Download or read book 5th Report of Session 2005 06 written by Great Britain: Parliament: Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2005-07-07 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 5th report of Session 2005-06 : Drawing special attention to: draft Community Legal Service (Cost Protection) (Amendment) Regulations 2005; draft Community Legal Service (Scope) Regulations 2005; revised funding code prepared by the Legal Services Commiss

Download or read book Fifth Report of Session 2004 05 written by Great Britain: Parliament: Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and published by . This book was released on 2005-01-24 with total page 8 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fifth report of Session 2004-05 : Drawing special attention to: Contaminants in Food (England) Regulations 2004, S. I. 2004/3062

Download or read book Responses to the Committee s Second Report of Session 2004 05 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Treasury Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2005-04-11 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This publication sets out responses to the Committee's report on the credit card market (HCP 274, session 2004-05; ISBN 0215021711) published in February 2004, received from the Department for Trade and Industry, the Office of Fair Trading and the Financial Services Authority. Issues discussed include: transparency in charging practices; data sharing and responsible lending; and regulation of payment protection insurance.

Download or read book Ministerial Accountability and Parliamentary Questions Fifth Report of Session 2004 05 22 March 2005 written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Public Administration Select Committee and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The last report written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Science and Technology Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2007-11-07 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On 28 June 2007, the Prime Minister announced changes to the machinery of Government that had an impact upon the select committee system within the House of Commons. As a result, the Science and Technology Select Committee will be dissolved and replaced by a new Innovation, Universities and Skills Select Committee at the beginning of the next session of Parliament. This Report explains the role that the Science and Technology Committee has played within Parliament and the science community. It outlines the Committee's innovations, its impact and concerns regarding future science scrutiny in the House of Commons. It concludes that, in the long term, a separate Science and Technology Committee is the only way to guarantee a permanent focus on science across Government within the select committee system and recommends that the House be given an opportunity to revisit this issue.

Download or read book The Effects of Adverse Weather Conditions on Transport written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Transport Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2009-05-29 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The snowfall on 1 and 2 February 2009, the heaviest since 1991, had a drastic impact on transport in London, which had no bus service for most of the morning of 2 February. Overground trains and London Underground services were also affected by delays and cancellations. Disruption to services also affected other areas of the country and continued for several days. This report looks at why public transport had been disrupted and whether this disruption was handled better or worse by different authorities, whether planning and preparation by local authorities and the Highways Agency was sufficient, and whether co-ordination between the bodies involved in responding to the heavy snow was adequate. Local authorities and agencies need to examine any weaknesses or potential improvements to emergency plans that may have emerged from the events on 1-2 February. Responses to heavy snow and its impact on traffic can be improved, but these are to do with planning and co-ordination, not increased spending: extra money, increased salt stocks or more snow ploughs are not the solution. The report finds that three key elements are required for a successful response to severe weather: the relationship between all the bodies involved in ensuring that the road network and public transport systems can operate; emergency recovery plans and winter maintenance plans should give a clear indication of what the priorities for salting and gritting should be and that these priorities have been agreed with public transport operators and the emergency services; the presence of good leadership. Co-ordination, prioritisation and visible leadership are vital to the success and speed of recovery following severe weather.

Download or read book Road Policing and Technology written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Transport Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2006-10-31 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2005, traffic collisions killed 3,201 people with almost 29,000 seriously injured on British roads. Although the level of road crash fatalities and injuries has fallen over successive decades and Britain has one of the safest road environments in the world, the numbers still remain far too high and many of these casualties might have been avoided if there was a higher level of compliance with traffic law. The Committee's report examines the road casualty problem, focusing on the role of roads policing and the contribution which enforcement can make to casualty reduction. It considers how technology is influencing the policing and enforcement of particular offences, relating to speeding, drink and drug driving, driving whilst using a mobile phone and driving while impaired by fatigue. The report finds that, despite progress made by the Department for Transport against its 2010 casualty reduction targets, the Home Office has continued to deny traffic law enforcement issues the priority it requires and must explicitly adopt the targets as a key part of its future national policing plans. Investment and research into new technological equipment, such as roadside breath testing equipment and time-distance cameras, and a higher profile and more visible traffic enforcement effort would bring important casualty reductions. However, the efficiencies which technology can bring should not be seen as a opportunity to cut the number of roads police officers, as technology alone cannot carry out the multitude of functions undertaken by roads police officers.

