Download or read book HC 104 Army 2020 written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Army 2020 is an ambitious programme of change and restructuring which responds to the Government's need to reduce public spending, including on defence. It seeks, for the first time, to integrate fully a regular Army of 82,500 with a larger and more frequently used Army Reserve of 30,000. The Department did not test feasibility, or adequately consult the Army, before deciding to reduce the regular Army and increase the Army Reserve. We recognise that the decision to reduce the size of the Army was driven by the need to make financial savings in a time of austerity. However, it is remarkable that the Chief of the General Staff was not involved in all stages of the decision-making process given the magnitude and importance of the change required, and its impact on the service which he commands. We were also surprised to learn that the Department did not test the feasibility of recruiting and training the number of reserve soldiers it needs by 2019. The Department is confident that it can still recruit and train the required number of reserves by 2019, but we remain to be convinced given that its confidence is based on unevidenced assumptions. For future significant reviews of the armed forces, the Department should involve relevant stakeholders fully in the decision-making process, and ensure adequate testing of the feasibility for proposed actions.
Download or read book Making British Defence Policy written by Robert Self and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-06-16 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the process by which defence policy is made in contemporary Britain and the institutions, actors and conflicting interests which interact in its inception and continuous reformulation. Rather than dealing with the substance of defence policy, this study focuses upon the institutional actors involved in this process. This is a subject which has commanded far more interest from public, Parliament, government and the armed forces since the protracted, bloody and ultimately unsuccessful British military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. The work begins with a discussion of two contextual factors shaping policy. The first relates to the impact of Britain’s ‘special relationship’ with the United States over defence and intelligence matters, while the second considers the impact of Britain’s relatively disappointing economic performance upon the funding of British defence since 1945. It then goes on to explore the role and impact of all the key policy actors, from the Prime Minister, Cabinet and core executive, to the Ministry of Defence and its relations with the broader ‘Whitehall village’, and the Foreign Office and Treasury in particular. The work concludes by examining the increasing influence of external policy actors and forces, such as Parliament, the courts, political parties, pressure groups and public opinion. This book will be of much interest to students of British defence policy, security studies, and contemporary military history.
Download or read book HC 1141 The Work of the Committee of Public Accounts 2010 15 written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015-03-28 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report summarises the key areas of the Committee's work over the past five years. It draws out the areas where progress has been made and where their successors might wish to press in future. The Committee has assiduously followed the taxpayer's pound wherever it was spent. Since 2010 they held 276 evidence sessions and published 244 unanimous reports to hold government to account for its performance. 88% of their recommendations were accepted by departments. In many cases they successfully secured substantial changes, for example with the once secret tax avoidance industry. They secured consensus from government and from industry that private providers of public services do have a duty of care to the taxpayer, and in pushing the protection of whistleblowers further up the agenda of all government departments. By drawing attention to mistakes in the Department for Transport's procurement of the West Coast Mainline, more recent procurements for Crossrail, Thameslink and Intercity Express have all benefited from more expert advice and a more appropriate level of challenge from senior staff. After discovery in 2012-13 that 63% of calls to government call centres were to higher rate telephone numbers, the Government accepted our recommendation that telephone lines serving vulnerable and low income groups never be charged above the geographic rate and that 03 numbers should be available for all government telephone lines. They also secured a commitment to close large mental health hospitals.
Download or read book HC 809 Children in Care written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015-03-11 with total page 25 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Department for Education should set out how it will lead and work with others to improve the outcomes for children by improving the quality of care according to the Committee's report. The Department for Education holds policy responsibility for children in care, and has national oversight of the local authorities who provide the services for these children. Although the Department is clearly best placed to provide the leadership required in many cases, it shows an alarming reluctance to play an active role in securing better services and outcomes for children in care. It chooses to limit its role to passing legislation, publishing guidance and intervening after Ofsted has failed a local authority service. It does far too little to disseminate actively what works and to support authorities to improve before they are failed by Ofsted. It sits on a wealth of information and knowledge which it fails to use in an active way to support better outcomes for this most vulnerable group of children. While 62% of children in care have suffered abuse and neglect, too many still do not get the right placement first time, too many are moved too often, and too few are placed close to their homes.
Download or read book HC 860 Tax Avoidance The Role Of Large Accountancy Firms Follow Up written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The tax arrangements PwC promoted in Luxembourg bear all the characteristics of a mass-marketed tax avoidance scheme according to the Public Accounts Committee. Large accountancy firms advise multinational companies on complex strategies and contrived structures which do not reflect the substance of their businesses and are instead designed to avoid tax. In light of the publication of leaked documents detailing some of the tax advice it has given to its multinational clients, the Committee took evidence from PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC). PwC did not convince the Committee that its widespread promotion of schemes to numerous clients, based on artificially diverting profits to Luxembourg through intra-company loans, constituted anything other than the promotion of tax avoidance on an industrial scale. The fact that PwC's promotion of these schemes is permitted by its own code of conduct is clear evidence that Government needs to take a more active role in regulating the tax industry, as it evidently cannot be trusted to regulate itself. HMRC should set out how it plans to take a more active role in challenging the advice being given by accountancy firms to their multinational clients. In contributing to the OECD's discussions aimed at reforming international tax law, HMRC should push for a more rigorous and meaningful definition of what "substance" means in respect of business, particularly if multinational companies conduct any business in the countries where they shift profits to in order to avoid tax. The Committee believes strongly that the Government must act by introducing a code of conduct for all tax advisers.
