Evaluation in Government Policy-making
Debate between Lord Browne of Ladyton and Baroness Twycross
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.
Public Procurement: Data Offshoring
Debate between Lord Browne of Ladyton and Baroness Twycross(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Twycross (Lab)
The government model services contract is one of three template contracts for use by government departments and wider government when procuring complex outsourced services. Value for money for taxpayers is central to good government procurement. The Government recognise the potential risk of data offshoring taking place without the explicit consent of public sector buyers. New standard security schedules for all government contracts include greater controls over data offshoring and stronger security requirements.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, thanks to a whistleblower, we learned on 4 August from the Daily Telegraph that, up to 2021 when it was discontinued, a chain of outsourcing resulted in software for our nuclear submarine engineers being developed by private companies in Minsk and Siberia. The Telegraph reported Ben Wallace, the then Defence Secretary, as saying that the breach left the UK’s national security “vulnerable to undermining”. Can my noble friend tell us whether this story is true? If it is true, where can we find a credible, comprehensive rebuttal? Otherwise, is it not likely that our deterrent will be undermined?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
As my noble friend will appreciate, the Ministry of Defence took these reports extremely seriously. In response, on 6 September this year, Maria Eagle, the Minister of State for Defence, confirmed that both the MoD and Rolls-Royce Submarines had conducted an investigation into the matter. The Minister assured that the investigation found no evidence that Belarusian nationals had access to sensitive information and concluded that no change to the MoD procurement policy was required. The Ministry of Defence has set a policy of using Secure by Design. This is a modern approach whereby senior responsible owners, capability owners and delivery teams are accountable and responsible for delivering systems that are cybersecure. This includes ensuring new systems being bought or built carry out due diligence on the security of their systems.