Recommendation 8

Since the first functions were established in 2013, there are now 14 government functions, covering activities such as procurement, major project delivery and finance. We asked the Cabinet Office how successful it thought functions had been in improving efficiency. It told us that it thought that the functions had been very successful and provided a high level of specialist expertise to departments, as well as external challenge.11 The NAO found that the functions were different shapes and sizes, which meant they had different approaches and methodologies to calculating savings. The Cabinet Office recognised that the functions were at different stages of development. It explained that some functions, such as the Commercial Function, are “very well-established … [and have] been going for 6 Qq 43, 68 7 C&AG’s Report para 1.11 8 Committee of Public Accounts, Whole of Government Accounts 2020–21, Ninth Report of Session 2023–24, HC 65, 26 January 2024 9 Q 79 10 Qq 77–81 11 Qq 2, 4, 27; C&AG’s Report para 3, 1.2, Figure 1 10 Cabinet Office functional savings a long time”, whereas others, such as Security, Property or Communications, were much younger and “less mature, but obviously very good in their way”.12 It also recognised that the performance of the Digital Function, which had been in place for over 15 years, had not been as strong as it should have been. It noted that the function had “lost some of its excellence” and was “a recovering function”. In comparison, it noted that the HR function was performing well, but that more was expected of it than used to be the case.13 The NAO report found that the Treasury expects that the relationship with functions will be “even more mature by the 2024 Spending Review”. We therefore asked what this meant in practice. The Treasury told us that it worked in partnership with the Cabinet Office, and that it was their joint endeavour to make sure that the functions continued to mature and that they raised the standard overall.14