Smarter delivery of public services

Public Accounts Committee Closed Inquiry
Opened: 6 May 2025 Closed: 15 Dec 2025 Parliament page
The day-to-day running costs of public services sit at around £400bn in spending by central government departments. The Operational Delivery Profession (ODP) is the public face of the civil service, and has 250,000 members providing most of these services to customers, from issuing passports and visas to operating courts and … Read more
17 Recommendations
12 Conclusions
1 Report
1 Oral session
1 Event
Activity timeline 4 events
19 Jan
2026
Report published
22 Oct
2025
Report published
14 Jul
2025
Oral evidence
14 Jul
2025
Formal meeting (oral evidence session) · The Grimond Room, Portcullis House
Oral evidence sessions 1 session
14 Jul 2025
View on parliament.uk
Julie Taylor · Department for Work and Pensions Paul Morrison · Mitie Care and Custody Sir Peter Schofield KCB · Department for Work and Pensions Tom Greig · Home Office
Title HC No. Published Items Response
48th Report - Smarter delivery of public services HC 889 22 Oct 2025 29 Responded
Recommendations & Conclusions
5 results
Clear
11 Recommendation Acknowledged
48th Report - Smarter delivery of …
Transformative government changes require innovation, learning from failure, and staff empowerment.
Witnesses told us that the transformative changes needed by government will require both large scale projects and day-to-day incremental improvements involving front-line staff.16 We asked how departments will remove the barriers to innovation by creating a working environment that encourages … Read more
Government Response
The Profession will continue to measure take-up of resources Heads of Profession (HoPs) and other stakeholders use to engage their staff in improving services, and will continue to use existing HoP forums to discuss and share best practice. Work is also underway to introduce service standards that will enable benchmarking, collaboration, and shared learning across departments and agencies.
HM Treasury
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13 Conclusion Acknowledged
48th Report - Smarter delivery of …
ODP membership heavily concentrated in five major central government departments.
The ODP’s focus is on its 290,000 members in the Civil Service. These members work within central government organisations or arm-length bodies within those organisations. Around 80% of ODP members work in just five government departments: the Ministry of Justice, … Read more
Government Response
Acknowledges the composition of the ODP membership and states its strategy aims to continue expanding learning for all members across all civil service grades.
HM Treasury
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16 Recommendation Acknowledged
48th Report - Smarter delivery of …
ODP must broaden capability building and career opportunities to local government.
The ODP also told us how it had invited two senior leaders from mayoral authorities to join the latest cohort of ODP Excel, a learning programme to improve participants readiness for senior operational delivery role, and attend its training events.25 … Read more
Government Response
The Profession agrees with the Committee’s recommendation and is actively working with the wider public sector by sharing relevant elements of the profession offer, and has explored and identified opportunities to increase public and private sector engagement, by working with the Whitehall and Industry Group (WIG) and departments will be encouraged to engage in programmes such as GovXchange.
HM Treasury
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17 Recommendation Acknowledged
48th Report - Smarter delivery of …
ODP recognises opportunities for learning and interplay with the private sector.
We asked about how well connected ODP was to the private sector. The ODP told us that there were opportunities to learn from the private sector about how to innovate in the delivery of public services, and said its Senior … Read more
Government Response
The Profession agrees with the Committee’s recommendation and is actively working with the wider public sector by sharing relevant elements of the profession offer, and has explored and identified opportunities to increase public and private sector engagement, by working with the Whitehall and Industry Group (WIG) and departments will be encouraged to engage in programmes such as GovXchange.
HM Treasury
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18 Conclusion
48th Report - Smarter delivery of …
Inadequate and varied operational capability across government negatively impacts citizens.
Operational capability across government is varied and often lacking in what matters most.32 Weaknesses in operational capability can have real consequences for citizens. For example, where a department lacks the capability to understand and deal with demand, the result is … Read more
HM Treasury
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Government Response AI assessment · 28 of 17 classified
Accepted 22
Acknowledged 4
Deferred 1
Not Addressed 1
Total 17 recs + 12 conclusions