Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what proportion of procurement contracts awarded by each Government Department were to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in each of the last five financial years.

The Government is determined to ensure the £400 billion of public money spent on public procurement annually delivers economic growth and supports British businesses, especially SMEs.

The Cabinet Office does not hold a central record of the proportion of procurement contracts awarded by each Government Department to SMEs over the last five financial years. The Government is, however, introducing targets for SME spend going forwards.

The Government is also taking a number of further steps to support SMEs.

We have published a National Procurement Policy Statement (NPPS) which requires contracting authorities to consider ways to increase procurement spend with SMEs and Voluntary, Community, and Social Enterprises (VCSEs).

The Crown Commercial Service has also published an SME Action Plan which sets out the steps it is taking to support Government Departments maximise their procurement spend with SMEs, by removing barriers to participation and opening up opportunities to SMEs through their commercial agreements.

We have also introduced changes allowing local councils to reserve over one billion pounds worth of lower value contracts to suppliers based locally or within the UK which has recently become law, a step strongly supported by SMEs.

We will set out further reforms, including the response to the recent public procurement consultation, in due course. These reforms will further support British SMEs to bid for contracts.