Prime Minister David Cameron has admitted that there are a shortage of contract management skills within the civil service.

The acknowledgement came during a House of Commons Liaison Select Committee, with questions relating to recent outsource contract failures including the West Coast Mainline, in which civil servants failed to correctly manage the procurement process. The tendering process failure resulted in the expensive scrapping of the process and a £50 million bill to taxpayers.

Mr Cameron said: “I think there are skills shortages in the civil service that have to be addressed,” adding, “There are examples of good contracting and bad contracting,”. “I think the more general point is that the civil service needs to have more expertise across the piece on this.”

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