Voluntary sector organisations which contract with government are likely to have to reveal more information about their activities under new rules announced today by Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office.
The Cabinet Office has today published a set of transparency principles in a document entitled The Transparency of Suppliers and Government to the Public.
The principles “set out the requirement for the proactive release of information under the government’s existing commitment to publish contract information,” the Cabinet Office said in an introductory statement to the document. “They set a presumption in favour of disclosure, to encourage both government and suppliers to consider the information that should be made available when government signs a contract with a supplier.
From later this year government contracts will contain trial “standardised transparency provisions”, Maude said, based on these principles and similar to those produced by think tank the Institute for Government, also released today in a report called Enhancing Transparency in Public Service Contracts.
The Institute has called for contracts to involve an “active push” of information to the public, more proactive than requests under the Freedom of Information Act, and has said transparency requirements should be “explicit from the outset” in government contracts.
“Today the Institute for Government is proposing standardised transparency provisions for public contracts,” Maude said. “These align with our principles on transparency published today, and support our development of a transparency clause which will ensure that public authorities can make the necessary information on outsourced public services available to the taxpayer.
“We will trial a similar version of these provisions later this spring as part of our commitments under the National Action Plan with a view to adopting them once we have consulted across Whitehall.”
The rules would mean that agencies contracting with government would have to provide information about the progress and effectiveness of those contracts.
The Institute said it had not focused on whether private and voluntary sector contractors would be subject to requests under the Freedom of Information Act, because that was already being dealt with by other bodies.
Instead its new transparency provisions would “focus on the issues that mattered most to the public – the fees paid to government suppliers, their performance and details of major subcontracting arrangements”
All central government departments will follow these principles, Maude said.
