Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 21
58th Report - Government services: Identifying costs
Published 12 Dec 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Government services: Identifying costs and generating income All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
Progress must be focused and purposeful. We accept that trying to solve everything at once risks losing momentum, and that having a roadmap is helpful. Nevertheless, prioritisation and having clear milestones to aim for are key to avoiding drift in addressing government’s 45 Qq 132, 144 46 Q 133 47 Q 137 48 Q 115 49 Qq 115, 145, 153 50 Qq 122, 145 51 Q 128 52 Qq 131, 134 13 long-standing legacy and data issues, so that are in a better position to reap the full benefits of productivity-enhancing technologies such as artificial intelligence.53 53 Q 154 14
From: Public Accounts Committee, 58th Report - Government services: Identifying costs (HC 1421), 12 December 2025
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 1 April 2026 (deadline 12 February 2026).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government agrees with the Committee's recommendations on cost ownership, costing guidance, single service owners and data leadership, and disagrees with one on prioritising legacy systems for further investigation.
- On accountability for costs, the government agrees and sets a target date of July 2026: the Treasury will issue an updated Dear Accounting Officer letter setting expectations that senior leaders identify, use and improve service-level cost information.
- On the six-month request to prioritise legacy systems for investigation, the government disagrees, stating it "does not agree that this recommendation should be an immediate priority of the next 6 months" given work already in progress.
- On the baselined list of legacy systems, the government agrees and will share "the available data" with the Committee chair by March 2026, but does not intend to make the list publicly available because of cyber-attack concerns.
- On Senior Service Owners, the government agrees with a target of March 2027: it will issue a letter encouraging Permanent Secretaries to assess gaps within 6 months and appoint SSOs within 12 months, with the timescale "accelerated if possible".