Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 4
4
Skills shortages in the civil service could compromise departments’ ability to achieve efficiency savings.
Conclusion
Skills shortages in the civil service could compromise departments’ ability to achieve efficiency savings. A lack of skills and leadership capability has caused delays, inefficiencies, and increased costs in several previous government projects. For example, the InterCity West Coast franchise competition saw a lack of leadership and expertise contribute to its collapse, and the Common Agricultural Policy Delivery Programme suffered from a high turnover of senior leaders. Increasing the capability to conduct successful efficiency programmes may require government to ‘spend to save’, putting upfront investment in place to increase departmental capability and capacity. There is also a risk that multiple efficiency programmes rely on the same pool of specialists within government functions, to the extent that the functions do not have the capacity to meet the demand. Increased government spending on consultants as a result of EU exit and COVID-19 may well have been less efficient than building capability within the civil service. We welcome that the Cabinet Office has begun to reduce spending on consultancy and intends to build capabilities within government, as set out in its Declaration on Government Reform. Recommendations: HM Treasury needs to work with departments to understand the skills and capability required to deliver plans successfully, identifying any specialist and technical skills needed. The Cabinet Office should ensure, through its workforce planning, that there are enough resources and skills available to teams to deliver efficiency programmes and must write to us in six months on its progress in implementing the key measures within the Declaration on Government Reform.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Declaration on Government Reform, made a number of commitments, a number of which have already been delivered, including: • The creation of a new curriculum and campus for training civil servants: £26 million was allocated to the Leadership College for Government at Spending Review 2021 to train public and Civil Service leaders. The first physical campus will be at Easingwold in York; • Improving functional skills and accreditation, for example the Government Projects Academy provides professional training for delivery professionals. The number of skilled project delivery professionals captured on the Government Online Skills Tool is currently 8,870, against a target of 12,000 by March 2023; • The creation of the Government Consulting Hub, which provides direct capability across government, and leverages wider Civil Service capability for single department assignments, through the new Advisory Network launched in 2021; • Increasing the number of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) graduates in the Civil Service. Targets were set in Government Science and Engineering Profession Strategy; HM Treasury is also upskilling spending teams and government finance professionals to deliver efficiency. The Government Finance Function (GFF) runs the Government Finance Academy (GFA), providing high-quality learning and development to help improve financial skills, capability and talent across the Government Finance profession, including sharing best practice, using a variety of communities and networks across the GFF. The Finance Career Framework launched in 2021 sets out the skills, capabilities, qualifications and experience required for the finance roles across government at all grades. As part of the Public Spending Professionalism programme HM Treasury has undertaken work to improve skills among spending teams. This includes ongoing development of updated in-house learning materials for spending control, including new online training and resources suited to hybrid working. The government will also be implementing capability-based pay for the Senior Civil Service, to incentivise senior leaders to build expertise in their policy area and in turn increase capability in the Civil Service. More detail will be provided in a public report on progress against the Declaration’s commitments. The Cabinet Office will write to the Committee with an update against the Reform Statement in May 2022.