Annual data reveals that best practice and smarter use of digital and IT provided an extra £230m-plus of efficiencies when compared with the prior year as overall savings top £4bn

The digital, data and technology function delivered £376m in cash savings for government in the 2022 fiscal year – more than double the efficiencies achieved in the previous year.

This week brought the latest publication of the Cabinet Office’s annual Government Efficiency Savings report, covering the 2021-22 year. The document reveals that cashable savings during the year stood at £3.4bn – the same as in the prior year. But the new version adds that an additional £1.02bn in “non cash-releasing savings… was derived from the use of a due diligence platform for allocating government grants” during FY22.

More than one pound in every ten in monetary savings was delivered by the DDaT function. The £376m of cashback provided by government’s technologists represents a 165% increase on the £142m savings created in the previous year.

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The new report said that the efficiencies had been achieved by DDaT’s “performance and assurance” operations delivering service improvements and promoting good practice across departments.

“The digital, data and technology function supports the delivery of digital services, the use and sharing of data and the building and deployment of technology across government,” it added. “The performance and assurance team achieves efficiencies by ensuring that digital services and technology infrastructure are delivered in accordance with best practice while achieving significant savings through simpler to use, well delivered and legally compliant services.”

The biggest provider of savings in 2021-22 – with more than £1.3bn of value delivered back into the government – was the counter-fraud function.

“Savings include the use of data sharing and analysis to highlight anomalies that may indicate fraud, enabling targeted work by counter fraud experts,” the report said.

Debt-management also provided savings of £1.3bn, while the commercial function provided cashback of £226m – including £65m from a specialist complex transactions team.