HC Deb 12 April 1988 vol 131 cc19-20W
Mr. Steinberg

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1) if he will make a statement on the failure of the sponsorship and assistance management information systems as uncovered by the National Audit Office; and what plans his Department has to remedy the loss of data through its inaccuracies on the reports of regional grants;

(2) what was the total amount of pounds sterling in real terms wasted through the inaccuracies and poor quality control of the sponsorship and assistance management information systems, as uncovered by the National Audit Office;

(3) what steps he will take to improve the accuracy of data which have been found to be deficient by the National Audit Office.

Mr. Butcher

The National Audit Office report on "Arrangements for Regional Industrial Incentives" (report no. 346) says (para 4.6) that the sponsorship and assistance management information systems was less useful for monitoring or evaluation than it might be because

  1. (a) the expected timing of jobs to be created in projects approval for regional development grants was not stated; and
  2. (b) there were minor inaccuracies in 34 out of 80 cases examined, while total payments as recorded on SAMIS could not be reconciled with the Department's financial management information system: hence data were not wholly reliable.

Concerning (a) the Department does not consider that the absence of information on the forecast timing of jobs to be created is a serious deficiency. Grant is only paid once jobs have actually been created, and data on actual job creation are available from payments records; moreover most projects are completed within two years.

Concerning (b) the Department has accepted the need to improve the accuracy of data held on SAM IS. Officials have been instructed to update the entries for which they are responsible and to enter data promptly in future. A systematic programme of "data cleaning" to remove inaccuracies was instituted last year. Between September 1987 and February 1988 the identified error rate was halved. There has also been a substantial reduction in discrepancies between SAMIS and FINMIS data on payments of regional selective assistance. The position on RDG payments is less good but this is the result of the increase in case load resulting from the Government's decision to terminate the scheme following a period of notice. The Department will continue its efforts to improve data quality. The NAO's reference to "minor inaccuracies" should however be seen in the context that each case may contain several hundred data items.

There is no reason to think that any money has been lost as a result of the deficiencies in SAMIS noted by the NAO: the NAO report itself does not suggest that losses could have resulted from these weaknesses.