Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 15
15
The Treasury has acknowledged the need for more timely, transparent financial information on cross-government areas...
Conclusion
The Treasury has acknowledged the need for more timely, transparent financial information on cross-government areas of work, including both EU Exit and the Covid-19 response.39 In the past, it has said that this is particularly difficult because these areas of work do not fit into accounting categories used to collect data.40 The Treasury expects that its new OSCAR II finance system will enable it to collect better information from departments and arm’s-length bodies in the future. It set out plans to introduce functionality which would allow it over the next year to collect data on cash forecasting as well as programme data.41 It is not clear to us how this functionality will allow the Treasury to collect data on cross-government areas of work, or how it will address concerns about the consistency of data. We are also concerned at the speed at which the OSCAR II programme has been delivered, since it has been in the making for five or six years and still is not scheduled to begin to collect data until next year.42 32 Q 5 33 Qq 13–14 34 C&AG’s Report, para 33; C&AG’s Report, The cost of EU Exit preparations, Session 2019–21, HC 102, 6 March 2020, page 7 35 Qq 63–6 36 Qq 64, 83–84 37 Q 65; C&AG’s Report, para 31 38 Q 63; C&AG’s Report, paras 27, 32 39 Q 63 40 Committee of Public Accounts, Whole of Government Accounts, Seventy-Fourth Report of Session 2017–19, HC 464, 25 January 2019; C&AG’s Report, The cost of EU Exit preparations, Session 2019–21, HC 102, 6 March 2020, page 25 41 Qq 68, 72 42 Q 7 Whitehall preparations for EU Exit 13 Staffing and use of consultants
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
6.1 The government agrees with this recommendation. Re commendation implemented 6.1 HM Treasury has established a dedicated central team tracking COVID-19 and EU Exit funding decisions. This team centrally records all funding decisions and works with spending teams to maintain a record of departmental spend against that funding. 6.2 HM Treasury has been providing updates on both funding and spend to the Committee. For example, the department wrote to the Committee in November 2020 setting out how much had been spent by departments against their EU Exit budgets in the first six months of 2020-21. 6.3 In addition to its existing managing and reporting processes, HM Treasury is in the process of upgrading the Online System for Central Accounting and Reporting (“OSCAR”). This aims to provide a more straightforward solution to inputting, storing and updating the “single source of truth” for spending data. 6.4 HM Treasury has also continued to adapt and improve its cross-government accounting guidance to address challenges in reporting spending on cross-government priorities, such as COVID-19; particularly regarding materiality and the allocation of indirect costs (for instance, staff working between projects). 6.5 In addition, it is reviewing the Annual Report and Accounts (ARA) guidance for reporting COVID-19 and EU Exit spend and has written to the Committee on this. Performance reporting guidance now clarifies that departments must summarise and link the main areas of spend to department goals, strategic objectives and priority outcomes. This includes information on the impact of EU Exit and COVID-19 on departmental activity and outcomes within their 2020-21 performance reports. Departments will be asked to report on dedicated COVID-19 interventions (including public expenditure) and analyse wider resources deployed in the government response. EU Exit expenditure should also be reported in the ARAs.