Recommendation 13

The Department told us that part of the reason for the delays in approving challenges, and ultimately projects, lay with drawn-out approval processes.34 The Department and HM Treasury are responsible for approving business cases for challenges. The Department told us that the process for selecting and signing off challenges started with UKRI consulting industry and academia, and then shortlisting potential challenges. UKRI submitted a business case for each challenge to the Department and HM Treasury for their approval in sequence.35 Once challenges have been approved, UKRI has to select which projects to fund. UKRI explained that it does this after considering, for example, a project’s alignment with challenge objectives and financial checks on the applicant and on the project costs. The National Audit Office looked at the total time taken from when applications were submitted to when funding was offered, and found that UKRI took on average 31 weeks.36 UKRI told us that the time taken to approve projects was because it had to undertake a series of due diligence checks which were crucial to ensure that taxpayer’s money was being spent well. It acknowledged that while this was an iterative process it could “drag on for far too long” and that it needed to find effective ways to speed it up.37 It noted that some of the process it could “speed up within UKRI” but highlighted its dependency on, for example, companies responding promptly to checks.38