Recommendation 28

We were interested as to why there had been so little progress since last year. The Department acknowledged “we are not where we want to be”, but told us that things were going in the right direction, and that there was a ‘sea change’ in the Department’s sense of cost control this year. The Department said that many staff were currently undertaking qualifications and that 54% of finance staff were either qualified or studying for qualifications. At senior levels the proportions of qualified staff were higher, including 85% of Senior Civil Service finance staff. He also noted that an initiative to roll out a finance career framework later this year would provide more granular information on where gaps lie. Taken together he said, “we are getting people with the right qualifications in the right roles”.59 The Department’s culture