Recommendation 4

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.