Earned autonomy
Published 23 February 2024
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The level of autonomy an organisation can achieve is based on its current performance and the capability of its digital and data assurance function.
Organisations seeking earned autonomy must:
- work within the requirements of the digital and technology spend controls version 6 policy
- have transparent assurance processes
- follow cross-government standards and policies
- be part of the Quarterly Business Review process
If the Cabinet Office minister responsible for spend control, based on the Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO) advice, grants your organisation greater autonomy in digital and technology spend control decision making, you will not need to involve CDDO in assuring low and medium risk activities.
Earning autonomy
Organisations can ask for greater autonomy by having their assurance capability assessed in line with the digital functional standard continuous improvement assessment framework.
Because not all products and services need the same level of in-depth assurance, it should always be in proportion to the level of risk and the importance of the product or service.
The level of risk and importance of a product or service is determined by a set of questions in the risk and importance framework. Once you have answered the questions in the framework, your proposed spend gets a risk and importance rating of high, medium or low.
If an organisation has earned autonomy, it can only be used for low and medium risk activities. CDDO will still have to be involved in making decisions regarding high risk and importance spend.
Organisations granted autonomy still need to record all spend on the organisation’s spend pipeline using the get approval to spend service.
If after obtaining autonomy an organisation wants to change how their cases are assured, they must agree to the change with CDDO. Organisations must demonstrate effective decision-making through the assurance process after any changes are agreed.
Earning autonomy through self-assessment
The process for earning a higher level of autonomy starts when you submit a request. Your organisation will need to conduct a self-assessment and your request is managed by the CDDO.
You must assess your capability based on the assurance capability criteria of ‘good’, ‘better’ and ‘best’. To apply for autonomy, you must demonstrate that your organisation is continually achieving all the criteria in the ‘good’ category. To gain autonomy your organisation needs to be achieving all the criteria in the ‘better” category.
After you have assessed your organisation’s assurance capability, you must outline plans on how that autonomy will be implemented and applied across the organisation.
Plans should ensure the maintenance of effective assurance on areas of delivery that most need it, within the organisation’s extended assurance remit.
You will share the outcome of your self-assessment with the CDDO Performance and Assurance team. Sometimes, CDDO will want more evidence to support your self-assessment. You will need to provide the evidence CDDO asks for, before it can make a decision on autonomy.
Submit your organisational self-assessment to CDDO where it will be combined with the view of CDDO advisers and data from assurance processes.
When you are granted autonomy
CDDO will propose a level of autonomy for your organisation and tell you what you will need to do to get that level. Your organisation must accept the proposal and agree to the recommendations.
CDDO will write to its minister recommending that your organisation is granted ‘provisional earned autonomy’. The provisional status will run for a minimum of 3 months.
During the provisional stage, CDDO advisers will review half of the decisions made by your assurance team and provide feedback.
If your organisation is found to be making consistently good decisions, CDDO will recommend the minister grants you ‘earned autonomy’
Monitoring performance
CDDO will continue to monitor the quality of decision making after you have been granted autonomy. They will randomly sample 5% of cases or any additional or unusual cases a CDDO advisor notices on your pipeline.
If a CDDO adviser notices consistent deficiencies, CDDO will ask you to implement an improvement plan and revert your organisation to a ‘provisional earned autonomy’ state.
If your organisation does not make these improvements within the agreed time, the CDDO will recommend that the minister revoke the organisation’s earned autonomy, reverting the department to default levels.