Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance – in the Senedd at 2:02 pm on 18 April 2018.
Well, Llywydd, I have welcomed the work done by the Auditor General for Wales in relation to procurement, and I welcome the work that the Public Accounts Committee has done in this field as well. It is because of concerns about the National Procurement Service, not simply the service itself, but about the changing context within which such a service has to operate—Brexit, ongoing austerity, emerging models of regional working, for example—that back in September I announced that we were undertaking a review of the service. Now, since then, as Adam Price has said, information has emerged about the extent to which the NPS has been able to reach the benchmarks that were originally set out for it and about the level of confidence that it has commanded amongst those who use it. That's why a plan to refocus NPS and Value Wales is important. That's why I am keen to press on with it. We need a service that is able to use the power of procurement to the advantage of the Welsh economy to the maximum extent, but it has to command the confidence of its key stakeholders, and there are changes that are needed to make sure that that can happen.