Robert Breedon
Partner
Article
5
The keenly awaited second edition of the Cabinet Office's Outsourcing Playbook was released on 10 June 2020 - setting out the government's guide to getting outsourcing and insourcing right. In the first of a series of Insights s on the topic, we summarise what is new.
The second edition has a wider remit than before - focusing not just on outsourcing but more generally on service delivery, including insourcing and mixed economy sourcing and contracting. Indeed, its policies are noted as "good practice for any procurement".
The 11 core policies from the first edition remain, but new or refreshed content has been added on topics such as:
Changes have also been made to assist Departments in implementing the Outsourcing Playbook policies. A new 'functional matrix' maps the level of awareness that individuals in each functional group (commercial, financial, programme and operations, policy, legal and others) should have of each policy (i.e. ownership, knowledge, understanding or awareness).
As well as the updates to the Outsourcing Playbook itself, there has also been a change in the supporting players on the bench:
With the Outsourcing Playbook and guidance notes alone clocking up over 380 pages, there is a fair amount of pre-game reading to be done. In a series of Insights over the upcoming weeks, we will give you a roadmap to the second edition of the Outsourcing Playbook. We will look at the new material in more detail, and revisit the existing policies. We will share our experiences of how the Outsourcing Playbook has been used to shape procurements since its initial launch in February 2019.
Read the updated Playbook and all of its supporting guidance notes in full.
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