Recommendation 15

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