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Effectiveness of UK aid: interim findings Contents

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4Delivery and performance of UK aid

UK aid results

45.The Department for International Development’s (DFID’s) own data and independent assessments performed by the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) and the National Audit Office (NAO) show that UK aid is securing impact.

Department for International Development (DFID)

46.DFID publishes its performance against its Single Departmental Plan objectives on its website.98 These data show that UK aid is producing development assistance results. Table 8 summarises some key achievements.

Figure 8: DFID Single Departmental Plan—Summary performance results achieved by sector and indicator, 2018–19

Aid sector or indicator	Performance results
Humanitarian assistance	From 2015 to March 2019, DFID reached 32.6 million people with humanitarian assistance (food aid, cash and voucher transfers).
Education	Between 2015 and 2019, DFID supported 14.3 million children to gain a decent education.
Nutrition	Between 2015 and 2019, DFID reached 50.6 million children under 5, women of childbearing age and adolescent girls through its nutrition-related interventions.
Immunisation	From the start of 2015 until the end of 2017, UK support to immunisation programmes immunised an estimated 56.4 million children, saving an estimated 990,000 lives.
Polio eradication	DFID supports the Global Polio Eradication Initiative to eradicate polio. The number of polio cases has reduced from 350,000 in 1988, to 74 in 2015 and 33 in 2018.
Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH)	Between 2015 and 2019, DFID supported 51.8 million people to access clean water and/or better sanitation.
Jobs and income	From 2015 to 2019, DFID supported 3.9 million people to raise their incomes or maintain/gain a better job or livelihood.
Energy	From 2015 to 2019, DFID installed 467 Megawatts of clean energy capacity.
Portfolio Quality Index (PQI)	DFID uses a Portfolio Quality Index (PQI) score to measure the extent to which its projects are on track to deliver their expected outputs. In 2018, DFID’s PQI score was 103.8 indicating that, on average, DFID’s outputs met or exceeded expectations.

Sources: DFID, Single Departmental Plan—Results Achieved by Sector 2018–19; and DFID, Single Departmental Plan—Results Achieved by Sector 2018–19, Portfolio Quality Index

Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI)

47.In its 2019 synthesis report, ICAI concluded that UK aid has made major contributions to global development goals; and the Department for International Development (DFID) has shown strong leadership in driving evaluation; and on the ‘leave no one behind’ principle, in strengthening the international response to challenges such as Ebola and climate change, and in tackling violence against women and girls.99 However, ICAI noted that:

• other aid spending government departments had not embraced the leave no-one behind commitment as comprehensively as DFID; and
• the redistribution of the aid budget among departments and cross-government funds had led to a growing focus on large, middle-income countries, driven by UK security, climate change and economic interests.100

National Audit Office (NAO)

48.In written evidence, the National Audit Office (NAO) stated that its value for money work on overseas aid spending by DFID and government more widely has highlighted evidence of individual programmes securing impact.101 Figure 9 summarises the key conclusions from three of the most recent NAO reports. However, the NAO has drawn attention to some difficulties with assessing programme performance, such as impact and value for money:102

• Responsibilities for considering the effectiveness of aid spending are fragmented across government. For example, HM Treasury considers business cases for ODA expenditure, but does not have a role in considering the impact of actual expenditure. Departments are responsible for securing value for money from all their expenditure, including ODA.103
• Taking ODA expenditure as a whole, government has placed insufficient emphasis on demonstrating its effectiveness and on progress against the UK Aid Strategy.104
• Departments may not have put in place targets at the beginning of a programme’s life which help them to consider its effectiveness. For example, departments might establish targets on inputs, activity, and outputs for programmes but not for impact.105
• Departments sometimes face practical difficulties in accessing good-quality information needed to assess performance and the complexity of the environment in which they operate. For example, information might not be readily available from locations that present a high security risk; or from implementing partners that work with different systems and to different standards.106

As a consequence of these difficulties, while there is good evidence that many aid programmes are securing an impact individually, the government does not know whether all parts of the overseas aid portfolio, taken together, are securing value for money.107

49.UK aid often seeks to create impact in challenging environments, where monitoring impact is difficult. However, this should not preclude departments administering ODA from setting objectives aligned to the UK Aid Strategy and seeking to monitor and evaluate change, in order to achieve the fullest picture possible of the totality of the UK’s aid spend and the impacts it is securing.

