Recommendation 13

The Cabinet Office is ultimately responsible for the accuracy of the figure for the total amount of savings reports. It co-ordinates, assures and reports the efficiency savings achieved by functions, and provides guidance on what they should report. But the NAO found that the Cabinet Office had not consistently reported the efficiency savings delivered by the functions. The Cabinet Office reports savings from those functions headquartered in the Cabinet Office for the period it is reporting on – which was 10 functions for the 2021–22 report. In its March 2022 report on the savings achieved in 2020–21, the Cabinet Office recognised that the £3.4 billion figure was an understatement of the total savings and benefits delivered by the functions. The report also included ‘unaudited wider benefits’ from the Legal, Property, Analysis, Security, and Finance functions, as well as Government Business Services and the Crown Commercial Service. The GIAA concluded that the processes in place for 2020–21, did not sufficiently mitigate the risk of claims being under- or overstated.19