A lack of reliable information about UK government aid to Malawi makes value-for-money judgments difficult, MPs have warned.

The Commons public accounts select committee has also questioned whether the Department for International Development (DfID) has enough staff on the ground to oversee the way the millions of pounds of aid is spent.

A report published by the select committee today, based on a National Audit Office (NAO) examination of the department's work, said DfID - not just in Malawi - had faced the challenge of "disbursing steeply rising amounts of aid with fewer staff to oversee it, as a result of cuts in its administration budget set by the Treasury".

Committee chairman Edward Leigh said: "It is difficult to judge whether the Department for International Development has spent UK public money efficiently in Malawi.

"The department doesn't have the reliable and up-to-date information, together with robust targets, needed to assess the performance of its aid programmes and to find out how they could be improved," he added.

Leigh said the aid given to Malawi, the poorest nation in the world, is "no doubt having some good effect", but better monitoring was needed before any value-for-money judgment could be made.

DfID has provided £312m to the African country between 2003-04 and 2007-08, much of which has been used to support government programmes to reduce hunger and improve health services.

The committee expressed concern that the Malawian government was not being sufficiently held to account for the aid it received. Although the department funds governance and scrutiny processes, the committee's report found that these were "not yet fit for purpose".

A DfID spokeswoman welcomed the fact that the committee had acknowledged the department's success in Malawi, and pointed out that the support had meant 2,500 new classrooms and saved the lives of 15,000 children.

"DfID is fully committed to achieving maximum impact from UK aid," she added. "We are already working hard to sharpen our performance-monitoring and improve the data available to ensure value for money in our programmes."