The Independent Commission for Aid Impact and monitoring UK aid

What is the Commission, and what does it do? Launch in 2011

In 2010, the then Secretary of State for International Development Andrew Mitchell announced that the government would create a new body to monitor UK aid. Known as the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI), the commission formally began its work in 2011.

The coalition government said that the commission was necessary as the “British taxpayer must be confident that the government’s development work has been shown independently to have produced results and saved lives”.

How is the ICAI staffed?

The ICAI is staffed separately from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).

The Commission is led by three Commissioners (one of whom is full time), all appointed by the Foreign Secretary with support from representatives of the ICAI, the Commons International Development Committee and the FCDO.

As of 2024/25, the ICAI had 13 staff (including the three commissioners). The ICAI commissions outside consultants to conduct reviews.

What is the ICAI’s mandate and priorities?

• The ICAI’s mandate covers all UK aid spending, regardless of the government department it is spent by. It does not evaluate the relatively small amounts of aid spent by the Welsh and Scottish Governments.
• The ICAI is charged with conducting a “small number of well-prioritised, well-evidenced, credible, thematic reviews on strategic issues”, rather than individual programmes (though they are part of its wider reviews).
• The ICAI chooses its subjects for review independently from the government but they are agreed with the International Development Committee. Reviews are intended to take 9 to 12 months to complete.

All ICAI reviews are published. Its future work plan outlines its work in 2026. Past reports can be found on the reviews section of its website.

How do ICAI reviews work?

The ICAI has three main products: full thematic reviews (including country portfolio reviews and results reviews), rapid reviews, and information notes.

Only full reviews are scored and contain recommendations. Rapid reviews. published more quickly, also provide recommendations. Information notes are limited to providing factual information but may outline further areas for investigation.

The ICAI gathers information through several methods, including interviews with government officials and nongovernmental organisations, country visits, and reviews of strategies and other documents.

The ICAI scores the findings of full reviews on a four-tier traffic light system, from green to red.

Of the 17 scored reviews from 2020/21 to 2024/25, 11 were scored as green/amber and the remaining 6 as amber/red. Amber/red scored themes include safeguarding in the humanitarian sector, the UK’s Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative and UK aid to Afghanistan.

The FCDO publishes its response to ICAI reports and the Commons International Development Select Committee may choose to hold follow-up sessions with ministers and officials.

How is the ICAI funded, and how much does it cost?

The ICAI is funded directly by the FCDO.

In 2024/25 FCDO spending on ICAI totalled £2.1 million, down from £2.9 million in 2023/24 and £3.6 million in 2022/23.

ICAI had been allocated a budget of £15.1 million for the four-year period July 2019 to June 2023, or an average of £3.8 million a year.

ICAI spending was evenly split between administration and programme costs in 2024/25 (both around £1.1 million) but in other years the majority of spending has been on programme costs. In 2023/24, ICAI spent £2 million on programmes and £1 million on administration.

Its budget allocation for 2025/26 is £4 million.

In 2024 Chief Commissioner Jillian Popkins set out how the ICAI has sought to maintain value for money and ensure its reviews are focused on spending priorities:

ICAI has had a flat budget since 2019. The resources available for our programme have not increased but ICAI has continued to deliver a full programme of reviews since then.

[…] We continue to focus on value for money […] making sure that we have the most appropriate and cost-effective methodologies to answer the questions in the fullest way possible […]

We also think about value for money when we look at the range of review topics that we have in our work plan—so how will it be aligned with the issues that Government are thinking about […]

There are things, specifically, that we are doing more of […] such as […] engaging with people who can use them. We are also starting to look more at how we do follow-up and recommendations […]

Even as funding is reduced to 0.3% of gross national income by 2027, ICAI will represent a relatively small amount of the around £9 billion aid budget in that year.

How many reviews has the ICAI recently published?

Announcing the commission in 2010, the then International Development Secretary said that the commission would “undertake around 20 major evaluations, reviews and investigations with recommendations” each year.

However, numbers have been lower than this. The below table shows that in the last five financial years (2020/21 to 2024/25), the ICAI has published an average of 6.2 full and rapid reviews a year (excluding annual follow up reviews) and 2.2 information notes each year. Some activity was interrupted by general elections in 2019 and 2024.

Source: ICAI annual reports 2019/20, 2020/21, 2021/22, 2022/23, 2023/24, 2024/25. Excludes synthesis reviews and annual follow up reviews. The linked sources provide a list of all publications each year.

How has the government acted on the ICAI’s recommendations?

Government responses to ICAI reports are expected within six weeks of their publication. As shown in the below table, almost all recommendations are accepted or partially accepted by the government, but follow-up reviews by the ICAI suggest not all are implemented in the following years.

Source: ICAI annual reports 2019/20, 2020/21, 2021/22, 2022/23, 2023/24, 2024/25.

