Recommendation 13

HM Government Not Addressed

Managing the short-term risks to value for money to avoid nugatory expenditure The four Accounting Officers agree with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: this recommendation has been implemented. There are already processes in place within Parliament, the Sponsor Body and Delivery Authority to avoid nugatory spend when making investment decisions; a governance structure to manage these dependencies across all four organisations; and scrutiny of decisions by Committees of both Houses to ensure that value for money is being prioritised and achieved. One of the main functions of the Sponsor Body during the transition process is to continue overseeing and scrutinising the work of the Delivery Authority. Both organisations are committed to ensuring continued value for money and avoiding nugatory expenditure, and both have introduced a clear framework and structures to do so. Following the decisions of the House Commissions in February 2022, both Accounting Officers commissioned high-level reviews of the organizations’ business plans on an ‘essential activities’ basis, to align to the direction provided by the Commissions and to avoid nugatory spend. This exercise was performed at pace and with a high level of uncertainty around the future scope of the R&R programme and the future operating model. In order to provide some structure for both the Sponsor Body and Delivery Authority over the short-term, the Sponsor Body issued the Delivery Authority with a new “task brief” on 25 February 2022. This provided instructions to close off, then cease, activities that were no longer required and focussed instead on those activities essential to exploring future options for an R&R Programme and supporting transition activity. The work on exploring future options for the Programme is aligned to the parameters agreed jointly by the House Commissions and published in their report. To mitigate any short-term risk to value for money and nugatory expenditure, the Sponsor Body and Delivery Authority have: • Carried out an executive review of activities to pause/stop/continue, with existing budgets subsequently adjusted accordingly; • Reviewed all commercial commitments and either terminated those arrangements or reduced the scope to those activities that are necessary to complete existing workstreams, such that they can be archived and made available for future reference if necessary; • Introduced additional controls to review any new financial commitments; • Reviewed all resource budgets and implemented a recruitment freeze, other than for roles where recruitment was unavoidable or offered better Value for Money. All resources (employees and interims) as well as roles performed by the Delivery Authority’s delivery partner, Jacobs, were reviewed and challenged by the executive team. This review means that the planned increase in Delivery Authority resources has not happened, and the Delivery Authority will retain resources broadly in line with current numbers; • Given notice to all contractors unless their work is critical to current operations; and • Reviewed required design resources in conjunction with the Delivery Authority’s design partner, BDP, to re-align resources to the new activities going forward. The Delivery Authority still has significant work to do—developing future proposals, progressing surveys and other investigations, continuing work that will be of value, maintaining organisational capability and expertise—so they can respond when the Houses have provided a new direction in accordance with a new task brief. The Delivery Authority will continue to target savings through its planning and forecasting process to ensure that a constant downward pressure on costs is maintained and provide a monthly report to the Sponsor Board detailing progress, risks and issues and financial information. Quarterly reports will be issued to the House Commissions, which will be shared with the Parliamentary Works 38 Estimates Commission, and will include information relating to the realisation of cost savings for review and challenge. The Sponsor Body will scrutinise all R&R costs and plans during the 2022/23 financial year, unless and until the sponsorship functions are transferred elsewhere by regulations, and is committed to drive through efficiencies and savings wherever possible including through the ‘deep dives’ commissioned by the Sponsor Board on Data and Digital, Programme Management and Corporate Services costs, as well as holding monthly performance reviews, reviewing the expenditure and challenging the resources required. Despite the above controls, given the current uncertainty over the scope of the future works to the Palace of Westminster, there is a chance that some expenditure incurred to date may at a later date be considered a constructive loss. However, without a confirmed scope of works it is not currently possible to make this assessment, and it remains the view of management that all spe