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Financial management in the Home Office

27 Apr 2012 12:52 PM

The Home Office has made good progress in improving its financial management since 2009 when the National Audit Office last evaluated its financial capability. The Department is delivering value for money in terms of exercising financial control over its core business activities.

However, yesterday's report also concludes that, while financial control is good, the Home Office could do more to integrate its financial and operational planning and thereby understand better the link between resources and performance. In addition, many of the strengths which the Department demonstrates in its core business are much less apparent in its ‘change programmes’ which it must manage more effectively.

According to the NAO, the Department is starting to benefit from its new governance structures. There are qualified professional finance staff at senior levels and clearer information is relayed by senior management. There are stronger control mechanisms in place over capital spending and the key elements of financial control - good planning, monitoring and reporting – are being carried out well.

However, yesterday's report highlights current challenges to financial management in the Home Office. The Department has clear plans to reduce costs in its core activities but business areas have not fully considered efficiency and effectiveness when evaluating where cuts should be made. The Department will need to achieve further savings of £1.1 billion a year by 2014-15 but a third of this sum remains uncertain.

Reductions in funding from the Home Office mean that police forces must make savings worth around £1.5 billion by 2014-15 through efficiency improvements; but, in 2011, around two-thirds of forces had shortfalls in their cost reduction plans, amounting to £500 million in total. The Department will shortly be in a position to confirm how far this savings gap has been covered in the plans.

There are risks to the successful delivery of the Department’s change programmes, specifically in respect of the development of the National Crime Agency (NCA) and Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) and the phasing out of the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA). The Department needs to control costs, especially transition costs, more strongly and explicitly.

Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, said today:

"The Home Office has further improved financial management over the last three years and is delivering value for money in terms of exercising financial control over its core business activities. Its plans for making savings in those activities appear to be sound.

“However, there is more work to do. It needs to examine its activities as a whole when looking for additional savings and there are clear risks to the successful delivery of its programmes to develop and phase out agencies. The Department should ensure that the key financial skills it is demonstrating at the centre are similarly demonstrated within these programmes."

Notes for Editors

  1. In 2010-11, the Home Office spent £12.2 billion, of which around 70 per cent was spent on grants, including £6.5 billion granted to police forces in England and Wales. The remaining 30 per cent was spent on its own running costs, other costs and the costs of running its agencies. The largest agency is the UK Border Agency, receiving £2.5 billion.

  2. In total, the Home Office plans to save just over £1.1 billion per annum by 2014-15. It classifies £400 million of these savings as being less certain and around £100 million as being only in development.

  3. Press notices and reports are available from the date of publication on the NAO website, which is at http://www.nao.org.uk/

  4. The Comptroller and Auditor General, Amyas Morse, is the head of the National Audit Office which employs some 880 staff. He and the NAO are totally independent of Government. He certifies the accounts of all Government departments and a wide range of other public sector bodies; and he has statutory authority to report to Parliament on the economy, efficiency and effectiveness with which departments and other bodies have used their resources.

Full report - Financial management in the Home Office