Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 5
5
Rejected
Require Department to explain how Afghanistan Response Route resettlement costs are separately captured
Conclusion
The Department did not put in place a mechanism to accurately identify and account for the costs of resettling individuals who were at high risk due to the data breach. The Department accounted for the costs of the ARR within its total spending on Afghan resettlement schemes, rather than identifying them separately, arguing that this was necessary to avoid breaching the terms of super-injunction. The Department now acknowledges that it could, in anticipation of the super-injunction being lifted and the resulting parliamentary scrutiny, have accounted for the costs of the ARR separately. Many elements of the ARR and the pre-existing ARAP, such as flights and accommodation, were the same and so it should have been perfectly possible for the Department to determine the costs of each scheme. The Department estimates that the ARR scheme—the additional programme put in place as a direct result of the data breach—will cost around £850 million in total, with around £400 million spent by July 2025. This estimate does not include legal costs, or the potential cost of future compensation claims against the Department from affected individuals. The Department has so far been unable to provided sufficient evidence to give the NAO confidence in its estimate. The Department anticipates being able to give the NAO more detailed information on costs as part of its next report on the Afghanistan resettlement schemes overall. 5 recommendation In its Treasury Minute response to this report, the Department should explain how it is ensuring that the resettlement costs related to the ARR are now being captured separately and accurately in its accounting system. 6 Managing personal information and the risk of a data breach Introduction
Government Response Summary
The government rejected the recommendation to capture Afghanistan Response Route (ARR) costs separately due to complexity, proposing instead to provide an indicative cost allocation for both schemes at the end of each financial year via an average cost per person calculation.
Government Response
Rejected
HM Government
Rejected
The government disagrees with the recommendation. The Afghanistan Response Route (ARR) and Afghan Relocations Assistance Policy (ARAP) offers are largely identical and utilise shared services (including for relocation, support and accommodation), differing only in qualifying criteria. While the department appreciates the importance of capturing costs relating to the data incident, to account for the ARR scheme separately would be disproportionately complex and resource intensive. The department instead proposes an alternative approach for costs incurred which will allow for a more accurate allocation of costs and meets reporting requirements, without introducing unnecessary complexity. In order to support the Committee, the department can provide an indicative cost allocation at the end of each financial year. This would involve aggregating the total costs associated with both schemes at the end of each financial year and dividing this figure by the total number of individuals resettled under both schemes. The resulting average cost per person would then be multiplied by the number resettled under each scheme, providing an estimate of their respective costs. These updates will be included with the relevant six-monthly update, referenced at recommendation 1.