Recommendation 3

Departments do not receive enough support from Cabinet Office in certain aspects of arm’s-length bodies management. When this Committee last reported on ALBs in 2016 we found inconsistencies in the way that departments managed their ALBs. This inconsistency remains, with departments adopting different approaches to ALB sponsorship. Departmental centres of expertise, such as those set up by the Ministry of Justice, are not widespread. Although the introduction of the Code of Good Practice is a step forward, the Cabinet Office does not 6 Government’s delivery through arm’s-length bodies seem to think it needs to monitor whether departments follow this guidance in practice. Despite our recommendation in 2016 that departments make more use of benchmarking to assess performance, which government accepted, there has been limited progress. Framework agreements and Accounting Officer System Statements are ‘live documents’ that need to be kept up to date and reflect current risks and circumstances, but these are often not updated regularly or in line with Cabinet Office requirements. Recommendation: The Cabinet Office should write to us by January 2022, setting out how it will use its new strategy to: • assure itself that the guidance it sets is being followed and that assurance and framework documents are regularly updated; • support departments and ALBs so that they can better benchmark their performance; and • improve sponsorship skills across government and how it will measure the success of this.