Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 18
18
Accepted
Cabinet Office lacks comprehensive performance indicators to track Shared Services Strategy progress.
Conclusion
The Cabinet Office has no performance indicators that measure progress of the Shared Services Strategy.34 When asked what metrics were used to monitor progress of the strategy, the Cabinet office told us that there are three elements to this: two that are currently underway and one that it is working on. Firstly, it is measuring business as usual service provision. Performance measures include payroll accuracy, invoice accuracy, end- user satisfaction, government transfers and mobility of services, as well as a further 40 measures. Secondly, it is tracking delivery of individual projects, such as standardising the processes for people who join, move and leave the civil service.35 However, these measures 26 Q 51; C&AG’s Report, para 2.7 27 C&AG’s Report, paras 2.7–2.8 28 Qq 51, 60 29 Qq 21, 51, 58, 59; C&AG’s Report, Figure 6 30 Qq 54, 58; C&AG’s Report, para 2.12 & Figure 6 31 Q 52 32 Qq 51, 53 33 Qq 51, 54, 60 34 Qq 32, 67, 88; C&AG’s Report, para 12 35 Qq 31–32; C&AG’s Report, para 12 Government Shared Services 13 do not allow the Cabinet Office to understand the overall progress being made on this major programme of change. For example, there are no indicators to monitor progress on data and process standardisation among departments and clusters.36
Government Response Summary
The government agrees and has begun developing a new set of performance metrics to monitor the overall progress of the strategy, including service improvement and implementation of new systems, by sourcing top-line information across government.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: September 2023 Strategy success measures have been delivery oriented to date. There has been recognition that these measures need to evolve as the Strategy is implemented. At the time of the NAO report, the focus on performance and quality was baselining current performance across back-office systems and ensuring continuity of quality as change was introduced. In the last few months a new set of performance metrics have begun to be developed to monitor progress in terms of implementation of new systems but also show improvement in service. This includes taking a portfolio light approach to monitoring progress, by sourcing the top-line information from across government, both from Clusters and Supporting Programmes such as Interoperability, to provide a single perspective across government on progress against the Strategy. Against this are the products that strategy directorate are providing to underpin the Strategy, and using this to gauge future capability and capacity needs.