Recommendation 5

Long-awaited workforce reforms are way behind schedule and too dependent on a ‘novel’ payment system. We welcome the Department’s launch of the care workforce pathway, which aims to provide consistent career progression for those working in the sector, but we are concerned at the lack of progress on other workforce reforms. At £265 million, they make up the largest budget in the scaled-back system reform portfolio (£729 million). It is alarming that many workforce projects are behind schedule because they depend on delivery of a bespoke payments system to pay suppliers directly. These include the Department’s project to increase the number of regulated professionals and the £136 million flagship project to improve workforce training, originally planned for September 2023. Although the Department assures us that its decision to build a bespoke system was well-evidenced, this ‘difficult’, ‘complex’ and ‘novel’ project is creating a worrying bottleneck and the Department acknowledges that the target date of summer 2024 is already at risk. Recommendation 5: The Department should in its Treasury Minute response to this report: • confirm which of the workforce reform projects depend on this payments system and update us on progress with each; and • update the Committee on progress with the payments system (including any updates to the RAG rating and implementation date) and when it expects the workforce initiatives that depend on it to start to have an impact.