Enabling activity: A learning organisation where improvement is continuous and resources are used efficiently

The world around us is changing rapidly. We need to adapt fast to be successful. In order to do this, we aim to be rigorous in learning from experience and seek continuous improvement in all that we do. With pressures on public spending set to continue, it is crucial that we continue to manage our costs and make effective use of our technology, funding, time and resources. We are working to: 

• rocure and implement value for money IT systems that improve service delivery
• maintain our financial strategy to keep the Commission within approved budgets
• continue to develop techniques to learn from experience, seek continuous improvement and become more efficient and effective
• develop a corporate environmental strategy that meets policy and legislative requirements for reduced environmental impact.

• We are on course to remain within the commitment we gave in the Corporate Plan to keep core spending – on regulatory activities, support for electoral administrators and overheads – flat in real terms over the course of the plan period.
• We regret that we were unable to complete the delivery of the new political finance online system as the project could no longer achieve its aims and would have required ongoing and costly support. We are currently in the discovery phase of our new approach, which is utilising previous work we had developed and consulted on. 
• Like many public bodies, the Commission faces risks from cyber-attacks. To help protect against such attacks, we are investing in our systems. We have migrated our IT infrastructure to the cloud and invested in cyber-security, giving us a robust technology basis that will allow us to focus on key corporate systems. 
• Prepared the Commission’s budget for 2023-24, which was approved by the Speaker’s Committee in March 2023.

• We will continue to move our guidance into a new more accessible format online, with all new guidance for the 2024 elections to be made available in this way.
• We remain committed to replacing the current political online system for registering political parties and reporting financial information and will continue to work with parties and campaigners on the next steps.
• We are undertaking a programme of training for internal budget managers and making systems improvements to provide budget managers with real time expenditure data to support better decision-making.