Financial management of fees and charges

HM Treasury should: a) ensure that disclosure requirements are aligned between Managing Public Money and the Financial Reporting Manual, and that the requirements support transparency and accountability while being proportionate in their level of detail relative to their risk to public money;

Ref Page 11, paragraph 21, point a, first bullet point. · Implemented Q2 2026-27

HM Treasury should: b) extend its guidance in chapter six of Managing Public Money to include: a template to standardise the process of proposing or amending fees and charges; additional support on data collection, strategic decision-making, and monitoring; and the relative merits of alternative approaches where appropriate;

Ref Page 11, paragraph 21, point b, second bullet point. · Implemented Q2 2026-27

HM Treasury should: c) determine how incentives and levers can be used to encourage greater efficiencies or quality improvements, especially where there may be opportunities to transform customer service or invest to save;

Ref Page 11, paragraph 21, point c, third bullet point. · Implemented Summer 2026

HM Treasury should: d) assess options, including legislative approaches, to streamline and make more flexible the fee amendment process to better support government bodies in their financial management of fees and charges; and

Ref Page 11, paragraph 21, point d, fourth bullet point. · Implemented Q2 2026-27

HM Treasury should: e) set out what action it will take to better support good financial management of fees and charges across government with good practice, tools, guidance and examples on issues like navigating trade-offs and addressing data limitations

Ref Page 11, paragraph 21, point e, fifth bullet point. · Implemented Q2 2026-27

Accounting Officers should proactively monitor whether charged services are recovering costs, and act where they persistently deliver unplanned surpluses or deficits, or fail to comply with the principles of Managing Public Money. This should include ensuring they have the appropriate legislative and Treasury approvals for their approach so that the regularity of the expenditure can be effectively audited and transparently presented to Parliament.

Ref Page 11, 20 · Implemented Q2 2026-27