Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Eighteenth Report - Government’s delivery through arm’s-length bodies
Public Accounts Committee
HC 181
Published 24 September 2021
Recommendations
4
The Cabinet Office and HM Treasury do not have a common view of risks across...
Recommendation
The Cabinet Office and HM Treasury do not have a common view of risks across arm’s-length bodies. Departments collect risk data from their ALBs on a regular basis. The Cabinet Office does not request this, nor use it to identify …
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HM Treasury
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Conclusions (19)
2
Conclusion
Cabinet Office and HM Treasury’s review and challenge of business cases is not sufficiently robust. Of the 24 business cases submitted and approved between 2016 and 2020, not one met all the requirements set out by the Cabinet Office in its own guidance. One quarter of business cases failed to …
3
Conclusion
Departments do not receive enough support from Cabinet Office in certain aspects of arm’s-length bodies management. When this Committee last reported on ALBs in 2016 we found inconsistencies in the way that departments managed their ALBs. This inconsistency remains, with departments adopting different approaches to ALB sponsorship. Departmental centres of …
5
Conclusion
Poor data and legacy IT are a barrier to effective oversight of its arm’s-length bodies. There are real risks to departments as a result of aging IT systems, including threats to resilience and inconsistencies in data presentation and comparability. Legacy IT systems can also lead to issues in identifying and …
6
Conclusion
The current public appointments process does not give confidence that it is efficient, transparent and fair. Following the Grimstone Review and the Committee’s 2016 recommendations, the Cabinet Office developed a Governance Code on public appointments which established the process that departments should follow. However, it currently does not check whether …
1
Conclusion
On the basis of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, we took evidence from the Cabinet Office, HM Treasury, the Ministry of Justice and the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on central government oversight of ALBs.1
7
Conclusion
The Cabinet Office has yet to put in place a strategy for 2021 onwards. It told us that a realistic reform programme is extremely important in ensuring accountability, performance, and the proper use of all public funds, but implementation of the new strategy has been delayed because of resourcing pressures …
8
Conclusion
When proposing a new ALB, the sponsoring department must submit a business case to ministers at both the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury. Each business case must fulfil a number of requirements set by the two departments, including demonstrating the need for an ALB and identifying both a long-list and …
9
Conclusion
Despite the Cabinet Office’s stance that ALBs should be used only as a last resort, 38% of business cases submitted between 2016 and 2020 did not seriously consider a long-list of alternative delivery models. One quarter of business cases submitted in the same period did not contain a cost-benefit analysis …
10
Conclusion
The Cabinet Office is responsible for publishing guidance for departments and ALBs and provides direct support on any questions or issues. However, out of the departments and ALBs interviewed by the NAO, three quarters said they would welcome increased guidance and support from the Cabinet Office. Nearly half suggested that …
11
Conclusion
When this Committee last reported in 2016 it noted that the quality of oversight by departments was inconsistent.20 There remains a lack of consistency in how ALBs work with departments and how they are held to account. In order to try and bring greater uniformity to how departments and ALBs …
12
Conclusion
Framework agreements and Accounting Officer System Statements are important in clarifying relationships and accountabilities, both between departments and ALBs and across wider departmental groups.24 Framework agreements formalise the governing principles and the relationship between ALB and sponsor department, and Accounting Officer System Statements set out the accountability relationships and processes …
13
Conclusion
When this Committee last reported on ALBs in 2016 we noted that the Cabinet Office should use its position at the centre of government to ensure that the management of ALBs was improved.27 One of the ways the Cabinet Office can do this is through the management of cross-cutting risk, …
14
Conclusion
The Accounting Officer for the Ministry of Justice explained her responsibilities for the risk and performance of the ALBs within the Ministry of Justice departmental group boundary. As part of this, the Ministry of Justice requests performance, financial and risk data from its ALBs on a regular basis.29 However, the …
15
Conclusion
The Cabinet Office told us it focusses on cross-cutting risks that can only be addressed at the centre of government. It addresses these risks through the production of the national risk register and the national security risk assessment, and through summarising risks across ALBs and examining these for patterns and …
16
Conclusion
The NAO report highlights that best practice relationships between a sponsor department and an ALB include the sharing of performance information and risk-based data which is discussed on a regular basis.33 The Ministry of Justice told us that one of the main reasons it does not have all the data …
17
Conclusion
Extracting data from aging IT systems is expensive, sometimes impossible, and it is costly to combine data from different systems.36 As a result, comparable data is not readily available to the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury on the different types of delivery model the government is using, nor the amount …
18
Conclusion
Recent controversy around the appointment of non-executive directors to departmental boards has raised questions about whether the public appointments process is fit for purpose.39 When this Committee last reported on ALBs in 2016, we recommended that Cabinet Office should streamline the public appointments process and that it should update us …
19
Conclusion
The Cabinet Office does not hold data which would allow it to monitor the length of time appointments take, or the number of times that Ministers have overridden the recommendations made by appointment boards.43 The Cabinet Office told us that historically the comparability of data has been poor, making it …
20
Conclusion
Good governance involves groups that are diverse and represent a wide range of people and opinions. There has also been recent criticism of the lack of diversity in the civil service, a problem which is clearly apparent when looking at public appointments. When asked, the Cabinet Office could not set …