Recommendation 2

HM Treasury is not making full use of the spending levers it has at its disposal to deliver a step change in the use of evaluation across government. We welcome the creation of the Evaluation Task Force and the increased emphasis on evaluation in the 2020 and 2021 Spending Reviews, whereby HM Treasury made greater use of its authority to set requirements for evaluation when it approved funding. However, we are disappointed that HM Treasury did not make use of these powers earlier, despite the NAO recommending this in 2013. HM Treasury’s final recourse is to withdraw funding or to reduce a department’s delegated authority limit if there is non-compliance with evaluation requirements. HM Treasury has not set up formal and standardised ways of tracking all spending review conditions across departments, including those related to evaluation. With few sanctions available to HM Treasury outside of the spending reviews, HM Treasury needs to make as much use of spending review conditions as it can. HM Treasury acknowledges that there is room for improvement in the quality and provision of evaluations across government despite its recent efforts. Recommendation: By November 2022, HM Treasury should set up a formal process for routinely tracking and following up on spending review settlement conditions relating to evaluation. HM Treasury should set out the range of interventions it will use if departments fail to meet the conditions.