The Cabinet Office has shut down a transformation programme designed to improve the performance of security vetting after concerns about cost and the scope of the project.
Permanent secretary Cat Little has told members of parliament's Public Accounts Committee that the decision to close the vetting transformation programme reflects a change of approach, not a lack of commitment to improvement.
She says "customers" of UK Security Vetting, who include all government departments and a range of other public bodies, did not have the resources to fund the VTP and were keen to see "discrete incremental improvements" rather than large-scale change.
UKSV was set up in 2017 as a single vetting provider for civil servants, contractors and armed-forces specialists. It merged services previously provided separately by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Ministry of Defence. Originally it was part of the MoD, but the Cabinet Office took over responsibility for it in 2020.
Last year, a damning report from the National Audit Office said delays with checks provided by UKSV were hampering the effective functioning of government and putting national security at risk. The public spending watchdog added that the Cabinet Office’s initial efforts to modernise UKSV's IT infrastructure had run almost 50% over budget before ending in failure in 2021. It said £2.5m had been written off in relation to the project in 2021-22.
A subsequent PAC report accused the Cabinet Office of "failing to get a grip" on national-security vetting. MPs said the department had also failed to provide adequate funding for UKSV's vetting transformation reform plans. Their report said UKSV's £40m business case for the full programme had been repeately rejected by the Cabinet Office's approvals board.
Among its recommendations, the committee called on the Cabinet Office to set out a clear implementation plan for vetting transformation, with interim milestones for new vetting levels and a realistic completion date.
In an update letter to the committee dated 5 November but only published yesterday, Cabinet Office perm sec Little says UKSV has been stabilised and is now consistently meeting its performance targets. However, she confirms that the VTP has been dumped on the recommendation of an "executive challenge board" that brings together UKSV's largest customers and funders.
"The proposal to close the VTP was formally reviewed by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority and they have endorsed the closure of the programme," she said. "The IPA recommended that the UKSV chief executive officer should approach sustainable change through a continuous improvement and incremental change rather than an ambitious and expensive transformation programme.
"This approach was ratified by the Government Security Board in September 2024. The closure of the VTP does not, in any way, mean that UKSV are less committed to modernising and improving vetting services. It has, however, enabled the team to review how we take this forward and allowed us to move away from the ‘big bang’ transformation which was envisaged by the VTP."
Little's letter says that the stabilisation programme that UKSV underwent underscored that stakeholders' concerns for vetting had "shifted considerably", with customers looking for immediate improvements in data management and cybersecurity.
It adds that customers believed they had insufficient funding to support the planned investment scope of the VTP.
Additionally, Little say that the Angiolini Inquiry into the abduction, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by serving Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens has also "underscored the need for a more holistic fundamental overhaul of vetting". The first part of the Angiolini Inquiry report was published in February.
Little's letter says the Cabinet Office remains committed to "achieving significantly improved outcomes in vetting delivery" through three core workstreams, which will look at rationalising policy and process; enhancing digital and cybersecurity; and increasing assurance.
The third workstream includes pilots for "interrogating" the Police National Database, which Little says was a "lesson" from the Angiolini Inquiry.