Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress has been made towards implementing the recommendations of the review of quality assurance of government models, published on 5 March 2013.

The recommendations of the 2013 review of quality assurance of government models continue to be used to drive best practice in this area across government.

Individual government departments are primarily responsible for implementing the recommendations of the review. As an example of the type of action being taken in departments, HM Treasury has a working group of senior analysts (“Strength in Numbers”) responsible for promoting and embedding best practice in modelling and quality assurance, adhering closely to the recommendations set out in the 2013 review. To further ensure high standards, the Government Internal Audit Agency conducts an audit of HMT business-critical models every twelve months. Findings and responses to these feed into the HMT Audit Risk Committee, which support the Permanent Secretary in managing risk, control and governance.

Some recommendations are also being addressed on a cross-government basis. Specifically, in response to Recommendation 7 an expert inter-departmental working group was established. In 2015 this working group produced The Aqua Book: guidance on producing quality analysis for government, which is published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-aqua-book-guidance-on-producing-quality-analysis-for-government.

The Working Group has continued to meet approximately monthly with representatives from a number of Departments and Bodies to discuss quality assurance matters, publish quality assurance resources and provide informal advice to members. A number of resources created by Departments in response to the recommendations of the Review have been made available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/aqua-book-resources. These include guidance and research that underpin and complement the Aqua book, QA checklists and templates and other relevant materials and approaches currently used by Departments including the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, and the Department for Transport.

Further, the Office for National Statistics has recently established a Modelling Best Practice Unit within its Quality Centre, with the aim of supporting quality assurance in the modelling area across Government; officials from this Centre are members of the previously mentioned Working Group.