Recommendation 25

This could bring further financial pressure to bear on the Mint’s UK coin operations. The Mint has worked hard in recent years to make coin-making more profitable. It has undertaken a series of actions to reduce costs and increase efficiency, including, for example, mothballing two of its six coin-making lines of machinery, and reducing the number of full-time equivalent staff it employs for coin-making from 452 in May 2018 to 351in March 2020. Despite its actions, it has made losses in coin-making in each of the last three years, including a loss of £3.9 million in 2019–20.57 54 Q 92; C&AG’s Report, para 3.10 55 Qq 92, 93 56 Q 95 57 C&AG’s Report, paras 3.12, 3.13 The production and distribution of cash 15