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Time-consuming fee adjustment process hinders routine, low-risk changes and consistent proposals.

Recommendation
The Treasury acknowledged that the decision-making process is time-consuming and disproportionate for low-risk, routine adjustments like inflation-linked increases. It told us it will introduce a standardised template, adopted from the Environment Agency’s approach, with the aim of improving completeness and consistency of departmental proposals. This change is intended to reduce delays caused by incomplete information 27 C&AG’s Report, paras 2.13, 2.14 28 C&AG’s Report para 2.14 29 Q 10 30 HM Treasury, Managing Public Money, June 2025 31 Q 12 12 and help spending teams to have better conversations with departments about the justification for different levels of fee charging.32 The DVLA and MoJ support moving towards more standardised reporting, suggesting that clearer templates would help streamline the process.33 Following the evidence session, Treasury wrote to us to share a draft of the template it plans to distribute formally via a Dear Accounting Officer letter.34
Government Response

A response document is linked to this report, dated 1 April 2026. Response attribution to this conclusion has not been verified. Read the response document.

Addressee Bodies
HM Treasury
Timeline
Recommendation age 0.8 yr
Report published 10 Dec 2025