Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Twentieth Report - Monitoring and responding to companies in distress
Public Accounts Committee
HC 425
Published 13 March 2024
Recommendations
22
Deferred
Specialist skills for company distress are concentrated centrally, resulting in patchy government capabilities.
Recommendation
The Treasury told us that having the right skills and capabilities in place is “a really critical lesson” highlighted by the NAO’s report. It acknowledged that these skills are currently “patchy across government”.61 The relevant specialist skills for responding to …
Read more
Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the recommendation to address patchy skills across government, setting an April 2025 target. It outlines existing guidance and training but commits to the Cabinet Office Commercial Function working with relevant bodies to look at developing a more targeted approach for skills development.
HM Treasury
View Details →
23
Deferred
Departments and regulators face ongoing challenges in securing high-demand commercial and financial skills.
Recommendation
Nonetheless, the Treasury reiterated that it is up to departments and regulators to ensure they have the capability and capacity to discharge their duties, including understanding what financial expertise they need.66 The Department for Business and Trade explained how the …
Read more
Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the recommendation regarding skills and capabilities across government, setting an April 2025 target. It refers to existing guidance and risk management frameworks, and commits to the Cabinet Office Commercial Function working with other bodies to look at developing a more targeted approach for skills development.
HM Treasury
View Details →
24
Deferred
Government company interventions are not consistently or robustly evaluated, hindering learning and accountability.
Recommendation
Evaluation is a systematic assessment of the design, implementation, and outcomes of an intervention.69 It is important for learning what works and why, and to demonstrate accountability for the use of public money.70 Our work on the use of evaluation …
Read more
Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the recommendation on the importance of evaluation and sets a target date of July 2024. It acknowledges that evaluation of company cases has not been formalized and will work with Cabinet Office and UKGI to consider future changes and how to strengthen departmental evaluation requirements.
HM Treasury
View Details →
25
Deferred
Treasury acknowledges government's current lack of systematic evaluation for company interventions and non-interventions.
Recommendation
We asked the witnesses about how robustly government collates and shares evaluation findings and lessons on this topic. The Treasury suggested that this was something they “can probably be a bit more systematic on”. It provided the example of the …
Read more
Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the recommendation to systematically evaluate interventions and non-interventions, setting a target date of July 2024. It commits to working with Cabinet Office and UKGI to consider future changes, potentially including placing conditions on departments to report back to the centre.
HM Treasury
View Details →
27
Deferred
Value in exploring international frameworks for company intervention and non-intervention approaches.
Recommendation
We also asked the witnesses whether they looked to different international regimes to learn any lessons about how to deal with companies and sectors that might be in trouble. The Treasury and the Cabinet Office said that each country is …
Read more
Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the recommendation and aims for a July 2024 implementation, but focuses its response on improving and formalizing the internal evaluation of company distress cases. HM Treasury will work with the Cabinet Office and UKGI to consider future changes, including strengthening requirements for departmental evaluation, but does not explicitly commit to reviewing international frameworks.
HM Treasury
View Details →
Conclusions (1)
26
Conclusion
Deferred
We asked the witnesses whether there had been any learning from the experiences of airline collapses about industry insurance schemes and also how government manages the risks around recuperating money from private insurers. UKGI suggested that there was some work undertaken to identify where there might be similar risks but …
Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the recommendation and aims for a July 2024 implementation, acknowledging that evaluation of company cases has not been formalized. It states HM Treasury will work with Cabinet Office and UKGI to consider future changes to internal evaluation, rather than specifically addressing lessons from airline collapses or managing risks with private insurers.