Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 16
16
Accepted
Shared services clusters use inconsistent methods for calculating potential benefits.
Conclusion
In autumn 2022, the business cases of three clusters (‘Synergy’, ‘Matrix’ and ‘Unity’) identified potential benefits (both “cashable” and “non-cashable”) of £2 billion at an estimated cost of £0.9 billion.29 However, the three clusters have not calculated these figures on a consistent basis. For example, clusters have different definitions for what constitutes “cashable” savings and have calculated them over different timescales.30 In addition, the ‘Defence’ cluster has yet to provide any information to the Cabinet Office on the benefits of its shared services plans and the ‘Overseas’ cluster has only recently provided a benefits figure of £6 million a year.31
Government Response Summary
The government agrees and is developing a consistent framework for benefit identification, definition, and monitoring across the strategy, in collaboration with Ernst & Young, to address previous inconsistencies in cluster calculations.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: September 2023 In Outline Business Cases clusters calculated benefits in different ways, this made comparisons between them tricky as they had been calculated over different timeframes, differing cashable and non-cashable benefits and different benefit categories. Work is being carried out at pace on developing a full cross-Strategy picture of benefits. There are 4 main objectives within this work: • Consistency: Ensure that benefits are identified and defined clearly and are aligned to strategic objectives. • Accountability: Ensure that cluster and programme areas take ownership of and are committed to the identified benefits and their realisation. • Strategic fit: Ensure that programme/project activity and outputs are aligned to support the delivery of benefits. • Monitor: Ensure that benefits are tracked and recorded, that accountability for delivery is clear, and achievements are reported and recognised. In order to facilitate this, work is ongoing with Ernst & Young (EY) to produce a framework to ensure common understanding and classification of benefits as well as investigating expected benefits across the Strategy and where to go further in the future. A draft report from EY has been produced, a detailed feedback exercise on the report is currently being carried out by the team.