Recommendation 13

The Department acknowledged that its plans for achieving efficiency savings—which are based on thousands of initiatives on equipment projects—did not always deliver the expected returns. It told us that it has introduced more rigorous scrutiny of savings proposals to help develop a better understanding of its ability to deliver future efficiencies.30 However, the Department could not provide confidence it will achieve the forecast savings and accepted the need to continually identify and develop new initiatives.31 The Department told us that it needed to include challenging targets in its Equipment Plan to maintain the focus of Commands to drive through efficiencies.32 It also highlighted the need to invest in its approach for achieving efficiencies, such as introducing new digital processes.33 Developing its financial capabilities