Recommendation 1
FCDO should complete its work to align allowances as a matter of urgency, and should also prioritise work to resolve remaining issues with the basics of HR, IT and corporate services provision.
Source · National Audit Office
Progress with the merger of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the Department for International Development (DFID)
Published: 25 Mar 2024
Recommendations: 7
Type: Value for Money
NAO confirmed: 7
NAO report detail with recommendations, government responses, and any Public Accounts Committee follow-up.
Recommendations
Recommendation 2
FCDO should continue work to clarify opportunities for career progression within the department and support staff to navigate them. Staff still lack clarity around career progression and capability requirements in the merged organisation. FCDO has developed a new capability framework and should prioritise work to implement this and identify where it has gaps, and the opportunities available for staff.
Recommendation 3
FCDO should accelerate its work on culture change. Now that the core elements of integration have been mostly delivered, FCDO should focus on working with teams in the UK and overseas to build cultures that align with FCDO?s strategy and to create the conditions for a fully integrated organisation.
Recommendation 4
FCDO should implement a revised internal communications and engagement strategy setting out its plan to deliver future organisational improvement, incorporating where appropriate the remaining elements of integration. This will help to address the uncertainty and remaining concerns which are affecting staff morale.
Recommendation 5
FCDO should formally review what was de-prioritised from the Transformation Portfolio when creating the Integration Portfolio, to ensure that nothing has been missed, and build it into future activity. FCDO should:
? ensure that the lessons learned, and feedback from staff and stakeholders to identify enablers and blockers to progress, are captured and used to inform future activity as appropriate;
? use learning to date to test, refine and fully embed new processes and ways of working; and
? ensure that workstreams for future activity have clear ownership and monitoring arrangements and are implemented. This should be the responsibility of the Organisation Improvement Directorate.
? ensure that the lessons learned, and feedback from staff and stakeholders to identify enablers and blockers to progress, are captured and used to inform future activity as appropriate;
? use learning to date to test, refine and fully embed new processes and ways of working; and
? ensure that workstreams for future activity have clear ownership and monitoring arrangements and are implemented. This should be the responsibility of the Organisation Improvement Directorate.
Recommendation 6
The Cabinet Office should ensure there is proper consideration of the costs and benefits of major MoG changes and provide longer-term support and guidance to departments facing significant organisational change. Once the decision has been taken to implement a MoG change, the Cabinet Office should:
? provide guidance on a consistent method of tracking costs, including some measure of indirect costs, and require departments to identify and track the costs of MoG changes;
? ensure that departments can monitor benefits by assessing progress against a baseline assessment taken at the start of delivery using quantitative and qualitative metrics; and
? proactively offer support to departments tailored to the specific challenges of each MoG change, to help departments make realistic plans.
? provide guidance on a consistent method of tracking costs, including some measure of indirect costs, and require departments to identify and track the costs of MoG changes;
? ensure that departments can monitor benefits by assessing progress against a baseline assessment taken at the start of delivery using quantitative and qualitative metrics; and
? proactively offer support to departments tailored to the specific challenges of each MoG change, to help departments make realistic plans.
Recommendation 7
The Cabinet Office should routinely gather and disseminate lessons learned from organisational changes across government. It should engage with all departments who have undergone MoG changes to obtain lessons learned and use this to review, update and publish its guidance on MoG changes at least every two years.