Treasury advisers tasked with finding government waste have identified spending on accommodation for people such as asylum seekers as their top priority.
The Office for Value for Money (OVfM), which has 15 members of staff and reports directly to the chancellor, was launched in October.
But a Treasury response to a BBC Freedom of Information request revealed that as of last month the team had not started scrutinising any investment proposals.
Government documents released on Tuesday showed the first two areas it will investigate are government spending on short-term accommodation and multi-billion pound so-called “mega projects” such as HS2.
The OVfM is aiming to cut departmental spending by £4bn annually starting this year.
Labour previously said the “hit team” would ensure that “every penny of taxpayers’ money is spent wisely”.
Concerns have been raised by both Conservative and Labour ministers in recent years about how much public money goes on short-term accommodation costs.
The Treasury says the Home Office spent £2.3bn on hotels for asylum seekers in 2022-23.
Further government money was spent on accommodation for veterans, care leavers, survivors of domestic abuse, victims of modern slavery and those fleeing war.
The Institute for Public Policy Research think tank reported in 2024 that per asylum seeker, costs had increased by 141% to £41,000 last year – up from £17,000 in 2019-20.
Some in government question whether departments signing separate accommodation contracts get the best value.
The Local Government Association (LGA), which represents councils in England, has said that “uncoordinated” procurement of accommodation has “driven up local accommodation costs”.
It says this has left “large numbers of properties void in areas where the demand from those cohorts is lower than supply”.
The OVfM’s investigation into accommodation costs will involve the Home Office, Ministry of Housing, Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Justice.
The OVfM ‘s chair David Goldstone will not be able to participate in the investigation into the “mega projects”, because of his previous senior roles with HS2 and the Submarine Delivery Agency.
Mr Goldstone, who was also involved in the financing of the London Olympics and Parliament’s long-delayed Restoration and Renewal project, is being paid more than £50,000 for an average of one to two days a week’s work.
He was hired on a one-year contract as a direct ministerial appointment, meaning the usual civil service recruitment procedures didn’t have to be followed.
He has said his job was to give “direct advice” to the Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones about how to save money in June’s Spending Review.
Downing Street was forced to defend his appointment after he was linked with a string of high-profile projects that went over budget.
Conservative Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride told the BBC the office “has yet again been shown to be a complete waste of money”.
He accused the government of “treating the taxpayer like a piggy bank”.
Earlier this year, Parliament’s Treasury Select Committee criticised the office as an “understaffed, poorly defined organisation”.
Dame Meg Hillier, the Labour MP who chairs the committee, added that the team had been “set up with a vague remit and no clear plan to measure its effectiveness”.
The Treasury has said the OVfM will ask every government department to find at least 1% efficiency savings, equivalent to around £4bn.
That will be included in the 5% of savings that Rachel Reeves has asked ministers to identify.
Documents published alongside the Budget said the office would be “undertaking value-for-money studies in specific high-risk areas of cross-departmental spending and scrutinising investment proposals”.
Earlier this year, BBC News used a Freedom of Information request to ask what specific high-risk areas and investment proposals the team had looked at.
The Treasury’s response said it did not hold any information about specific investment proposals because the office would “decide which investment proposals to scrutinise after receiving initial proposals from departments as part of the Spending Review”.
One key area the office is expected to look at is where multiple government departments could be doubling up on work.
But it has been suggested that the OVfM could itself be guilty of duplication.
In a report published in January, the Treasury Select Committee noted that the government already “uses a range of existing frameworks to safeguard value for money”.
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