Recommendation 27

Strong financial skills are necessary at all levels for good management of the many hundreds of complex projects which make up the Plan. Yet, according to HM Treasury, the Department languishes in the third quartile of government departments in terms of financial capability. And the proportion of professionally trained financial staff in the Department has only increased from 41% to 43% since 2019, against a target of 60%. In July 2021 the Department had 350 vacancies in jobs in finance across the Department.58