Evaluation in Government Policy-making

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

If I were to say yes, that would probably be quite a short answer. We are looking at social value as well as value for money purely in financial terms as part of our approach.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Kempsell, will be aware that on 25 March, just slightly more than three months before the general election, the then Minister for the Cabinet Office, John Glen, addressed the Evaluation Task Force annual conference at the QEII Centre. The noble Lord’s Question caused me to look this up on GOV.UK. In the speech Mr Glen said:

“A recent internal review by the Prime Minister’s Implementation Unit”


found that

“only eight percent of government spend on major projects is properly evaluated”.

He went on to say that the Government had been trying to correct this situation since the spending review of 2021—11 years into government. This speech was made a further three years after that point. Will my noble friend join me in thanking the noble Lord for creating this opportunity to let your Lordships’ House know about another element of the inheritance left by 14 years of his party’s Government?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that question. One would question why, when the 2019 Cabinet Office review found that only 18% of spending on the government major projects portfolio had robust evaluation plans in place, we ended up with the shocking Covid corruption that has led to us needing to recoup a lot of the money. I speak for the whole country when I say the country wants its money back.