Hello and welcome to this special IFG podcast brought to you in partnership with Tussle.

I'm Nick Davies, program director at the Institute.

Around a third of total government spending each year is for goods, works and services from businesses and charities. But while procurement is central to the operation of modern government, it is not without controversy,

in part due to a number of high profile scandals.

That includes the use of the VIP lane for PPE procurement in the pandemic,

and the wrongful prosecution of post office workers due to the faulty computer system supplied by Fujitsu.

Much of the criticism has been focused on the role of the biggest suppliers, some of whom have become household names for the wrong reasons.

But how much does the government actually spend with big suppliers?

What kinds of services do these companies provide?

How well do they perform compared to other suppliers?

And how effective is government at holding them to account?

The picture is often complex, but to understand it all, there's no better podcast to listen to

than inside briefing. And we have a great panel for you today to shed some light on it all.

Lord Francis Maud was Minister for the Cabinet Office between 2010 and 2015 and the author of a recent review of governance and accountability in the civil service.

Richard Holroyd is CEO of Capita Public Service.

Sean Elliott is Director of Organising Public Services and Skills at the TUC.

And Gus Tugner is founder of Tustle.

Gus, I'd like to come to you first to get a feel for the scale of spending we're talking about here.

How much is government spending through procurement?

In the 24 fiscal year, day-to-day procurement spend by the wider public sector, so everything from ministerial departments through to police forces, we say, was about 236 billion pounds per

year. There is a much larger figure of about 400 billion pounds that also does the rounds, but that includes capital spending

and purchasing by one part of government from another, which I've excluded. What's really interesting

...