Recommendation 16

Since 2016, the Home Office has had a shared-services agreement with the Ministry of Justice’s (MoJ’s) property function to provide a range of property services on behalf of the Home Office. For the Northeye acquisition, the Home Office made limited use of this arrangement, only engaging a firm through the MoJ to conduct some aspects of due diligence. While the MoJ’s property function was aware of the acquisition, it was not directly involved. The MoJ offered to provide advice and assistance during the process, but these offers were not accepted by the Home Office.47 During our evidence session, the Home Office explained that the Northeye acquisition fell outside the scope of its shared services agreement with the MoJ property team, in part due to resourcing constraints within the MoJ.48