Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 14
14
Accepted
Department's digital capacity issues exacerbated by high vacancy rates and challenging recruitment environment.
Conclusion
We asked the Department what it was doing to mitigate this risk. It told us that it was concerned that the formation of the new Department from its predecessor departments had placed additional pressures on its core digital team and that the digital team was reviewing its priorities. The Department plans to assess whether it needs to contract in additional digital support for the transformation programme and whether it will need to delay the programme.32 It said that contracting in digital support was challenging as there was a ‘small pool’ of candidates to hire from and candidates needed security clearance.33 The Department subsequently wrote to us about the level of vacancies in the former Department for International Trade’s digital team. As of 13 March 2023, 105 out of 371 roles (28%) were unfilled.34 29 C&AG’s Report, paras 2.16–2.17 30 Qq 60–61 31 Qq 86, 89; (for example) Committee of Public Accounts, The Defence digital strategy, Thirty-Sixth Report of Session 2022–23. HC 727, 3 February 2023 32 Q 86 33 Q 88 34 Letter to the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee from Gareth Davies, DBT Permanent Secretary, 20 March 2023 Supporting investment into the UK 13 2 Promoting investment across the UK Driving local growth
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.