1 Introduction
1. The Department for International Development's
(DFID's) budget has been increasing. In 2013 the Department will
receive its largest increase yet as spending on Official Development
Assistance rises from 0.56% to 0.7% of GNI. We welcome the Government's
decision to maintain its commitment to 0.7%, but note that this
presents a major challenge to DFID to ensure it can spend the
large increase cost-effectively while its administrative costs
are declining.
2. We have examined this issue in previous years
in our annual examination of DFID's Annual Report and Accounts
and do so again in this inquiry, which looks at the 2011-12 Report
and Accounts. As in previous years, the NAO have undertaken an
analysis[1] of
the key issues for us and we have taken oral evidence from Mark
Lowcock, the Permanent Secretary
at DFID, Richard Calvert,
the Director General, for Finance and Corporate Performance and
Mark Bowman,
the Director General, Humanitarian, Security and Conflict. We
also received written evidence from a number of organisations,
including the TUC and UKAN/BOND, the latter representing a wide
range of NGOs.
3. In this Report Chapter 2 considers how DFID
spends the money it is allocated, considering possible indications
that DFID is finding it challenging to spend its extra resources,
namely that expenditure has been rescheduled from future years
and that an increasing share of its expenditure is being spent
through multilaterals. It is not possible in this short Report
to look in detail at many items of expenditure. This year we chose
to look at research. Chapter 3 looks at the reduction in administrative
costs and changes in staffing, including both the increase in
frontline staff and the reduction in administrative staff and
its effect on the cost-effectiveness of DFID's work.
1 Briefing to support the International Development
Committee's inquiry into the Department for International Development's
Annual Report and Accounts 2011-12 (referred to as 'NAO briefing'
below).
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