Recommendation 6

Government officials need reliable data on where efficiency savings are identified to free up resources for other priorities and to make decisions about where to best allocate resources to maximise return on investment. Managing Public Money emphasises that effective decision-making is reliant on regular, high-quality information about costs, performance and efficiency.7 We have found throughout our work that timely and comprehensive data is essential to support informed decision making. For example, we have repeatedly raised concerns that delays to the Whole of Government Accounts (WGA) and missing data were reducing the usefulness and reliability for Parliament, local authorities and the public. In 2024, we found that delays to publication of the WGA meant that Parliamentarians and other users were having to make important decisions without full information about public finances.8 We therefore asked when government could expect the reporting of efficiency savings to be sufficiently improved so that the information could be used to inform policy decisions. The Cabinet Office told us that the reporting of efficiency savings in 2024 would be “so much better” as a result of the Government Efficiency Framework.9