Recommendation 19

The Treasury described how some of the processes used to scrutinise government plans, such as benchmarking and ongoing project reviews, enable the Treasury and Cabinet Office to monitor the progress of efficiency programmes over time.46 The Cabinet Office told us that quarterly reviews are held between the Cabinet Office, the Treasury and departments, to hold them to account for progress on programmes, and to look at what new issues they may have encountered.47 The Cabinet Office assured us that benefits realisation will be a strong theme in the Spending Review, and that departments will need to provide clear metrics to track the benefits of their plans, rather than just focusing on expected costs.48 The Cabinet Office told us that its Evaluation Task Force, which is made up of analysts, finance and digital experts, will help assess the performance of projects and scrutinise the results.49 The Cabinet Office intends the taskforce to be able to evaluate programmes more quickly, share learnings and provide quick correction, with its findings made public.50