Government’s view is that that transparency is critical for the public to understand the evidence behind decisions and how money is being spent, and that transparency should be the default position.44 The Analysis Function consider that transparency of evaluation findings allows departments to learn lessons from past projects and make them available for the future so the same mistakes might be avoided.45 However, the Finance Function explained that unlike the publication of statistics which is governed by regulation, the publication of evaluations depends on ministerial consent. Some parts of government are reluctant to publish their evaluations. For example, the Department for Work & Pensions was recently reluctant to publish insights from evaluations of the benefits system.46 Departments find it difficult to get approval from senior civil servants and the Cabinet Office to publish evaluation and protocols. More than one-third of chief analysts say that only sometimes are they able to publish evaluation findings as required.47