Figure 9: Key conclusion from three NAO reports on international development108

NAO report	Conclusion(s)
DFID’s investments through CDC Group (2016)	The NAO was broadly positive about CDC’s performance. The report concluded that CDC had addressed many of the weaknesses previously identified by Parliament; and it was achieving the financial and non-financial targets set for it by DFID.
Effectiveness of Official Development Assistance spending (2019)	The report noted the Government’s success in meeting the 0.7% ODA spending target since 2013; and that many programmes within the ODA spending portfolio were securing an impact individually.
DFID’s work to improve the lives of women and girls overseas (2020)	DFID had in place some of the management arrangements the NAO would expect to see for DFID to be confident about delivery; and individual programme interventions to improve gender equality were performing well and improving the lives of women and girls overseas. Furthermore, DFID is widely respected internationally for its broad range of influencing activities in this area.

Performance of DFID

50.Oral evidence and written evidence submissions were almost unanimous in their respect for DFID’s international standing as a leading global development agency; and the excellence of its programming and transparency. This should not perhaps be a surprise. Over the two decades of its existence, DFID, as a specialist aid ministry, has had the opportunity to build up a strong track record in development; has invested in its capacity and capability; and has developed systems and expertise for appraising the costs and benefits of competing interventions, managing projects, and measuring, recording and evaluating results.109

51.By contrast, according to ICAI’s written evidence submission, “other aid-spending departments are still putting in place basic aid-management systems and processes. […] Across our reviews of non-DFID aid, we have found gaps in systems for ensuring ODA eligibility, setting and monitoring results targets, ensuring value for money and managing complex portfolios”.110 In written evidence, the Center for Global Development drew attention to its review of 65 ICAI reports that showed 80 percent of DFID spend received amber/green ratings or better, while 80% of FCO spend was amber/red. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has a mixed record but the Department for the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Department for Health & Social Care (DHSC) achieved amber/green in their single reviews.111

52.Nonetheless, other departments and cross-government funds are catching up and improving. Furthermore, according to ICAI, UK aid is benefiting from drawing on the skills and expertise available across government.112 Examples include:

• BEIS’s partnership on low-carbon development with countries such as Colombia with fast-growing emissions;
• the Foreign Office’s high-quality engagement with the Colombian government on strengthening the rule of law, drawing on the expertise of the National Crime Agency;
• DHSC’s use of ODA to develop vaccines and treatments for neglected diseases, tackle antimicrobial resistance and address the weaknesses in global health systems exposed by the Ebola crisis; and
• HM Revenue and Customs’ support to developing countries to strengthen their tax systems and tackle international tax evasion.

These are positive signs that UK aid spending by other government departments appears to be on a positive trajectory. Reorganising the administration of aid spending at this stage risks disruption and pulling them off that path.

Transparency and quality of UK aid

Transparency of UK aid

53.The Government is clear that transparency of aid expenditure is an important aspect of securing value for money. The UK aid strategy set an ambition that all UK government departments that spend the ODA budget would be ranked as ‘good’ or ‘very good’ in the international Aid Transparency Index (ATI) by 2020.

• In 2018, DFID ranked third for transparency out of 45 global aid donors. in the 2018 Aid Transparency Index. This compares to the Foreign Office which was ranked 40th out of 45 donors.113
• The most recent assessment of departments’ progress by Publish What You Fund, the charity responsible for the Aid Transparency Index, found that seven out of the 10 UK government departments assessed, including the Foreign Office, were failing to meet aid transparency targets (Figure 10). Only two departments – DFID and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) –met the “best practice” threshold.114
• Publish What You Fund also reviewed, but did not score, the cross-government funds: the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF) and Prosperity Fund. It noted that, in response to calls for greater transparency, the Joint Funds Unit, which is responsible for administering the funds, publishes top-level data about CSSF and Prosperity Fund programmes. The CSSF, for example, now publishes programme summaries for the majority of its programmes (83 of 94 in 2019–20).115 In a letter to the Committee, Joëlle Jenny, Director of the Funds Unit, stated that: “There is a presumption to publish information on all CSSF programmes”. […] However, given the sensitivity of some of the CSSF’s work it is not always possible to publish information on every single programme.116
• Publish What You Fund has now scored DFID as ‘Very Good’ for six consecutive years.117 In written evidence, Publish What You Fund remarked that the maintenance of DFID’s ‘Very Good’ score was “a noteworthy finding given the volume and complexity of the aid flows managed by DFID compared to other departments”.118

