Recommendation 3

The Treasury and Department processes for changing fees are too slow and complex, which makes it harder for bodies to manage effectively their service costs and fee revenues. The case study services took an average of 63 weeks to change their fees. This results in long periods where their fees do not align with current costs, making effective cost-recovery difficult. Parliamentary scrutiny is required for secondary legislation which, while vital for accountability, adds complexity and uncertainty to the timeline that is outside of departmental control. The decision-making process is cumbersome, with multiple layers of approvals from parent departments and the Treasury which are not always proportionate to the risk or scale of change, such as routine inflationary adjustments. Timeliness is further hindered in some cases when departments do not provide sufficient detail in their proposals, making it harder for the Treasury to assess them effectively. The Treasury recognises the need to simplify this process and plans to introduce a standardised template to support the completeness of submissions for informed decision making. Once the Treasury has made improvements to 4 streamline the process while maintaining appropriate safeguards for over- recovering services, they should also consider consolidating legislation and deregulating parts of the process to enable routine adjustments. recommendation The Treasury should write to the Committee within six months setting out a detailed plan to reduce the time and complexity involved in amending fees. A new system should encourage proportionate and incremental changes to fees and not disincentivise departments from making efficiencies which would enable fixed or reduced fees. This plan should indicate when the new arrangements will be in place and include: a. Standardised approval templates and timelines; risk-based consultation and oversight principles, and b. A legislative review to remove unnecessary barriers and enable pro