Download or read book Fifth report of session 2010 11 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: European Scrutiny Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2010-11-05 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fifth report of Session 2010-11 : Documents considered by the Committee on 27 October 2010, including the following recommendations for debate, economic policy coordination (two documents); Europe 2020 strategy: integrated guidelines, report, together wit

Download or read book Ending the Scandal of Complacency written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Transport Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although road accident deaths have halved between 1958 and 2007 whilst the number of licensed motor vehicles and vehicle mileage covered increased by 400 per cent, the current rate of 3,000 deaths and 250,000 injuries is still an unacceptably high level. Road accidents are the largest single cause of death for people between the ages of 5 and 35 in Britain, and road accidents cost our economy some £18 billion each year. The number of deaths and injuries on roads far outweighs the deaths and injuries in other transport modes, and should be viewed as a major public health problem. The Government should establish a British Road Safety Survey to track overall casualty and safety trends, and review current methods for recording road-traffic injuries. The Committee recommends a systems approach to road safety: ensuring the vehicle, the road infrastructure, regulations and driver training are designed to similar safety and performance standards. Other recommendations include: more 20 mph speed limits; a more proactive approach to determining the safety benefits of new vehicle technologies; action on young drivers - who represent a disproportionate risk to road users - and vulnerable users: motorcyclists, elderly and child pedestrians and cyclists, horse riders; a higher priority given to enforcement of drink-drive and drug-drive offences. The Committee recommends the establishment of an independent Road Safety Commission with powers to work across the whole of government, ensuring that a high priority and adequate resources are given to road safety and that all government departments and agencies give active support. The Government should also establish a road accident investigation branch, like those in aviation, rail and marine.

Download or read book The use of airspace written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Transport Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2009-07-10 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Government's Future of Air Transport strategy aims to significantly increase UK airport capacity over the next two decades to accommodate the predicted growth in demand for air travel. New runways at Heathrow and Stansted airports are two of the key airport development proposals. If all the White Paper-supported airport development proposals came to fruition, current Government forecasts predict that the number of passengers passing through UK airports will increase from 241 million passengers a year in 2007 to 455 million passengers a year in 2030. This UK growth matches air traffic predictions for the whole continent. Eurocontrol, the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, predicts that European air traffic will double by 2020. If rising demand for air travel is to be met effectively through additional airport capacity, a corresponding increase in airspace capacity must be realised. However, a country's airspace, the portion of atmosphere above its territory and territorial waters, controlled by that country is a finite resource. UK airspace, particularly in the South East of England, is already some of the busiest and most complex to manage in the world. This will almost certainly require improvements in the efficiency of the UK air traffic management system.The Committee's inquiry aims to look at how to meet these challenges. Its findings are aimed at those organisations responsible for airspace-related decisions in the UK: the CAA, NATS, and the Department for Transport. Passenger numbers and freight demand globally have declined in 2008 and in the first months of 2009. In its conclusions and recommendations the Committee covered the management of airspace, strategy, change and co-ordination in airspace management, environmental impacts of airspace changes and European developments.

Download or read book Parking Policy and Enforcement written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Transport Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2006-06-22 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Failure to comply with parking restrictions disrupts traffic, increases road congestion, heightens risks of accidents and delays public transport schedules. The Committee's report considers a number of measures required to improve parking enforcement policy in Britain, including the key recommendation that we need to move to a single country-wide system of decriminalised parking enforcement (in place of the current dual system of localised enforcement where parking policy is administered by local authorities in some areas and by the police in others). Although transferring responsibility for parking enforcement to local government has succeeded in raising levels of enforcement and compliance, poor administrative practices causes driver frustration and wastes resources, and threatens to bring the decriminalised parking regime into disrepute. Other recommendations include: the establishment of clear performance standards in applying parking restrictions; improved recruitment, remuneration and training to ensure the development of a professional parking service; greater transparency in the procedure for challenging penalty charge notices and an increased awareness of the role of the parking adjudication service; and the need for local authorities to develop parking strategies which meet local objectives, focusing on congestion targets, road safety and accessibility issues.

