Recommendation 8

When proposing a new ALB, the sponsoring department must submit a business case to ministers at both the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury. Each business case must fulfil a number of requirements set by the two departments, including demonstrating the need for an ALB and identifying both a long-list and a short-list of alternative delivery options. The NAO found that not one of the 24 business cases submitted between 2016 and 2020 included all of the details requested by the Cabinet Office, but many of them were still approved.13 The Cabinet Office acknowledged that, in an ideal world, all business case requirements would be fully complied with, and noted that there is room for it to be tougher in its assessment of cases.14