SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
1. We welcome the open approach of the Department
to the questions of what information should be provided in the
Departmental Report and how it should be presented. (Paragraph
2).
2. We have a number of criticisms of the minimalist
approach to information in the Departmental Report, which prevents
Parliament from holding the Department properly to account for
its expenditure. Our key criticisms are threefold:
(a) the information
on expenditure provided in the Departmental Report is divided
into categories which are far too broad to be meaningful;
(b) there is a lack of explanation of the
figures; and
(c) the Report only gives detailed statistics
up to 31 March 1997. (Paragraph 6).
3. We recommend that future Departmental Reports
include much more detailed information on expenditure during the
most recent financial year. In future Departmental Reports, we
expect all bilateral expenditure to be broken down into:
(a) country;
(b) sector;
(c) the objectives of the Department; and
(d) method of delivery. (Paragraph 8).
4. We expect that resource accounting methods
will enable DFID to ensure that future Departmental Reports show
provisional outturn for the most recent financial year in much
greater detail than has been the case in the 1998 Departmental
Report. (Paragraph 9).
5. Since an emphasis on country partnerships
is now regarded as a cornerstone of DFID's programme, the Departmental
Report should afford proper scrutiny of such an emphasis in practice.
(Paragraph 11).
6. We recommend that a table be included in
future Departmental Reports showing expenditure including
expenditure during the last three years, estimated outturn for
the most recent financial year and planned expenditure for the
next three years in:
(a) all recipient
countries;
(b) developing countries;
(c) high-income countries;
(d) lower- and upper-middle income countries;
(e) low-income countries; and
(f) least-developed countries. (Paragraph
12).
7. We do not believe that no expenditure plans
exist at a country level for the current year, of which one month
had already passed at the time of the oral evidence session. If
there are no such plans, we have serious concerns. (Paragraph
15).
8. We fully understand that the needs and
circumstances of recipient countries may change over time, and
that alterations to plans may occur as a result. Accountability
is precisely about explaining such changes. We expect DFID to
publish its planned expenditure by country, and to justify changes
in those plans, and view this as an essential element of the information
on the basis of which the expenditure of the Department is scrutinised.
(Paragraph 16).
9. We recommend that in future Departmental
Reports, a sectoral analysis of all DFID's expenditure, both bilateral
and multilateral, be included, with statistics for the past three
years, the current financial year, and future years. (Paragraph
19).
10. We recommend that in future Departmental
Reports DFID include much more detailed summaries of its activities
than are provided in the 1998 Departmental Report, and provide
details of sources of further information, such as British Aid
Statistics and relevant Country Strategy Papers. (Paragraph 26).
11. We recommend that Departmental Reports
show Aid and Trade Provision expenditure as a separate line in
the cash plans until all commitments under the Provision have
been fulfilled. (Paragraph 27).
12. We recommend that future Departmental
Reports include a list of non-governmental organisations in receipt
of core grants or other funding from DFID, and the amounts received
in the last and current financial years. (Paragraph 28).
13. The lack of explanation of the cash plans
table in the Departmental Report makes it impossible for us to
evaluate DFID's emergency bilateral expenditure. We recommend
that future Departmental Reports include a more detailed account
of emergency expenditure, including explanations of significant
fluctuations in emergency bilateral expenditure. (Paragraph 29).
14. £199.6m (35 per cent of the UK's
contribution to the European Union, and approximately 10 per cent
of DFID's overall budget) is expected to be spent on PHARE and
TACIS in 1998-99, which resources are directed towards Central
and Eastern Europe, the New Independent States, and former Yugoslavia.
This is exactly the type of information which should be included
in Departmental Reports if there is to be informed discussion
on the relationship between regional allocation of DFID's funds
and poverty eradication. (Paragraph 30).
15. Given that multilateral expenditure now
accounts for almost 50 per cent of DFID's budget, and in the light
of DFID's commitment to place a much greater emphasis on its work
with multilateral institutions, we recommend that future Departmental
Reports display more detailed figures for recent and planned future
contributions to multilateral agencies, including regional development
banks, and provide explanations of significant year-on-year fluctuations
and deviations from plans. (Paragraph 31).
16. The Comprehensive Spending Review introduced
a timetable for the next three years (1999-2000 to 2001-2002),
during which the ratio of official development assistance (ODA)
to GNP will increase to 0.3 per cent. We are delighted at this
first step towards the target of 0.7% GNP, and congratulate the
Department on the outcome of the Comprehensive Spending Review.
We note that some of this increase in resources will be the result
of the sale of a majority share of the Commonwealth Development
Corporation. Presumably this sale will yield a finite amount of
resources, and we trust that once these are exhausted, DFID's
budget will continue to increase. Our earlier recommendation was
that the Government aim to reach the 1997 EU average of 0.37 per
cent ODA/GNP by the end of the Parliament. On present projections
this target will not be met. Continuing efforts must be made to
increase further our development spending. (Paragraph 32).
17. We are disappointed that the Departmental
Report fails to go significantly beyond the Treasury core requirements
relating to expenditure. The Departmental Reports of Government
Departments other than DFID provide a far more detailed analysis
of spending over several years. For example, the Department for
Education and Employment and the Scottish Office provide detailed
summaries of spending in each section of their Departmental Reports.
We see no reason why DFID should not provide such detail as a
matter of course. We are particularly dismayed at the paucity
of information at sectoral and country levels, the lack of estimated
outturn figures for 1997-98, and the lack of detailed plans for
1998-99. It is simply impossible to scrutinise the work of a Department
with a budget in excess of £2 billion per year on the basis
of the scanty account of its expenditure in the last and current
financial years provided in the Departmental Report. (Paragraph
33).
