Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 8
8
The National Audit Office’s report called for the Department to present a detailed plan and...
Conclusion
The National Audit Office’s report called for the Department to present a detailed plan and schedule identifying how it will meet the timeline.16 But when we pressed for a broad timetable or indicative dates for the essential steps towards achieving the target, the Department stated that it was awaiting Ministerial approvals. The Department repeatedly declined to provide any firm answers on when these approvals would be forthcoming or when it expected to determine the sequencing of events, beyond stating this would be “as quickly as possible.”17 We were unable to elicit any more detailed information about how long the Department estimates the contracting process to take, nor its view on the latest date by which it believes contracts would need to be in place for installation work to start.18
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
1. 1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: Summer 2021 1. 2 The 2020 Spending Review allocated £1.2 billion over 4 years to support the rollout of gigabit- capable broadband, as part of the government’s £5 billion commitment to support rollout to hardest to reach areas (under the UK Gigabit Programme). The spending profile takes into account extensive engagement 6 with suppliers in the telecoms industry, and what it believes the industry will be able to deliver by 2025 in these hard to reach areas at this stage. As set out in the National Infrastructure Strategy, the government expects that by 2025 at least 85% of premises will have access to gigabit-capable connections and the department will continue to work with industry to accelerate the rollout further to get as close to 100% as possible. The department remains committed to investing £5 billion in bringing gigabit coverage to the hardest to reach areas and will continue to work with suppliers to accelerate this investment, taking account of industry capacity. 1.3 The department will shortly announce the locations of the first phase of new procurements and set out its approach for quarterly publications updating the procurement pipeline that will enable the majority of the programme delivery. 1.4 The overall programme delivery profile will be incorporated into the Programme Business Case, due to be submitted for approval in Summer 2021, ahead of first contract awards. The department will publish progress against the programme’s milestones regularly.