Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 19
25th Report - DHSC Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24
Published 14 May 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee DHSC Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24 All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
Exit packages are payments made in relation to redundancy and other departure costs for employees. Special severance payments are a subset of exit packages, relating to any non–contractual payments to employees.31 We have repeatedly raised issues with the Department or its organisations making inappropriate or unapproved payments. In June 2022, the previous Committee found that three Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) had approved and paid special severance payments without following the required authorisation process. One of these payments resulted in the C&AG qualifying his regularity audit opinion on the NHS England 2020–21 Annual Report and Accounts. The previous Committee warned in 2022 that planned large–scale NHS restructuring increased the risk of future payoffs and further non–compliance with the rules. It recommended that the Department should set out how it would monitor and control the approval of all redundancy payments made by entities within the Departmental Group.32 The Department agreed with our recommendation, and told us in its response to our report that detailed written guidance relating to exit payment processes and approvals had been circulated to CCGs and the (then) proposed ICBs, and that separate arrangements were in place for NHS Trusts and Foundation Trusts.33
From: Public Accounts Committee, 25th Report - DHSC Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24 (HC 639), 14 May 2025
Government response
Latest Treasury Minutes progress report to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Twenty-fifth Report of Session 2024-26
The government responded to the whole report on 4 June 2026 (deadline 14 July 2025).
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Twenth-fifth report from Session 2024-26
Published 18 September 2025.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government states that it "agrees" with each of the Committee's recommendations and gives target implementation dates ranging from "Recommendation implemented" to "to be advised".
- On the transfer of NHS England's functions, it agrees to share its plan and timetable, and says information on the size of resource functions "is likely to be confirmed in Autumn 2025".
- On the Annual Report and Accounts, it "plans to cover" the areas listed in the 2024-25 report and will update the Committee in September 2025.
- On publishing accounts before summer recess, it will write in September 2025 with detail on its multi-year plan, saying audit firms have indicated they lack capacity for pre-recess laying "in the shorter-term".
- On clinical negligence costs, it says ministers "will examine" the drivers of costs and "the potential merits of reform options", with the implementation date "to be advised".