How effective have governments judged the ICAI to be? 2017 Tailored Review

The review, conducted by the Department for International Development (DFID) assessed the “continuing need for the functions and remit delivered by the ICAI”, concluding these were still required.

It made several recommendations to the ICAI, including appointing a full-time chief commissioner, more consultation on developing recommendations, and improved metrics to monitor its own performance.

The 2017 review built on DFID’s Triennial review of the ICAI, carried out in 2013.

2020 government evaluation

In 2020, the then Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab launched a review of the ICAI’s effectiveness and remit. Mr Raab said that the review concluded that:

ICAI provides strong external scrutiny of UK [aid] and offers excellent support to Parliament in its role in holding the government to account. ICAI has an important role in driving learning and focused action as well as providing assurance to UK taxpayers and Parliament.

The review also noted that that the quality and credibility of ICAI reviews are “generally considered to be high” but noted they were often “backward looking”:

The quality and credibility of reviews is generally considered to be high. There were some concerns raised about ICAI’s flexibility to react to changing situations (in light of the lengthy timescales of full reviews), and the need to ensure shared understanding of the scope of the review and the sorts of insights that might be gained at the outset. Reports tend to be backward-looking and focus on qualitative discursive analysis. Although reports provide a thorough overview of what has happened in an area and the impact it has had, their findings do not always currently translate into learning that can be applied to a wider set of issues.

The then Foreign Secretary said that the ICAI should expand its work to increase the focus of its reviews on supporting government learning and contributing to wider best practice in development.

The full review was published as Review of the ICAI, 2020.

What did the government say in 2025 and 2026? Considering the future of the ICAI

In a January 2026 evidence session with the International development Committee, International Development Minister Baroness Chapman said that in a “prioritisation” situation, with the reduction in UK aid spending to 0.3% of gross national income by 2027, she was considering the ICAI’s future:

I have to ask myself whether that is the right use of that money or whether we could get what we need more efficiently. Is there a different way of enabling that accountability function to take place? I do not know the outcome of that at the moment, but we have to challenge ourselves on it. […] I know you [the committee] value their reports, as do I, but it is wrong just to carry on funding things in the same way we always have when we are not doing that to any other area […]

We take the reports seriously, we respond to them, we adapt in response to what ICAI has to say because it is good thorough work. Is it something we can continue to do in the same way in the current context? I am not sure. I have not decided and welcome thoughts on it.

The Minister confirmed that both a “reduced ICAI” and “something completely different” were being considered.

In March, the minister confirmed that FCDO funding of the ICAI would continue and the body would be the “primary means of independently evaluating the extent to which UK ODA represents value for money" (PDF). However, the budget will reportedly be reduced by 40%.

Expanding the ICAI’s mandate in 2025

In the summer of 2025, the government had expanded the ICAI’s mandate to include scrutiny of government international development work beyond aid spending, such as development partnerships, the use of UK expertise, and UK diplomatic work on global issues. This reflects a growing emphasis from both Labour and Conservative Governments on development tools beyond aid.

Government correspondence with the ICAI and International Development Committee on this expanded mandate has not been published.

The expanded mandate informed the ICAI’s launch of a new inquiry into bilateral development partnerships in January 2026.

What was the response to the minister's earlier comments on the ICAI's future? ICAI statements on funding

In November 2025, before the Minister’s comments, the chief commissioner for the ICAI, Jillian Popkins, had said while she understood there are “straitened fiscal circumstances”, reductions in funding or staff numbers would negatively affect the “very restricted flexibility” the ICAI already had over its budget. Cuts to funding, she said, would result in fewer reports and scrutiny.

The commissioner said the ICAI added value to other monitoring mechanisms for UK aid (see below) because it was specialist, independent, and had the capacity to go into greater depth and engage with FCDO officials directly.

She noted areas requiring improvement, however. These included a lower level of evidence that the ICAI’s recommendations are being implemented by the government.

International Development Committee

Sarah Champion, the chair of the Commons International Development Committee, wrote to the International Development Minister in January 2026 to express “the Committee’s strong support” for the ICAI (PDF).

She said that other alternatives to the ICAI, such as the National Audit Office or internal evaluations by the FCDO, would not meet the statutory obligation for independent evaluation of UK aid and its value for money set out in the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Act 2015. Neither, she said, would they have the capacity or expertise to evaluate aid spending like the ICAI.

In its interim report on the future of UK aid and development assistance, published in February 2026, the Committee said its experience of the ICAI was that it has “consistently performed its functions in an exemplary way and provided good value for money”.

Center for Global Development

The think tank has said it’s “fair to ask” about the effectiveness of the ICAI as the aid budget is reduced but concludes “it’s not hard to imagine a single [ICAI] review producing a benefit of £4 million [the ICAI’s budget]”.

