18
Accepted
Inadequate and varied operational capability across government negatively impacts citizens.
Conclusion
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 backlogs in government services.33 Where a department does not focus on systematic and continuous improvement, pain points for customers are not identified and addressed.34 Where organisations fail to consider systems as a whole, and work in silos only focusing on their own part of the process, they may just move demand and the cost of dealing with it to another part of government.35
Government Response Summary
The Profession agrees and plans to improve operational delivery capability through its 2025-2028 ODP Strategy, which includes measuring impact, using the Professional Skills Framework, and developing common methodologies to monitor outcomes across government by September 2026.
Government Response
Accepted
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
4.1 The Profession agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: September 2026 4.2 The 2025-2028 ODP Strategy sets out a clear plan to improve operational delivery capability and enhance government services. While the Profession recognises the inherent challenge of evidencing a direct causal relationship between ODP activities and outcomes for citizens, it will seek to carefully measure the impact of all ODP products and services. 4.3 Central to the strategy is the ODP Professional Skills Framework (PSF), which provides departments with a consistent foundation for building capability, outlining the skills required for each ODP job family at every grade and link to relevant learning solutions. The Profession regularly reviews the learning curriculum, qualifications, and development programmes to ensure alignment with both the PSF, and emerging and future skill demands to enable effective delivery to citizens. 4.4 The Profession is developing metrics to monitor progress against the strategy; initial measures will be baselined by September 2026 and monitored throughout the strategy’s lifecycle. As the strategy matures additional measures will be incorporated to reflect the evolution of the strategy. The Profession will work with cross-government partners and consider academic and other sources in identifying measures which can reflect the impact and effectiveness of profession deliverables, including both quantitative data and qualitative insight. 4.5 The profession will consider a range of measures and indicators including cost avoidance, acknowledging that in providing products and services centrally this reduces duplication and inefficiency in departments procuring individually, thereby reducing cost to government. 4.6 The Profession is also currently developing common methodologies to measure operational delivery outcomes, enabling benchmarking, collaboration, and shared learning across organisations, while respecting individual departmental contexts. This work will facilitate greater understanding of service delivery performance and, subject to Cabinet Office endorsement, will assist Cabinet Office in holding departments to account on delivery of government services.
Source
Committee
Public Accounts Committee
Report
48th Report - Smarter delivery of public services
22 Oct 2025
HC 889
Addressee Bodies
HM Treasury
Timeline
Recommendation age
0.8 yr
Report published
22 Oct 2025