HM Treasury’s framework places policy and annual financing decisions for the UK Debt Management Office (DMO) with ministers while delegating daily management and specified debt and cash decisions to its chief executive.
HM Treasury added the 44-page document to its public-body collection on Oct. 28, and the DMO’s publication register lists that date as well. Dated October 2026, the framework was agreed by the Treasury and the DMO under the government’s Managing Public Money handbook and approved by HM Treasury.
Ministers set the DMO’s policy and financial framework, appoint its chief executive and set annual financing and cash-management remits. The chief executive oversees daily management and specified operational decisions covering debt and cash management. This leaves broad policy and annual financing settings with ministers while the agency’s chief executive handles its assigned operations.
Its remit covers debt-policy advice and delivery, daily government cash needs, Treasury loans for local authorities’ capital spending, and administration of funds for selected public bodies. The framework also sets out an aim to support liquidity, stability and resilience, and efficiency, in markets for government securities.
For cash management, the document gives the DMO an objective of minimizing the cost of offsetting government net cash flows over time, within a risk appetite ministers approve. It says the framework itself creates no legal powers or responsibilities, although HM Treasury and the DMO have agreed to follow its provisions.
The DMO began operating as a Treasury executive agency on April 1, 1998, when responsibility for issuing the government’s wholesale sterling debt moved from the Bank of England.
The framework calls for review and update at least every three years, subject to stated exceptions. It sets October 2029 as the latest date for the next review and update.
