Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they are ensuring that the Lead Provider Framework procurement process is not used to continue employing expensive management consultants.

Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) will make decisions about their requirements when procuring services from the Lead Provider Framework and evaluate responses in order to appoint to the provider that represents the highest quality and best value for money.

The Framework contains nine accredited lead providers that bring together a range of partners and specialist organisations in analytical and intelligence services, contracting and transformation to ensure CCGs can source a diverse range of skills and expertise on a more efficient basis than employing management consultants.

NHS England created the Lead Provider Framework to enable CCGs to access affordable commissioning support from at scale providers so they would not have to rely on expensive management consultants sometimes of variable quality.