Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 1
1
Deferred
Committee took evidence on government shared services from lead departments.
Conclusion
On the basis of a Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, we took evidence from the Cabinet Office and the Department for Work & Pensions, the lead department for the ‘Synergy’ shared services cluster, on government shared services.1
Government Response Summary
The government's response acknowledges a 'recommendation' (despite the committee text being a conclusion) and describes assessing strategy feasibility under different scenarios, along with negotiating a two-year contract extension for ISSC2 customer departments to ensure service continuity until October 2025, rather than addressing the committee's observation.
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government
Deferred
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. shortlisting of options and counterfactuals. As part of this recommendation central teams will assess the feasibility of delivering the Shared Services Strategy for Government (SSfG) within a number of different funding or political scenarios. This work will then be used as a tool to assess the feasibility of the future business cases submitted by the Clusters. Regarding ageing systems becoming unsupported, in April 2023, an extension with Shared Services Connected Ltd (SSCL) was negotiated on the Integrated Shared Service Centre 2 (ISSC2) contract which will ensure service continuity. Integrated Shared Service Centre 2 (ISSC2) customer departments (covering around 200,000 full-time equivalents) require an extension with SSCL to bridge the gap between the current contract end date and the date they have new service arrangements in place. The extension negotiated is limited to two years that is business as is, with no significant changes. This will see affected departments - the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), Environment Agency (EA), the Cabinet Office (CO), the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), Home Office (HO) and the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) having their service extended to October 2025.