Source · Select Committees · International Development Committee
Recommendation 25
25
Accepted
Published data on FCDO's implementing partners remains incomplete and obscure.
Conclusion
The FCDO’s use of private contractors is not inherently poor value for money. However, the published organisation and activity data of all implementing partners, including private contractors, is often incomplete and obscure. This exposes every pound spent to a higher risk of under-delivering impact. (Conclusion, Paragraph 87)
Government Response Summary
The government agrees that implementing partner data is incomplete and commits to improving IATI publishing by encouraging compliance, reviewing its approach to increase publishing while reducing administrative burden, and working with IATI to streamline the process.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
Agree. The published organisation and activity data of the FCDO’s implementing partners is incomplete and more can be done to improve the completeness of the UK’s International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) publishing. While some information is omitted due to the data being too sensitive, e.g. some sensitive conflict and humanitarian environments, this only partly explains the incomplete nature of the FCDO’s implementers with non-sensitive information which have not published, and is looking into how to encourage their compliance. At the same time, the FCDO recognises that implementers are under increasing financial strain and the requirement to publish represents a financial burden, so the FCDO is reviewing its approach to partner publishing, aiming to increase the proportion of implementing partners that publish data, while lessening the administrative burden on implementers. This includes working with IATI to streamline the publication process.