Recommendation 18

We asked the Cabinet Office how it was ensuring that there was sufficient direction and leadership in departments and functions’ approaches to achieving savings. The Cabinet Office told us that it was getting “terrific value” in areas such as land disposals, where it had set a clear target for each department and public body to help achieve savings 20 Q 41; C&AG’s Report, para 1.9–1.10 21 C&AG’s Report paras 11, 2.6 22 Qq 59–62 23 Qq 33, 36; C&AG’s Report, para 2, 3.2; Cabinet Office, Government Efficiency Savings 2021, 28 March 2022; Cabinet Office, Government Efficiency Savings 2021/22, 19 July 2023 24 Committee of Public Accounts, Tackling fraud and corruption against government, Sixty-Ninth Report of Session 2022–23, HC 1230, 8 September 2023 Cabinet Office functional savings 13 of £500 million and had achieved savings of £1.1 billion. The Cabinet Office explained that efficiency savings and targets had become lower priority in recent years because of issues such as EU exit, response to Covid and support for Ukraine. It told us that it believed that the efficiency reporting exercises and allowing departments to keep the money they save through their initiatives had helped drive good behaviours and incentivise departments to look for savings, including making savings that can be quite difficult.25