Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 14
14
Accepted
Inconsistent definition of 'saving' leads to reporting discrepancies in functional efficiency figures
Conclusion
We noted that the NAO report stated that it was important that the Cabinet Office had a tighter definition of what a saving is, and that this needed to be consistently applied and have the same methodology and baseline. In its July 2023 report on the savings achieved, the Cabinet Office noted that the savings reported related to central government functional teams – the parts of functions which sit in the centre of government, rather than within 17 Qq 2, 4, 8, 28; C&AG’s Report paras 4, 6–7, 1.6–1.7, 1.9–1.10, 2.2 18 Qq 2, 39 19 C&AG’s Report, paras 10, 1.8–1.10, 2.4, 2.9 12 Cabinet Office functional savings departments. But in its technical notes to the report, it stated that around £1 billion of the Counter-Fraud savings were delivered by department-led activities supported by the central function, leading to inconsistency in what savings are included in the £4.4 billion figure.20
Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the conclusion, committing to implementing the Government Efficiency Framework (GEF) by December 2025 to establish a consistent definition, methodology, and baseline for measuring and reporting efficiency savings across departments.
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.