Download or read book Wales and Whitehall written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Welsh Affairs Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2010-03-26 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The effective operation of devolution stands the best chance of success if both the UK and Welsh governments share knowledge and understanding, concludes the Welsh Affairs Committee in this report. The Committee makes a number of recommendations to improve the relationship between Wales and Whitehall. A broad review of how intergovernmental relationships are coordinated is required. The Joint Ministerial Committee should meet on a regular basis and ministers at all levels should be alert to the consequences of policy and legislation on devolved areas. The Cabinet Office should take lead responsibility for devolution strategy in Whitehall. Whitehall has lost a focus on the devolution settlement and too often has displayed poor knowledge and understanding of the specificities of the Welsh settlement. The Civil Service needs more consistent training and clear department-by-department focus on retaining devolution knowledge and understanding. The Welsh Assembly Government should have the confidence to interact with Whitehall and to promote areas of good practice. The Cabinet Secretary and the Permanent Secretary to the Welsh Assembly Government should give evidence annually to the Welsh Affairs Committee. Finally, reform of the Barnett Formula is required. The current financial settlement does not appear sustainable and a new arrangement needs to be built on an agreed and enduring basis which is demonstrably fair and sensitive to the particular circumstances of Wales.

Download or read book FiReControl written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Communities and Local Government Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2010 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Government's programme to replace 46 local fire and rescue service control rooms with nine purpose-built regional control centres has been inadequately planned, poorly executed, and badly managed. Given the investment of public funds already committed, and the benefits that will accrue, the MPs conclude that the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) should press ahead with the FireControl project so long as Ministers can agree urgently a viable project plan that will see the project go live by a target date of mid-2011 and in which the main stakeholders can have confidence. The excessive cost of abandoning the project - an extra £8 million more than it will cost to complete - indicates the Department should continue with the project so long as it also: examines alternatives and provides assurances that FiReControl represents the best viable option for the future of Fire and Rescue Services; resolves its contractual dispute with EADS and implements a viable project plan; addresses the shortcomings in its management of the project; consults fully with FRS staff and professionals to define end-user requirements; provides assurances that the safety and security of the Olympic Games will not be compromised by the roll-out of new Regional Control Centres. DCLG should urgently to draw up and consult on contingency plans for any further failures in the FiReControl programme to ensure ongoing safe and effective fire and rescue services cover across the whole country.

Download or read book Local authority investments written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Communities and Local Government Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2009-06-11 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The collapse of Icelandic financial institutions in the autumn of 2008 brought to light not only the surprisingly large amounts of money invested by local authorities, but also the fact that local authorities had invested nearly £1 billion in Iceland, funds that were consequently at risk. This prompted the Committee to launch an inquiry into local authority investments, in order to understand current practice, to study the roles and responsibilities of various groups and individuals involved, and to make recommendations intended to limit the exposure of local authority funds to such risk in future. The unusual nature of the recent financial situation should not excuse failures that occurred in local authority financial arrangements. The inquiry reveals a degree of misunderstanding, misinformation and complacency on the part of some crucial players, both within local authorities and in the wider financial sector, which contributed to the putting of taxpayers' money at unnecessary risk. There is significant room for improvement in the guidance and codes of practice for local authorities: to be more explicit in certain areas in order to make the system more transparent; to explain where the responsibilities lie, both in executing and in overseeing treasury management, including more rigorous training and reporting; and to highlight the variations of service on offer by different external service providers. It was the role of external service providers, specifically some of the treasury management advisers, which caused the Committee most concern and the Financial Services Authority should investigate the services provided by them as soon as possible and should take a more active role in their regulation.

