Recommendation 16

FCDO’s large estates projects are delivered centrally, and FCDO considers that it has very strong controls on spending for specific projects.43 However, FCDO acknowledges that it currently lacks oversight of how all its projects align with each other or with its policies for other areas, such as maintenance, and whether its prioritisation processes are being used properly. Previously, FCDO had two separate estate departments: one managing policy and large projects, and the other the day-to-day management and maintenance of the estate. FCDO told us that this separation meant these departments were not able to join the dots between both sides of the business and it has now merged them. FCDO is also planning on establishing a new estates governance board in the autumn, with the aim of bringing together into one place its management of spending, policy, projects and intervention and support programmes.44 37 Q 58 38 Committee of Public Accounts, Twenty-Ninth Report of Session 2024–26, Condition of Government property, summary and para 9 39 Q 35 40 C&AG’s report, paras 2.4, 2.18 41 Q 35 42 Qq 57-58 43 Qq 39, 57 44 Qq 39-40; C&AG’s report para 1.16 12 2 FCDO’s management of its estate FCDO data