consultancy designed a procurement transformation plan built around three key principles: clarity, collaboration, and compliance.

First, we worked with the department to reframe the procurement from a technical acquisition to a service-led challenge. We co-authored a problem statement and outcome-based specification that clearly defined the service’s objectives, user needs, and expected benefits. This meant suppliers could respond with creative, value-driven proposals rather than simply ticking off technical requirements.

We embedded agile delivery practices into the procurement workflow. Short, iterative workshops replaced long, static requirements documents. This allowed rapid testing of ideas and reduced the risk of late-stage surprises.

We also acted as a bridge between teams, ensuring commercial, delivery, and technical colleagues worked as one integrated unit. This involved establishing a single source of truth for all procurement documents, creating a shared decision log, and introducing transparent evaluation criteria.

Finally, we developed a market engagement plan that allowed shortlisted suppliers to engage with the department early, ask questions, and understand the service context. This transparency reduced ambiguity and improved the accuracy of supplier pricing.

Outcome and Impact

The re-designed procurement approach achieved measurable results:

• The procurement cycle time was reduced by 30%, enabling the department to move from requirement definition to contract award in under four months.

• Supplier bids came in 18% lower on average than initial cost projections, with no reduction in quality or scope.

• The winning supplier’s proposal aligned directly to GDS service standards, with a strong focus on accessibility, security, and iterative delivery.

• Internal satisfaction scores — measured through a post-engagement survey — showed a 40% increase in confidence in the procurement process among delivery and commercial teams.

More importantly, the chosen supplier is now delivering a modernised digital service that will benefit millions of public users. The procurement strategy we helped shape has become a repeatable model for other digital programmes within the department, demonstrating long-term value beyond this single contract.

Reflection

This project reinforced the importance of connecting procurement strategy directly to service outcomes. By breaking down silos and focusing on shared goals, it was possible to transform what could have been a rigid, compliance-led exercise into a collaborative process that delivered real value for money.

We learned that success in public sector procurement is as much about communication and culture as it is about process and rules. Empowering delivery teams to shape commercial strategies early pays dividends — both in efficiency and in the quality of the final service.

For our consultancy, this engagement was a reminder that our role is not just to deliver against a brief, but to leave behind tools, methods, and mindsets that strengthen our clients’ ability to deliver excellent public services well into the future.

If you’d like to discuss how we can help your organisation achieve value for money in complex procurement exercises, get in touch with our team.