This is a probing amendment, which seeks to ask the Government to set out more clearly how this clause will improve the current position and is intended to operate. This is indeed an amendment which covers the mystery shopper. In February 2011, the Cabinet Office supplier feedback service was extended to allow small businesses to ask about procurement processes when they were unsuccessful or felt that the
procedures or systems, or how they were being treated, were unfair. This was later renamed the mystery shopper scheme, which I have enjoyed reading about.
Looking through the document headed “Mystery Shopper Publication Table October to December 2014”, I came across a fascinating story about the UK Shared Business Services. The description says that:
“A Mystery Shopper raised concerns about a procurement by UK Shared Business Services … for ‘the Small Business Campaign’. The supplier read in a media article that they had been unsuccessful prior to receiving any response from”,
those services. The response from the investigation by the mystery shopper service said:
“We investigated this case and UKSBS have confirmed that unfortunately information was made publically available prior to the official notification letters being sent”.
Its conclusion was that the United Kingdom’s Shared Business Services,
“are looking into their internal processes to ensure that this situation does not re occur (including ensuring training is put in place for users of the procurement process)”.
I have never seen a leak more extensively reported in a government document and I found it very amusing. However, we commend the mystery shopper, which performs an exceptionally valuable service and shows tremendous potential for development. One of the things which we commend is that it is evolving and not a static instrument. It has some direct attention and modifications come as a result of that.
I would like to probe what is in the Bill. Clause 39 provides the Minister for the Cabinet Office and the Secretary of State with a power to investigate the exercise by a contracting authority of relevant functions relating to public procurement. This essentially puts the existing mystery shopper service on a statutory footing. On the face of it, it seems strange that the clause makes provision for the Minister to carry out the investigations and does not allocate any powers to the Minister to delegate. I am sure that there are some very interesting drafting answers in the Minister’s file. How is this intended to operate? I am sure that while a number of Ministers could fit in the time to spearhead public procurement investigations, some may have less time and, possibly, not even have the skills.
The main purpose is to move an informal process and the Explanatory Notes state that the Bill,
“will make contracting authorities legally obliged to provide information on request”.
I would be grateful if the Minister could provide us with further details on this problem. I think that I have read through all the published mystery shopper documents and none has stated this to be a problem, so I wonder why it has emerged as one of the foundations in the Explanatory Notes. I would guess there have been some difficulties and I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us what they have been and whether particular departments, agencies or authorities have been at fault.
The Explanatory Notes state:
“Ministers and Government departments will continue to comply with the current Mystery Shopper scheme as a matter of interdepartmental co-operation”.
Does this mean that there will be an exclusion when they look into each other’s departments and, therefore, this will be done without the statutory obligation to provide information in a timely fashion?
As this seems to relate to matters about how the investigations are conducted, our amendment seems eminently sensible. It simply asks for more transparency around the investigation process and asks for details to be published including the focus, findings and evidence of the investigation. Naturally, an exception is made for commercially confidential information and is a means to probe the entire clause and some of the details that we think are missing about how these investigations will be carried out in an effective and timely manner.
Finally, in Amendment 35V, we consider the exercise of Ministers’ time to be so valuable and their insights to be so useful that we suggest that details of the investigation should be published including the focus, findings and evidence considered. Commercially confidential evidence is, naturally, excluded from this. I beg to move.