The Center sets out five proposals to strengthen the ICAI:

1. Having its chief commissioner appointed by the International Development Committee to increase their independence
2. Allowing the ICAI to evaluate related activity beyond aid spending, such as trade and export finance (see the 2025 government plans above)
3. Evaluating the FCDO’s own project reviews it carries out on its work
4. Evaluating government proposals as well as final spending
5. Recruiting in-house expertise.

Bond

Bond, an umbrella group for UK NGOs, has also argued that the ICAI should be retained and that the NAO would not be able to replicate its role:

It is reasonable for the level of ICAI’s budget, staffing and approach to scrutiny to be reviewed in this resourcing context […][but] the role of ICAI is currently more important than ever. The cuts to the UK aid budget and FCDO staffing pose deep challenges and ensuring that scrutiny is maintained at the highest level possible will help to implement them effectively. ICAI’s scrutiny role and impact could not be replicated by the National Audit Office, which undertakes more narrowly focussed scrutiny, has never had the mandate to undertake the volume of reviews ICAI delivers on UK aid and has less independence than ICAI. How else is UK monitored?

The International Development Assistance (Target) Act 2015 requires that that Foreign Secretary “make arrangements for the independent evaluation” of UK aid and its value for money. In January 2025, the FCDO described the ICAI as the “vehicle to deliver on [this] statutory obligation”.

The Center for Global Development event, How should the UK scrutinise its aid spending?, held in February 2026, discusses ICAI and possible alternatives to it.

Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

The FCDO has several internal mechanisms to monitor and evaluate UK aid programmes, conducted by FCDO staff:

• The department’s Programme Operating Framework (PrOF) requires that all UK aid programmes have business cases, are checked against government priorities and value for public money principles, and are subject to regular performance and financial oversight.
• Business cases and annual evaluations of individual aid programmes can be found on the FCDO’s Development Tracker website.
• Reviews of UK aid spending: The last published government reviews of UK bilateral and multilateral aid were conducted in 2016. In 2025 the International Development Committee recommended the government conduct a new review of current multilateral aid to ensure value for money. The government rejected the recommendation, arguing that existing evaluation mechanisms ensured this.
• Internal Audit Department within the FCDO. This is an independent body that works across the department and can investigate allegations of fraud, corruption or safeguarding.
• Central Evaluation Unit. The 10-strong team sits within the FCDO and conducts evaluations of FCDO programmes and priorities and supports evaluation skills and training across the department.

The FCDO’s written evidence to the International Development Committee on how it manages value for money and its evaluation strategy 2025 provide further information.

The FCDO scores highly in the global transparency index of aid donors, being rated joint 10th in 2024.

In its 2025 report on value for money in the FCDO, the International Development Committee said it judged there to be a “stronger evaluation culture in the FCDO” than in many other departments. However, it noted witness evidence that the PrOF is not fully aligned with government priorities and that smaller NGOs are sometimes discouraged from applying for funding due to the evaluation requirements of the value for money process.

Commons International Development Committee

Like other Commons committees, the cross-party International Development Committee is responsible for monitoring government policy and spending.

The Committee is responsible for international aid spending by the government. It holds oral evidence sessions with ministers and stakeholders and publishes reports on UK aid programmes and policy. The inquiry topics are chosen independently by the committee.

However, it did face uncertainty on its future when the DFID was merged with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 2020. The government said that select committees should monitor departmental responsibilities, with an enlarged Foreign Affairs Committee taking on the IDC’s role.

Following parliamentary opposition, the government retained the committee’s role.

Past committees have also had a sub-committee for the ICAI, charged with monitoring ICAI’s effectiveness and able to hold sessions on its reports.

Committee of Public Accounts

The Commons Committee of Public Accounts (PAC) is a non-departmental select committee that examines the value for money of government projects, programmes and service delivery. It focuses on scrutinising value for money from public expenditure and not government policy.

Like other parliamentary committees, it holds inquiries, receives evidence and publishes reports making recommendations to government. Unlike other committees, its inquiries are often based on value for money reports published by the NAO.

Given its wide remit, PAC conducts relatively few inquiry sessions into international aid.

National Audit Office

The National Audit Office is an independent body, responsible for assessing spending by all government departments and related public bodies. As noted above, it works closely with PAC.

Similar to PAC, the breadth of the NAO’s responsibilities means that it only reviews aid spending on an intermittent basis. However, recent inquiries have included the effects of the 2020 departmental merger and aid cuts in 2021.

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development

Members of the 34-strong Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) are subject to peer-reviews. The Committee includes most of the world’s major aid donors, save for China.

Peer reviews are conducted every six years, with interim reviews every three. They are wide ranging, and do not focus on specific programmes but rather wider aid budgets.

The UK’s next review is due in 2026.

Footnotes