Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 13
13
Accepted
Department's investment transformation programme faces significant risks due to observed lack of digital capacity.
Conclusion
The Department aims to deliver additional economic benefits of £135 million through its ongoing investment transformation programme. As part of this programme it plans to create a more tailored service offer for different types of investor and provide new online services for managing lower-value investments and simple investor queries.29 It told us that its strategy for the transformation programme was informed by comparisons with investment services offered by competitor countries and best practice from OECD and the World Bank.30 Risks to delivery of the transformation programme include a lack of digital capacity. This is a risk we have often observed and reported on in other government departments.31
Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the observation regarding the risk of a lack of digital capacity. It details existing mitigation strategies, including a blended staffing mix and a specialist DDaT pay framework, stating that capacity challenges have not constrained the Investment Transformation Programme.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
3.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: March 2024 3.2 As the Committee recognises, digital capacity across government is stretched. Capacity is constrained by the department’s ability to recruit the right calibre of people in a competitive market. To mitigate this, the department operates a blended staffing mix of civil servants, contractors and outcome-based suppliers. The department has implemented a specialist Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) pay framework and there are ongoing pay discussions with the Central Digital Data Office which have contributed to recruiting 100+ civil servants in 2022-2023. The creation of the department has put further pressure on digital teams, yet the impact on the Investment Transformation Programme (ITP) is minimal. Capacity challenges have not constrained the department’s DDaT capacity on the ITP and all of DDaT’s contributions to workstreams are set to deliver as per the critical path. 3.3 The ITP aims to provide a differentiated service offer to investors, proportionate to investment projects value and impact on UK government strategic objectives. This supports the department’s shift-to-value strategy and ensures the department’s teams are focusing their efforts on projects delivering the most impact. As part of this, DDaT has developed a new digital service to provide business support for foundational investor enquiries which is on track to be piloted in the coming months. DDaT have also delivered improvements to the Customer Relationship Management system and are supporting data transfer and tech roll out for Investment Services Teams contract closure. There is a robust monitoring and evaluation plan in place to understand the success of digital interventions, which will be used to inform future development.