Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 20
20
Accepted
Methodologies for predicting future functional savings vary significantly in maturity across government.
Recommendation
We asked the Cabinet Office how accurately it could predict what savings would be achieved in future. It told us that this had changed over time and depended in part on the extent to which the methodologies to calculate savings had been developed by the functions. The Cabinet Office explained that the methodology used to calculate efficiency savings was working well in relation to areas such as counter-fraud, debt management and commercial transactions, but in others they were still being developed. It told us that it expected to be able to develop a methodology that met the required audit standards for areas such as shared services and property management, and some others, which is expected would change the composition of the savings as they developed. It told us that, having reported overall savings for the last two years, it was confident that it would continue to be able to report savings in “that kind of ballpark” in future.27 25 Qq 18, 29, 31, 33, 36 26 Qq 13–16; C&AG’s Report paras 18, 2.11 27 Qq 7–8 14 Cabinet Office functional savings 3 Future reporting of efficiency savings The Government Efficiency Framework
Government Response Summary
The government agrees to review and improve the functions' methodologies for measuring and reporting efficiency savings, ensuring they transition to the Government Efficiency Framework (GEF) by end October 2024, and will publish further details on savings, benefits, and performance measures for each function by Spring 2025.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
2.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: end October 2024 2.2 The functions’ current respective methodologies for measuring and reporting efficiency savings reflect the diversity of functional activity undertaken in their respective areas. The Cabinet Office will review the different methodologies and set out a plan to support improvements, with functions capturing new or additional efficiencies as appropriate. The Cabinet Office will follow up with the outcome to the Committee in Autumn 2024. 2.3 Beyond Autumn 2024, the Cabinet Office will be working closely with HMT to ensure that Functions’ current respective methodologies transition to the GEF which was published in July 2023. This sets out a government-wide standard framework for tracking, monitoring, and oversight of efficiency savings. 2.3 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: end June 2025 2.4 The Cabinet Office will publish further details, for each function, showing the range of savings, benefits, and other performance measures as appropriate. Publication of this information is expected to be in Spring 2025, aligning with the annual function efficiency savings.