However, the National Audit Office reported that the Department finds it difficult to recruit and retain digital specialist talent.31 We were interested in what is stopping the Department from getting the skills it needs; for example, its ability to pay the market rate for digital specialists. The Department acknowledged that it does not expect to compete with the private sector on pay. However, the Department said it is starting to extend government’s common digital pay framework across the whole of Defence to help remove internal competition across the Department.32 We noted that around 60% of the Department’s digital jobs are based in Corsham and the Department acknowledged that it had “saturated the Corsham catchment area”, but felt it would be a big challenge over many years to move all its staff from there. The Department explained that it is looking to partner with other departments at different locations in the UK and is doing more remote and flexible working.33 The Department also suffers from lengthy security clearance waiting times, which on average are currently over 200 days for developed vetting clearances, 24 Committee of Public Accounts, Challenges in implementing digital change, Thirtieth Report of Session 2021–22, HC 637, 10 December 2021 25 Committee of Public Accounts, Challenges in implementing digital change, Thirtieth Report of Session 2021–22, HC 637, 10 December 2021 26 Q 14 27 Qq 34, 79–82 28 Ministry of Defence, digital strategy for Defence: Delivering the backbone and unleashing the power of Defence’s data, April 2021 29 Qq 24, 61 30 Q 76 31 C&AG’s Report, para 21 32 Qq 25–27 33 Qq 87–88 12 The Defence digital strategy making the on-boarding progress take too long in a competitive labour market. Although the Department agreed this is not good enough, it explained that it is working with the Cabinet Office, which is responsible for vetting services, to improve this.34