Download or read book The Rural Payments Agency and the implementation of the Single Payment Scheme written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2007-03-29 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The EU Single Payment Scheme replaced 11 previous subsidies to farmers based on agricultural production with one payment for land management. The European Commission gave some discretion to Member States over how to implement the scheme, and the Rural Payments Agency (RPA), which is responsible for administering the scheme in England, opted for the dynamic hybrid model which incorporates elements of previous entitlement and new regionalised area payments based on a flat rate per hectare. A NAO report (HCP 1631, session 2005-06, ISBN 9780102943399), published in October 2006, found that the RPA underestimated the risks and complexities involved in implementing the hybrid model, and the IT system was never tested as a whole before the scheme was introduced. It failed to adequately pilot land registration, and underestimated the amount of work involved in both mapping the land and processing each claim, having to rely on often inexperienced temporary and agency staff to clear the backlog. The difficulties were not picked up early enough, neither by the RPA nor Defra, for corrective action to be taken in time, resulting in the RPA's failure to meet its own payment targets. Delayed payments have cost farmers money in additional interest and bank charges, and caused distress to a significant minority of farmers, particularly hill farmers. The cost of implementing the scheme was budgeted at £76 million but rose to £122 million by March 2006, with further cost increases likely. Following on from a previous Committee report on the RPA (HCP 840, session 2005-06, ISBN 9780215027115), published in January 2006 and in light of the NAO findings, this report focuses on aspects of policy decision-making and political accountability raised by the problems with the Single Payment Scheme. The Committee concludes the Scheme has been a catastrophe for some farmers and a serious and embarrassing failure for Defra and the RPA, and Defra's fundamental failure to carry out one of its core tasks (that is to pay farmers their financial entitlements on time) differentiates this issue from the myriad of botched Government IT projects. There is a need for greater expertise within government in the delivery of such complex IT projects, and the report also criticises the quality of advice given by the Office of Government Commerce and the IT system designed by Accenture as the principal IT contractor. Defra determined the policies which it required the RPA to implement and Defra leadership was at fault for accepting RPA statements that implementing the complex hybrid model to deadline was "do-able". The Committee argues that responsibility for this failure goes wider than the dismissal of the RPA chief executive, and ministers and senior Defra officials should also be held to account, particularly Margaret Beckett (the then Defra Secretary of State), Sir Brian Bender, (the former Defra Permanent Secretary) and Andy Lebrecht (the Director General for Sustainable Farming, Food and Fisheries). It concludes that a departmental failure as serious as this should result in the removal from office of those responsible for faulty policy design and implementation, and it recommends that new guidance on Ministerial accountability is needed in the event of such serious departmental failure.

Download or read book The Work of the Committee in the 2001 2005 Parliament written by Great Britain: Parliament: Joint Committee on Human Rights and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2005-05-26 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this report the Committee describes and explains the full range of its work over the course of the 2001-2005 Parliament. The Committee distils from its experience a number of suggestions for consideration by its successor committee and recommendations addressed to the Government, in order to enhance the integration of human rights considerations into the overall policy and legislative process. Chapter 2 explains the background to the Committee's establishment. Chapter 3 covers the legislative scrutiny performed by the Committee. The monitoring of the implementation of the Human Rights Act is the subject of chapter 4, while chapter 5 covers work in relation to institutional support for human rights within the UK. The inquiries into the international treaties to which the UK is a party are dealt with in chapter 6, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, and the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The final chapter describes the work undertaken on monitoring action taken by the Government in response to incompatibilities with Convention rights, arising from Strasbourg judgments and declarations of incompatibility by UK courts.

Download or read book Globalisation and Its Impact on Wales written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Welsh Affairs Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2009 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Welsh Affairs Committee report, "Globalisation and its impact on Wales" (HC 184-I, ISBN 9780215526373), examines the effects of global trade on a variety of economic sectors, including employment and skills, broadcasting, and food supply and production. The Committee found evidence of existing skills gaps in Wales, for example in specialist areas such as science, and recommends that to avoid dependence on low skilled, low paid jobs, the UK and Welsh Assembly Governments work with the higher education sector to raise the skills base. Universities are the drivers of the knowledge economy, which is key to success in the global marketplace. The Committee believes it is imperative that the UK and Welsh Assembly Governments fully integrate the commercial potential of higher education into their policies. Welsh companies can increase their value and stimulate the local economy by exploiting a strong local identity and values, and by making use of higher level and specialist skills to offer premium goods and services that cannot be sourced abroad, particularly in the farming and food production industries, where Wales is developing a global reputation for excellence. Also in the report, the Committee: welcomes the use of innovative methods of broadcasting used by S4C to engage with audiences outside Wales; recommends the commissioning of more programmes reflective of Welsh identity; supports initiatives helping Welsh companies to exploit their global potential in the creative industries.