Recommendation 8

Outside of the spending reviews, HM Treasury has few levers and exercises little scrutiny to ensure that departments comply with evaluation requirements and expectations.20 6 C&AG’s Report, Evaluating government spending, para 3.33; C&AG’s Report, Financial modelling in government, para 13, Figure 4 7 Qq 1, 18–19 8 Q 25 9 Q 1 10 Q 1; C&AG’s Report, Evaluating government spending, para 7 11 C&AG’s Report, Evaluating government spending, para 19 12 C&AG’s Report, Evaluating government spending, para 23, para 3.3, Figure 5 13 Qq 25,51 14 C&AG’s Report, Evaluating government spending, para 3 15 Qq 6, 24–25 ; C&AG’s Report, Evaluating government spending, para 3 16 Q 43 17 Q 2 18 C&AG’s Report, Evaluating government spending, para 2.8 19 Q 5; C&AG’s Report, Evaluation in Government, Session 2013–14, 20 December 2013, para 29 20 Qq 2, 26–27; C&AG’s Report, Evaluating government spending, para 3.32–3.33 10 Use of evaluation and modelling in government Despite the spending review being the main lever at HM Treasury’s disposal, it is not making maximum use of this authority. It has not set up formal and standardised ways of tracking all spending review conditions across departments, including those related to evaluation. This means that examples of departments not meeting requirements are likely to persist, and no one is tracking and acting on this at a cross-departmental level.21 HM Treasury told us its final recourse is to withdraw funding or to reduce a department’s delegated authority limit if there is non-compliance with evaluation requirements.22 HM Treasury acknowledged that there is room for improvement in the quality and provision of evaluations across government despite its recent efforts.23 Overall responsibilities