Part of 3. Questions to the Senedd Commission – in the Senedd at 3:18 pm on 9 November 2022.
Yes, we've investigated a number of times over the number of contractors that we do contract out, whether in-house direct provision is preferable, both in terms of quality and cost. To date, it hasn't proved to be so; I can write to the Member with any specific analysis that was done on this particular contract. He'll have to excuse me that I can't recall it at this point, but I'm happy to provide that evidence. But I can give you the confirmation that we regularly review the issue of direct provision. Like you, instinctively I support direct provision of services. We've seen it actually work to our benefit, of course, when we took in-house, as a Commission, the ICT services, and we saw that especially during the pandemic, how that worked in our favour. But I will confirm some of these points to you when that was last reviewed.