Transparency data

Accounting officer assessment: SLC Evolve

Updated 30 April 2024

Applies to England

Accounting officers scrutinise significant policy proposals, projects or programmes and make sure the actions of the public organisation they lead meet the 4 accounting officer standards (regularity, propriety, value for money, and feasibility) as set out in managing public money.

From April 2017, the government has committed to making a summary of the key points from these assessments available to Parliament when an accounting officer has assessed a project or programme within the government’s major projects portfolio (GMPP).

Background

The Student Loans Company (SLC) is one of HM Government’s key strategic delivery partners and the Department for Education’s (DfE) largest partner organisation by headcount. The Government relies on SLC to assess 1.8 million applications for student finance each year, manage a loan book worth £177.9 billion, and act as a first point of contact for repayments for a customer base of 8.5 million people.

For the £279 million investment made by government each year, SLC deliver these services efficiently and expertly, but it also recognised it had to become more efficient to provide improved performance for students and taxpayers. For an organisation with assets and a customer base of such a size, SLC’s customer service, operational design, technology, data management and change delivery working practices lagged behind industry standards and good practice.

These issues have accumulated over time, with SLC unable to prioritise addressing them due to an equally escalating and complicated policy landscape, which has seen the number of products and services offered by the SLC almost double in the last 6 years alone. Ministers across UK Government and the devolved administrations are unlikely to demand less of the SLC in years to come. It is therefore crucial that SLC have a credible plan, with supporting multi-year investment, to ensure that the business is sustainable and that it can respond efficiently to demands.

The SLC executive leadership team conducted a review of the SLC 2020 strategy in December 2018 and concluded that a different approach was required to address wider enterprise risks and challenges as well as make sure the changes already happening were implemented in the correct way with a clear plan and supporting corporate strategy.

The revised business case reflects the changes made to broaden the SLC 2020 strategy.

The Evolve programme addresses key sustainability issues faced by the SLC in its operations, technical estate, people, data and complex product base.

It is an enterprise-wide transformation that includes:

• contact centre and operational changes to improve customer experience
• technology transformation of applications, infrastructure and working practices necessary to the sustainability of the business
• data transformation to improve collections, the value of the loan book and also improve the customer experience
• reform of the policy commissioning process to simplify policy
• creating a better proposition for people which is fundamental to our plans and ensuring that they understand and are aligned to our transformation objectives

As well as creating change, the Evolve programme helps establish new ways of working in customer service design, data governance, enterprise architecture and strategic souring.

Assessment against accounting officer standards

Regularity

The Secretary of State has the power to enter into new contracts with third party service providers required to deliver the activities concerned.

As such, the programme does not require any new legislation and no issues are anticipated in maintaining compliance with established United Kingdom law.

Propriety

Propriety requires high standards of public conduct, including robust governance and meeting the relevant parliamentary expectations, especially transparency.

Undertaking this programme is unlikely to set any unhelpful precedents but shows the department’s commitment to ensuring that the student loans system remains secure, robust and fit for purpose.

Value for Money

The investment will continue with the reset portfolio of transformational projects including new people, policy commissioning and data components which are critical to support the Evolve investment objectives and required to deliver the stated benefits.

Identifying and procuring multi-year, outcome based, partner(s) support to work with SLC to deliver the transformation particularly in areas that can be delivered in isolation of other changes. The project has a net present value (NPV) of £268.4 million compared to £178.1 million if we did nothing. The full lifecycle benefits as detailed in the economic case are £447.1 million, this is £127.3 million DfE/SLC cashable, £228.8 million His Majesty’s Treasury (HMT) benefits and non-cashable benefits are £91 million.

SLC will ensure that value for money is achieved through:

• existing or national collaborative framework agreements, where feasible
• strong pre-market engagement to help inform tender specifications and contract service level agreements (SLAs)
• active supplier performance management
• contract management review

Feasibility

I am comfortable that the proposal can be carried out by SLC and is deliverable because:

• sufficient budget has been secured
• the programme team is resourced and has adhered to all internal review and approval processes
• the programme has established, strong project and portfolio management methodologies and processes to monitor and manage the project

SLC monitors the programme via a benefits management process and framework which aligns to the project delivery framework. This benefits framework is underpinned by prescriptive assumptions that define the quantity at which benefits should be calculated – for example, cost of complaints handling, full time equivalent (FTE) cost by grade. The aim of the assumptions is to ensure that all SLC colleagues conducting benefits calculations are doing so at the same rate.

The SLC finance business partner for Evolve attended a benefits training at DfE to learn best practices for benefits management. This learning has now become a part of the benefits tracking at SLC and will be incorporated into future benefits tracking on an SLC-wide basis.

These are tracked by the Evolve management office with SLC and assured by the finance business partner for Evolve. Any cashable benefits are integrated into the budgets of the impacted areas. All benefits and programme progress are reported back to government by a government chaired Evolve board.

SLC are successfully delivering a significant transformation programme, which will deliver significant cashable benefits for SLC, DfE and HMT, within its overall budget settlement and annual performance and resource agreement.

Conclusion

As accounting officer for the Department for Education, I have considered this assessment against the four accounting officer standards, and I am satisfied that the SLC Evolve programme meets the standards of managing public money and accords with the generally understood principles of public life, represents good value for money for the Exchequer as a whole, and is feasible to deliver.

This summary will be published on the government’s website (GOV.UK). Copies will be deposited in the Library of the House of Commons; and sent to the Comptroller and Auditor General and Treasury Officer of Accounts.

Susan Acland-Hood

Permanent Secretary