Responding to the National Audit Office (NAO) report on Government procurement during the COVID-19 pandemic, Tamzen Isacsson, Chief Executive of the Management Consultancies Association (MCA), said:
“COVID 19 has presented one of the biggest health, economic and social challenges in a century for this country and it’s entirely appropriate that the government has called upon the specialist expertise and talent in the consulting sector to respond quickly and help deliver critically important projects. Our firms have been proud to support and assist government during this challenging time for our country. Expenditure on public consultancy is, quite rightly, subject to a high degree of scrutiny and regulation and all MCA Member Firms used by government have been procured through competitively tendered Crown Commercial Service frameworks which evaluate bidding firms against quality and cost criteria. As part of these contracts, consultancy firms are required to upskill civil servants and transfer knowledge to increase capability for the future. We do fully support all efforts by government and the NAO to improve public sector transparency on contracts as this will improve public confidence in the system.
“Our MCA member firms have highly stringent governance procedures which ensure staff working on public sector projects meet the highest standards in ethics and are held to account to ensure the public interest is being served. All our members also sign up to our Consulting Excellence principles which commit them to upholding the highest standards of client services, transparency and value.”