3 Enhancing the Department's capacity
15. The Department recognised that with a rising
aid programme over the next four years it will need to hire more
education expertise.[44]
The Department told us it had 34 education advisers, 20 of whom
are based overseas. Of the 20, two are health advisers who cover
education and seven cover wider remits.[45]
16. In the context of back office administration
cuts of 30%, the Treasury has given the Department scope to increase
numbers of front line staff in country offices. It hopes to increase
the total number of education advisers to around 40, with at least
three-quarters based overseas.[46]
If implemented, this would represent an increase of some 18% compared
with the 41% overall increase in spending on education the Department
had planned. [47]
17. In four years' time, the Department aims to have
the lowest overheads of all the major donors - 2%, compared to
an industry average of 4.3%.[48]
The Department assured us that it will be able to manage a significant
increase in aid spending with only modest increases in overall
staffing.[49]
18. Despite its standard reviews of risk, fraud had
been detected in programmes that the Department helps fund. In
the Kenyan Education Sector Support Programme (KESSP) a series
of frauds were reported in October 2009 following a review carried
out by Kenyan Government auditors and requested by the World Bank.[50]
When it carried out a fiduciary risk assessment prior to commencing
investment in 2005, the Department had identified the risks to
funding this programme through government systems as medium to
high. However, it had concluded that these risks were manageable.[51]
19. The Department told us that the World Bank took
the lead on behalf of all donors for monitoring financial management.[52]
The Department also set out the specific arrangements it had in
place in relation to its funding of KESSP. The Department had
commissioned a specific audit looking back from 2006 to 2003 and
the Kenyan National Audit Office carried out annual audits. The
Department confirmed that none of these audits found evidence
of fraud or serious financial mismanagement until the 2009 review.[53]
The Department acknowledged that, despite the financial management
arrangements in place, something went wrong and that it needs
to learn lessons from the experience in Kenya. It told us that
it is currently undertaking its own review.[54]
44 Qq 90 and 94 Back
45
Q 90; C&AG's Report, para 5.6 Back
46
Q 94 Back
47
Q 138; C&AG's Report, figure 1 Back
48
Q 96 Back
49
Q 158 Back
50
Q 55 Back
51
Qq 116, 117, 127 Back
52
Q 127 Back
53
Ev 21, Annex C Back
54
Qq 116, 127 and 133 Back
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