Yes - we have been getting rid of good requirements engineers and acquisition experts. We seem to contract it out (or lose them due to poor pay compared to the equivant in the private sector). The result is I have seen contractors define the need, deliver the solution and it and decide if it's been delivered. What could possibly go wrong?
I agree. In theory it can make savings and it should, but in practice, in the rush to save money and show a drop in spend of tax-payers' money, even core businesses are being farmed out, like the Probation Service, critical national infrastructure or prisons. Whether you think it's a good idea to do so or not, if you do go down that route, as well as a well articulated, complete 'ask', the public sector should not be frightened to hold the supplier to account for not delivering and contractors should enter into it more as a partner in this than a business that really doesn't care about what they deliver as long as they make a good profit or, at worst, a predatory beast focused on the bottom line who reams out UK PLC just because there's a loophole in the contract that affords them the chance to do so.
Just to bring it back to Covid-19, had that Nirvana been achieved between UK and providers, we might have got £50M worth of masks that actually did what they should do, rather than meeting a poorly-written spec.