In your response to the ombudsman's report, you pushed back on some of the assumptions and characterizations of the lack of rationale for the national master standing offer decision. You say that “rationale for making the decision cannot be assumed in the report without evidence”.
My read is that the ombudsman didn't take issue with the rationale. He was taking issue with the lack of evidence. The question is, where's the evidence? Why did you push back on that finding, which is that the evidence wasn't provided? It seems like you're pushing back on something the ombudsman didn't actually say, which is that the rationale was incorrect. What the ombudsman was saying was there was no rationale. It's not transparent why that particular procurement process was chosen.