Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 13
13
Accepted
Cabinet Office inconsistently reports functional efficiency savings, risking understatement and misrepresentation
Conclusion
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
Government Response Summary
The government agrees, aiming for implementation by December 2025, and states the GEF will drive consistency in measuring and reporting efficiencies across departments and functions. Adoption of the GEF will require all efficiencies to be reconcilable to departmental budgets, thereby avoiding double counting.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
3.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: by December 2025. 3.2 The functions’ respective methodologies for measuring and reporting efficiency savings reflect the diversity of functional activity undertaken in their respective areas. These methods range from release of cash (commercial), efficiencies baselined against projected scenarios (communications), fraud prevention, detection and recovery (counter fraud) to cash collected over business as usual (debt). 3.3 The GEF will drive consistency in the way that government departments measure and report efficiencies. The GEF sets out what efficiency is, how it should be categorised, and best practice in gathering high quality information to measure and report efficiencies. 3.4 The Cabinet Office and HMT are working closely together as the GEF is adopted by departments and functions. 3.5 Through the adoption of the GEF, all efficiencies will be required to be reconcilable to departmental budgets and as such will avoid double counting of efficiencies by requiring common and comparable baselines.