> whole governance around the code base Yes, ideally you want to have some highly competent in-house technical ability to assess the quality and maintainabilit

> whole governance around the code base Yes, ideally you want to have some highly competent in-house technical ability to assess the quality and maintainability of the codebase that is being produced, separately from the business requirements, otherwise there is a fair chance that you may end up with a lot of low quality code and a system that cannot be safely or cheaply modified. I've seen a couple of organisations outsource development, keeping only project management and domain expertise in house, but having no in house ability to assess the quality of technical work. Don't do that. If your vendors fill your project with the most profitable least experienced/capable developers, after enough years of that you'll get to have exciting meetings about "we're no longer able to estimate how long it will take to make changes to the system".