Recommendation 3

Cabinet Office and HM Treasury do not have a full picture of the performance of functions. Cabinet Office’s current exercise to quantify functional savings has reported for the last two years, but it does not include all functions. In addition, 6 Cabinet Office functional savings functions deliver different types of savings and each sets its own methodology for tracking and claiming savings. This can make it hard to compare progress between the functions and means that there is a risk that efficiencies are being under reported. One of the barriers to doing this more consistently is access to the necessary data. Government has already committed to creating more successful data exchange, so that locally created data can be shared more effectively across government. Standardised metrics, including establishing accurate baselines, are needed to address gaps in the existing data, fully capture the savings made, and allow comparisons to be made across functions. Recommendation 3: As part of the Treasury Minute response, the Cabinet Office should set out how it will work with functions to develop consistent methodologies that report the totality of the costs, benefits and savings delivered by functions, using metrics that can be compared across time and different areas of government.