Download or read book HC 737 Strategic Flood Risk Management written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015-03-25 with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Given financial constraints, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Environment Agency have done a good job in improving the cost effectiveness of their approach to flood risk management. They have adopted rational methods to prioritise spending on both new capital flood defences and maintaining existing ones. However, risks remain to the sustainability of current levels of flood protection. The Agency will need to make difficult decisions about how it prioritises its maintenance budget, including some defences where it will need to reduce or stop maintenance. In these cases, there is a risk that lack of maintenance will mean that capital costs are incurred sooner, when defences require replacement earlier. Since our evidence session, the Agency has published a long term investment strategy, which presents a number of flooding scenarios and outlines how much funding would be needed to protect against these.
Download or read book HC 736 Financial Sustainability Of NHS Bodies written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 23 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The financial health of NHS bodies has worsened in the last two financial years. The overall net surplus achieved by NHS bodies in 2012-13 of £2.1 billion fell to £722 million in 2013-14. The percentage of NHS trusts and foundation trusts in deficit increased from 10% in 2012-13 to 26% in 2013-14. Monitor found that 80% of foundation trusts that provide acute hospital services were reporting a deficit by the second quarter of 2014-15. NHS England, Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Authority recognise that radical change is needed to the way services are provided and that extra resources are required if the NHS is to become financially sustainable. The necessary changes will require further upfront investment. Present incentives to reduce A&E attendance and increase community based care services have not had the impact expected. New incentives and strong relationships are needed to promote the more effective collaboration necessary for delivering new models of care.
Download or read book HC 808 Implementing Reforms to Civil Legal Aid written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ministry of Justice is on track to make a significant and rapid reduction to the amount that it spends on civil legal aid. However, it introduced major changes on the basis of no evidence in many areas, and without making good use of the evidence that it did have in other areas. It has been slow to fill the considerable gaps in its understanding, and has not properly assessed the full impact of the reforms. Almost two years after the reforms, the Ministry is still playing catch up: it does not know if those still eligible are able to access legal aid; and it does not understand the link between the price it pays for legal aid and the quality of advice being given. Moreover, the Ministry's approach to implementing the reforms has inhibited access to mediation for family law cases which can be a cost-effective alternative to court for resolving disputes. Amazingly, it failed to foresee that removing legal aid funding for solicitors would reduce the number of referrals to family mediation. Perhaps most worryingly of all, it does not understand, and has shown little interest in, the knock-on costs of its reforms across the public sector. It therefore does not know whether the projected £300 million spending reduction in its own budget is outweighed by additional costs elsewhere. The Department therefore does not know whether the savings in the civil legal aid budget represent value for money
Download or read book HC 811 Financial Support for Students at Alternative Higher Education Providers written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Approximately 140 institutions offering higher education are termed 'alternative providers'. These alternative providers comprise a diverse range of organisations ranging from private companies to charitable institutions. They do not receive government grants directly but do access public funding through student loans which are used to pay their fees. Following the announcement of higher education reforms in 2011, and the associated increase in tuition fee loans, there has been substantial and rapid growth in the sector. Between 2010/11 and 2013/14, the number of students claiming support for courses at alternative providers rose from 7,000 to 53,000. Over the same period, the total amount of public money paid to students at alternative providers, through tuition fee loans and maintenance loans and grants, has risen from around £50 million to around £675 million. The Department has overall responsibility for oversight of publicly-funded higher education, including alternative providers with publicly-funded students. The Department did not learn from previous Government experience, furthermore, it has been slow to react to warning signs. The rapid expansion in numbers was concentrated in five colleges that accounted for 50% of the expansion. 20% of students receiving funding were not registered for a qualification and drop-out rates were very high in some institutions. There was also evidence from whistleblowers that proficiency in English language was not tested, that some institutions were recruiting students on the streets, and that students claiming funding were not attending colleges.
Download or read book HC 833 Financial Sustainability of Local Authorities 2014 written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Department for Communities and Local Government does not have a good enough understanding of the impact of funding cuts, either on local authorities' finances or on services. It is unclear whether the Department is exercising a cross government leadership role with respect to local government. It relies on data on spending and has little information on service levels, service quality, and financial sustainability. HM Treasury should better support the Department by ensuring compliance with its requests for information at future spending reviews. While the Department has identified that local authorities will need to change the way they deliver services to remain financially sustainable, it is unclear if it is providing sufficient leadership to ensure they can implement service transformation programmes successfully. Furthermore, if funding reductions were to continue following the next spending review, we question whether the Department would be in a position to provide assurance that all local authorities could maintain the full range of their statutory services. Overall, as pressure from cuts grows, so do the risks to local authorities' finances and their provision of services. The depth and quality of the Department's insight into these issues needs to keep pace with these changes, something it has struggled to achieve so far.
