NAO: government wastes £290m in poor contract management

Hundreds of millions of taxpayers' money is being wasted on poorly managed government contracts, said the National Audit Office.

Civil servants are failing to make sure outsourced service providers were meeting terms of their deals, and the government could save £290m from its £12bn contracts bill if they were better maintained, reported the Telegraph.

Despite the huge amount of cash lavished on these services, government departments do not take the process anywhere near as seriously as they should,' said Public Accounts Committee chairman Edward Leigh.

Contracts organiser the Office of Government Commerce said new guidelines would be implemented to make sure contract terms were met.

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