18. We welcome the objectives-based structure
of the Departmental Report. (Paragraph 36).
19. We recommend that DFID establish a clear
framework of policies and objectives around which to structure
all its various publications. This would ensure greater transparency
and clarity, which are essential for proper scrutiny. (Paragraph
36).
20. We do not dispute the value of the international
development targets as a driving force for the international community,
and we have welcomed the commitment of the UK Government to the
targets in a previous Report. However, the international development
targets, and the 21 indicators associated with them, do not relate
directly to the efforts of individual donors; they quite rightly
relate to the performance of the international community as a
whole. This renders them useless as instruments for measurement
of the performance of individual donors. (Paragraph 39).
21. Whilst developmental outcomes may not
always be quantifiable, it should be possible in most cases to
identify targets and projected outcomes for individual projects,
to measure the performance of projects and programmes against
those targets, and ultimately to aggregate the results to provide
an overall picture of the performance of the UK's development
assistance programme according to sectors, countries, and as a
whole. We view the establishment of objectives against which the
performance of the Department can be clearly measured as crucial
to proper scrutiny of the work of DFID. (Paragraph 39).
22. We view Project Completion Reports (PCRs)
as a valuable tool for accountability, and as such we recommend
that more details about recent findings be given in future Departmental
Reports. The study of 1996 PCRs provided a table summarising the
results, followed by a table summarising the results of the 1995
study. This is extremely useful information, and we recommend
that DFID use similar information in future Departmental Reports
as the basis for their discussion on PCRs. (Paragraph 41).
23. We fully support bench-marking of the
performance of DFID projects and programmes against those of other
donors, and recommend that future Departmental Reports include
such comparisons, as well as providing details of strategies and
specific targets relating to improvements in the achievement of
objectives. (Paragraph 42).
24. We recommend that in its response to this
Report, the Government describe what steps have been taken and
are planned to address the weaknesses in Project Completion Reports
described in the 1996 synthesis study. (Paragraph 44).
25. We welcome the responsibility of individual
authors, rather than the Department, for their own evaluation
studies. DFID must, however, make clear its response to the studies
if they are to fulfill their maximum value as instruments for
scrutiny. (Paragraph 45).
26. We recommend that future Departmental
Reports include more extensive analysis of lessons learned from
recent evaluation studies, with details of strategies for making
improvements. (Paragraph 46).
27. We recommend that in its response to this
Report, the Government explain in detail what steps it is taking
to ensure that the recommendations of the 'poverty guidance' of
1991 are taken fully into account in evaluation studies. (Paragraph
47).
28. We recommend that the Government produce
a timetable for the full implementation of PRISM, and that future
Departmental Reports provide details of progress made. (Paragraph
48).
29. It is our conclusion that DFID has broadly
adequate performance monitoring systems, and is making valuable
efforts to modify and improve those systems in the light of the
White Paper. In the 1998 Departmental Report DFID fails to make
full use of the information provided by these systems. The Departmental
Report could fulfill a valuable role by filling the gap between
the two extremes of project level reporting on the one hand, and
reporting against international targets on the other, showing
how the Department has performed against its own objectives at
sector, country and regional levels. (Paragraph 50).
30. Resource accounting and budgeting techniques
will require the Department to produce more detailed information
on its performance related to its expenditure in the form of an
output performance analysis. We trust that DFID will use the opportunity
presented by the introduction of the new system to review its
performance analysis mechanisms, and the information relating
to them which it will provide in future Departmental Reports,
in order that the Treasury core requirements and the challenges
presented by resource accounting and budgeting can be met . (Paragraph
51).
31. We recommend that DFID provide details
of what progress was made during the UK Presidency of the EU towards
improving the accountability of the EU's development programme,
and outline in more detail its plans to improve the accountability
of other multilateral donors. (Paragraph 52).
32. We recommend that in future Departmental
Reports, a paragraph be included for each international financial
institutions, including each regional development bank, describing
DFID's assessment of the performance of each institution and outlining
strategies for improvements where appropriate. These paragraphs
should include clear references to sources of further information.
Previous Departmental Reports of the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office provided specific targets and performance information relating
to the accountability of multilateral development agencies, and
we recommend that DFID resume this practice. (Paragraph 53).
33. In future Departmental Reports, we recommend
that discrete sections be included providing details (including
costs) of recent, current and planned research relating to each
of the Department's objectives. (Paragraph 54).
34. We would expect the Departmental Report
to include an analysis of staff employed in senior positions overseas,
showing the number, grades and pay of locally-employed staff.
We were disappointed to note that this information was not provided
in the Departmental Report, the reason being that the information
was not held centrally by DFID. We are, however, encouraged to
learn that DFID is currently compiling such a database, and we
look forward to a summary being provided in the 1999 Departmental
Report. (Paragraph 55).
35. We are in this Report very critical of
DFID's 1998 Departmental Report as an exercise in accountability
to Parliament. It simply does not contain enough information for
an accurate assessment of the Department's activities and performance.
If DFID wants to engage Parliament and the public in the vital
work of development, it must tell more of its story and tell it
better. To do this, DFID must have a clear view of the purpose
of the Departmental Report. Its present style inhabits an unhappy
no-man's land between the White Paper and British Aid Statistics.
The Departmental Report must contain a comprehensive and more
detailed account of past, current and planned expenditure and
a clear summary of the evaluations of performance against targets
and objectives. We look forward to next year's Departmental Report
meeting these requirements and trust our comments will contribute
to this objective. (Paragraph 56).
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