54.While DFID scores well on transparency, Publish What You Fund and James Rogers, in written evidence, drew attention to the lack of transparency over the substantial amounts of aid disbursed through large multilateral development partners, such as the World Bank, and CDC Group.119 120

Figure 10: Transparency of UK aid spending: overall scores and rankings of ODA spending departments

Source: Publish What You Fund, How transparent is UK aid? A review of ODA spending departments, Jan 2020, Graph 1

55.The UK Aid Strategy set an ambition that all UK government departments that spend the ODA budget will be ranked as ‘good’ or ‘ very good’ in the international Aid Transparency Index (ATI) by 2020. To date, only three departments—DFID, DHSC and BEIS—had met the target. Departments need to improve the transparency of their aid spending. The Government must set out how it intends to measure progress towards the commitment to publish data to global transparency standards, with milestones, and hold relevant Secretaries of State and departmental officials to account for failing to meet target dates.

Quality of UK aid

56.In February 2019, ONE Campaign published the results of its ‘Real Aid Index’ which assessed the quality of UK aid spending—focussing on poverty reduction, effectiveness and transparency—across different government departments.121 DFID scored highly on the index (Figure 11).

57.ONE’s report and the written responses of Romilly Greenhill’s and ONE drew attention to shortcomings in the way that other Whitehall departments spend ODA.122 In particular:

• Some departments allocate aid very poorly in relation to country needs. For example, BEIS spends only 5% of bilateral aid in the least-developed countries and fragile states while the FCO spends only 16%.
• Some programmes and funds fail to identify how their programmes are targeting poverty reduction. In 2017 the FCO spent £240 million on ‘enabling frontline diplomatic activities’, providing support for FCO missions in ODA-eligible countries. Despite the large sums involved, [ONE] found no evidence of the developmental impact of this spending and extremely limited transparency around what it is spent on. (This Committee’s predecessor was also extremely sceptical about the value of frontline diplomatic activities to the achievement of the UK’s development objectives overseas.123)
• There is a widespread consensus within the international development community that identifying the expected results from a development programme, collecting information on whether those results have been achieved, learning lessons about what has and has not been achieved and communicating the results to the public is important to ensure the effectiveness of development projects and programmes. However, [ONE’s] analysis for the Real Aid Index showed that some departments fail to clearly articulate the results that are expected to be achieved from their aid and do not fully specify how these results will contribute to ending extreme poverty.
• Tied aid reduces value for money and effectiveness of aid spending. While all UK aid is legally untied, [ONE] found de-facto tying in some aid programmes. The Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) under BEIS requires the initial applicant to be from a UK institution, while the Newton Fund also under BEIS requires applicants to collaborate with or be supervised by a UK university. Students in the Chevening Scholarship programme under the FCO have to study at a UK university.
• An extremely high proportion of contracts are being awarded to UK companies. Where information was available, ONE found that 90% of contracts (including from DFID) were going to UK entities.

Figure 11: ONE Campaign’s ‘Real Aid’ index findings

Note: The Prosperity Fund is analysed under the FCO

Source: ONE, Real aid index, Feb 2019

Independent scrutiny of UK aid spending

58.In the UK, there is a comparatively robust architecture for scrutinising UK aid, principally the House of Commons International Development Committee (IDC), ICAI, and the NAO. ICAI reports to the IDC through the ICAI Sub-Committee. NAO reports are typically considered by the House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts. Independent scrutiny of ODA spending is recognised in the 0.7% spending target legislation.124

59.In written evidence, the Center for Global Development stated that one of the key strengths of the UK aid system was that it had an operationally independent watchdog (ICAI), accompanied by good parliamentary scrutiny.125

60.UK aid should be scrupulously monitored to help ensure it is fulfilling its remit to eradicate extreme poverty and delivering value for money for the taxpayer. The current independent scrutiny regime is one of the strengths of UK aid. These scrutiny arrangements should continue—particularly as ODA is increasingly disbursed across government departments. If DFID’s functions are absorbed into another government department, parliamentary scrutiny should continue under a standalone parliamentary committee that scrutinises UK ODA which ICAI should report to.

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