Speeches by Kane.

“Good morning, everyone. I am looking at paragraph 13 of the NAO Report, which identifies four main causes of the programme not progressing as intended. It states that several Government bodies, including the IPA, the Cabinet Office, the Government Internal Audit Agency and the Treasury, concluded that “NS&I had a weak …”

“As a final point from me, considering all of the variances between all of this data and this approach, you have indicated that you are confident that you will know when you are going to meet your targets to halve the spend. Are you confident that the NAO is going to agree with you? Are you confident that this Committee…”

“When will you have it fixed? How long will that take? I am pushing this a little because it is unusual for me, when I hear these discussions, to feel like I am not getting to an answer. I am getting that you are aware of the problem. You have raised it repeatedly with different Departments, and they are either not gett…”

“Can you expand on the focus and effort part of that? Reminding Departments to do it is one thing, but it is the focus and effort, and the plan. You have been reminding them for a while, but that is not resulting in action that the NAO can evidence. I am more interested in drilling down into what you are doing and how y…”

“Paragraph 1.33 of the NAO Report says, “Departmental annual reports use different definitions of what constitutes consultancy spending, which may or may not be based on the Cabinet Office definition for consultancy”, so the NAO is not assured that this is happening. You have something that you are telling Departments t…”

“Is that the target to reduce the spending, as opposed to the target to adopt a consistent definition? What target are you referring to?”

“I imagine that one of the problems is that there is not a consistent definition of “consultancy” across Government. I know you have said that you are working on a revised definition of “consultancy”. What is stopping that happening? What is stopping one definition of “consultancy” being used across Government?”

“That sounds like the future, though, rather than the present. Getting from the current labour-intensive, manual process to the wonderful new world of AI doing it for us requires a journey, so where are we on that journey?”

“I am going to push this a little more, Cat, in that we have had this conversation before about what technology will do in the future, but we are trying to ensure that we can measure your progress against targets with what you have now. From what we are hearing from Rebecca, it is a bit of a laborious get-together with …”

“Just to bring all that together, the impression I am getting, not being a data specialist, is that the data is not as good as it needs to be, but you have put processes in place to ensure that it is changing. It seems like you are doing it in a very labour-intensive way if you are having all of these check-ins. What ar…”

“I know that my colleague Blake was going to ask you about that, so I will hand over to him now.”

“Can I ask a quick follow-up on contingent labour? I am recalling a question that we asked of the BBC director general when it came to using freelancers and other things. When you are looking at reducing the workforce because of AI, you are going to be able to look at this across consultants, permanent staff and freelan…”

“I would probably leave you with the observation that I absolutely get that you and others will be confident within the Department. I am less confident that the NAO is going to be, based on the language that is being used and also the line of questioning. It is more of an observation that it is important that we all hav…”

“Lastly, we have talked about the difficulties you have with your workforce, your consultants and even the definitions. For 50 years, workforce, consultants and contingent labour have been the three parts. AI is now becoming an extra part of the workforce. You are bringing in an incredibly disruptive and powerful fourth…”

“Just on a point of clarification, Cat, when Sarah Olney asked whether you knew how much you are spending, you said yes and disagreed with the NAO Report. Paragraph 1.33 of the NAO Report says, “The data available on Departments’ consultancy spending are inconsistent and vary from one source to another… This means the G…”

“Why?”

“It is carrots and sticks, yes.”

“Just picking up on that point, earlier we were talking about the definition of a consultant and the best way to feed data into the system. It strikes me that your Department within the centre, Cat, must occasionally be quietly screaming into the void when you put this best practice out and permanent secretaries are not…”

“Is the concept of AI as a potential form of consultancy going to complicate your mission to have a uniform definition of consultancy services? We have talked about AI as a technological solution. We have not really talked about AI in any of these sessions as a consultancy solution. I suppose this is the place to explor…”

“Maybe we are going to build our own AI models or software platforms. If you are bringing in Microsoft or any of these other companies and buying in AI, is there a difference between buying in an AI service and buying in a consultant? Will AI become, in effect, a consultant, as we would see it expressed in your playbook…”