Source · National Audit Office

Managing government borrowing

The environment for government borrowing has become more challenging in recent years – requiring sustained focus from government.

Published: 5 Jul 2023 Recommendations: 6 Type: Value for Money NAO confirmed: 4 Department: HM Treasury
Dept: HM Treasury Topics: Commercial and financial managementCorporate financeFinancial sustainability nao.org.uk →

Recommendations

6 items
6 accepted 6 implemented

Recommendation 1

Addressee: HM Treasury · Source location: Page 12, Paragraph 21, point a

a. HMT should consider ways to align and extend how it measures progress against the debt management objective, while recognising the inherent challenges. This should include developing further its quantitative and qualitative evidence base to feed into an overall assessment, aligning with performance metrics and monitoring of the DMO and NS&I where appropriate.

Response position: Accepted

Delivery: Implemented · Q4 2024-25 · Confirmed by NAO

Recommendation 2

Addressee: HM Treasury · Source location: Page 12, Paragraph 21, point c

c. HMT, working with the OBR, should explore how remit revisions outside regular fiscal events can be supported by quicker, more focused OBR assurance. This assurance should be proportionate, taking account of the event under assessment and the costs to public bodies in producing forecasts.

Response position: Accepted

Delivery: Implemented · Q3 2023-24 · Confirmed by NAO

Recommendation 3

Addressee: HM Treasury · Source location: Page 12, Paragraph 21, point d, second bullet point

d [2]. The government should ensure that it has plans to manage skills and capacity risks to its debt management operations.
? The DMO should implement a plan for mitigating the risks of losing key personnel.
? The NS&I should implement a plan for internal skills and capacity, clearly linking this to how it manages major projects and to its plans for contract management as it moves away from a single provider model.
? HMT should review these plans and examine whether the resources needed to deliver the plans are appropriate.

Response position: Accepted

Delivery: Implemented · Q3 2024-25

Recommendation 4

Addressee: HM Treasury · Source location: Page 12, Paragraph 21, point d, third bullet point

d [3]. The government should ensure that it has plans to manage skills and capacity risks to its debt management operations.
? The DMO should implement a plan for mitigating the risks of losing key personnel.
? The NS&I should implement a plan for internal skills and capacity, clearly linking this to how it manages major projects and to its plans for contract management as it moves away from a single provider model.
? HMT should review these plans and examine whether the resources needed to deliver the plans are appropriate.

Response position: Accepted

Delivery: Implemented · Q3 2024-25

Recommendation 5

Addressee: HM Treasury · Source location: Page 12, Paragraph 21, point b

b. HMT should periodically review the appropriateness of individual elements of the debt management framework, and how the individual elements work together. It should formally capture lessons from when the framework has responded to testing conditions.

Response position: Accepted

Delivery: Implemented · Q3 2024-25 · Confirmed by NAO

Recommendation 6

Addressee: HM Treasury · Source location: Page 12, Paragraph 21, point d, first bullet point

d [1]. The government should ensure that it has plans to manage skills and capacity risks to its debt management operations.
? The DMO should implement a plan for mitigating the risks of losing key personnel.
? The NS&I should implement a plan for internal skills and capacity, clearly linking this to how it manages major projects and to its plans for contract management as it moves away from a single provider model.
? HMT should review these plans and examine whether the resources needed to deliver the plans are appropriate.

Response position: Accepted

Delivery: Implemented · Q3 2024-25 · Confirmed by NAO

Public Accounts Committee follow-up

1 report

The Public Accounts Committee examined this NAO report and published its own recommendations. The government responds to PAC recommendations via Treasury Minutes.