Recommendation 1

HM Government Not Addressed

1: PAC conclusion: The COVID-19 cost tracker has increased transparency and helped hold government to account for its funding commitments and spending to date. 1: PAC recommendation: As part of its Treasury Minute response, HM Treasury should explain how the strengths it identified from the cost tracker approach, including transparency and accessibility, can be applied to the presentation of other thematic areas of public spending. 1.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. 16 Target implementation date: Spring 2023 1.2 The government publishes a wide range of expenditure data: • Public Expenditure Statistical Analysis (PESA), showing spend by economic and functional category; • spending figures in the Budget and Spending Review documents, including expenditure limits and thematic ringfenced spend, for example COVID-19 funding; • Main and Supplementary Estimates, detailing all spending for which the government is seeking parliamentary authority; • the Infrastructure & Projects Authority’s (IPA’s) Annual Report on major projects. This includes all projects in the Government Major Projects Portfolio (GMPP); • standalone reports on areas of significant spend, like the government’s Net Zero Strategy; • departmental reports and accounts, detailing departmental spend, for example 2019-20 thematic expenditure data on preparations for EU Exit; and • the Whole of Government Accounts, reporting on all areas of spend across the public sector. 1.3 HM Treasury recognises that in some instances, like the COVID-19 pandemic, additional publications may be required. The COVID-19 tracker demonstrated the value of additional public information in cases where: spend can be clearly attributed to a distinct cause, values for that subset of expenditure can be reliably tracked at a proportionate cost, expenditure is rapidly evolving in quantum and scope, and where there is a clear public interest. In these cases, there could be good cause to re-deploy the benefits of the COVID-19 tracker, providing timely and bespoke updates to supplement existing publications. 1.4 HM Treasury plans to apply the benefits of the COVID-19 cost tracker, in due course, to the public spending implications of the UK’s response to the invasion of Ukraine.