HC Deb 26 March 1991 vol 188 cc400-1W
Mr. Stevens

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement about the establishment of the Directorate General of Defence Accounts as a defence support agency.

Mr. Kenneth Carlisle

The Directorate General of Defence Accounts—DGDA—is to become a defence support agency on 1 April 1991.

The chief executive will be the present incumbent, Mr. M. J. Dymond.

The DGDA's role is to provide accountancy services to the MOD. It pays bills, civilian salaries and wages, makes superannuation awards, recovers moneys due, maintains the central ledger, produces the appropriation account and provides accounting advice and data. Its role is crucial to the successful implementation of new management strategy for defence. The DGDA's systems will provide much of the financial information which is needed to run the new devolved management structures.

The DGDA provides a high-quality professional service. It will aim to achieve new standards of excellence in dealings between the agency and its customers. To this end, the chief executive has been set demanding targets covering all areas of performance.

Agency status will give the DGDA the freedoms and flexibilities it needs to perform its role more effectively and efficiently, providing continuous improvements in the quality of the service it offers to users.

The chief executive's targets for the early years are:

  1. (a) to develop and agree service level agreements for each of the DGDA's functions and tasks with customers by 31 July 1991 and thereafter to meet agreed time, cost and quality of service criteria as laid down in individual service level agreements;
  2. (b) to reduce the turnaround time of civilian travel claims from 15 to 10 working days by 31 March 1992;
  3. (c) to introduce a two-weekly billing timetable for bills by the end of 1991–92
  4. (d) to reduce throughput errors in DGDA in the following areas:
  5. —non-industrial pay to 3 per cent.; industrial pay by 1 per cent.; pensions to 2 per cent.; civilian travel claims to 2 per cent.; and bill payment by 2 per cent.
  6. (e) to carry out agreed tasks to time, standard and within budget;
  7. (f) to achieve a sustained improvement in overall efficiency reflected in the budgeted costs of the following indicators: cost per pay account, cost per travel claim, cost per bill, cost per receipt and cost per pensions award;
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  8. (g) to achieve efficiency improvements of at least £450,000 in 1991–92;
  9. (h) to produce a saving in the overall defence budget of £450,000 by the introduction of revised selective checking procedures in the D Acs (Bills) area;
  10. (j) to review existing internal management information systems and identify management requirements by 30 August 1991, and to develop and implement systems, including unit cost measurement, capable of measuring performance of the agency more effectively by 27 March 1992;
  11. (k) to review the systems and resources required to carry out the agreed tasks and meet targets set for MOD HQ in "Options for Change", with the aim of reducing the net cost of the agency to the MOD and of minimising spare capacity where possible. Where spare capacity cannot be eliminated, to seek to utilise it by expanding the customer base in accordance with the business development strategy.

I wish the chief executive and his staff every success in their new status.