Download or read book HC 893 Public Health England s Grant to Local Authorities written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015-03-06 with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since it was created in 2013, Public Health England (PHE) has made a good start in its efforts to protect and improve public health. Good public health is vital to tackling health inequalities and reducing burdens on the NHS. The Committee were impressed by the passion shown by PHE's Chief Executive, and his determination to challenge Government to consider public health in wider policymaking. However, we are concerned that the Department of Health is not getting local authorities to their target funding allocations for public health quickly enough, with nearly one third of 152 local authorities currently receiving funding that is more than 20% above or below what would be their fair share. The Agency decided not to change the grant distribution for 2015/16. Local authorities are also presently constrained by being tied into contracts to which the Department had previously committed, such as for sexual health interventions. It is not clear whether the public health grant to local authorities will remain ring-fenced, and they need more certainty to better plan their public health programmes. If the ring-fence is removed, there is a risk that spending on public health will decline as councils come under increasing financial pressures. There are still unacceptable health inequalities across the country, for example healthy life expectancy for men ranges from 52.5 years to 70 years depending on where they live. These inequalities make PHE's support at a local level particularly important but the Committee are concerned that PHE does not have strong enough ways of influencing local authorities to ensure progress against all of its top public health priorities. Finally, given how important it is to tackle the many wider causes of poor public health, PHE needs to influence departments more effectively and translate its own passion into action across Whitehall.
Download or read book HC 675 Oversight of the Provate Infrastructure Development Group written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Department for International Development is the main funder of the Private Infrastructure Development Group, a multilateral agency which invests in infrastructure projects in developing countries. The Department has not used its position as by far the dominant funder of PIDG to influence the direction of its operations and improve its performance. The Department's oversight of PIDG has not been sufficiently 'hands on'. The Committee is concerned that the Department has insufficient assurance over the integrity of PIDG's investments and the companies with which it works and the Department has not done enough to put a stop to PIDG's wasteful travel policies and poor financial management.
Download or read book HC 973 Care Services for People with Learning Disabilities and Challenging Behaviour written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015-03-27 with total page 25 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Winterbourne View scandal in 2011 exposed the horrific abuse of people with learning difficulties and challenging behaviour in a private mental health hospital. Concerns were also raised about a number of other institutions. As a result, the Government committed to discharging those individuals for whom it was appropriate back into their homes and communities. However, since then, too many children and adults have continued to go into mental health hospitals, and to stay there unnecessarily, because of the lack of community alternatives. The number of people with learning disabilities remaining in hospital has not fallen, and has remained broadly the same at around 3,200. It was refreshing that NHS England took responsibility for this lack of progress and has now committed to develop a closure programme for large NHS mental health hospitals, along with a transition plan for the people with learning disabilities within these hospitals, from 2016-17. Discharges from hospital are being delayed because funding does not follow the individual when they are discharged into the community. This acts as a financial disincentive for local commissioners who have to bear the costs and responsibility for planning and commissioning community services. Delaying discharge has the effect of institutionalising people, making their reintegration into the community more difficult. Some local authorities' reluctance to accept and fund individuals in the community will be exacerbated by current financial constraints. The Department should set out its proposals for 'dowry-type' payments from NHS England to meet the costs of supporting people discharged from hospital.
Download or read book HC 705 Managing and Replacing the Aspire Project written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most of HM Revenue and Customs' (HMRC's) major tax collection systems are provided under one contract, the Aspire contract. While this has provided stability over the last ten years HMRC has not managed the costs of the contract well. It has cost some £7.9 billion over this period and generated profits for the suppliers of some £1.2 billion. When the current contract ends in 2017 HMRC intends, in accordance with government IT procurement policy, to move from the current single contract to a new model with many short-duration contracts with multiple suppliers. However, HMRC has made little progress in defining its needs and has still not presented a business case to government. Once funding is agreed, it will have only two years to recruit the skills and procure the services it will need. Moreover, HMRC's record in managing the Aspire contract and other IT contractors gives the Committee little confidence that HMRC can successfully achieve this transition or that it can manage the proposed model effectively to maximise value for money. HMRC also demonstrates little appreciation of the scale of the challenge it faces or the substantial risks to tax collection if the transition fails. Failure to collect taxes efficiently would create havoc with the public finances.
Download or read book HC 708 Managing and Removing Foreign National Offenders written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is eight years since the Committee last looked at this issue and they are dismayed to find so little progress has been made in removing foreign national offenders from the UK. This is despite firm commitments to improve and a ten-fold increase in resources devoted to this work. The public bodies involved are missing too many opportunities to remove foreign national offenders early and are wasting resources, through a combination of a lack of focus on early action at the border and police stations, poor joint working in prisons, and inefficient caseworking in the Home Office. This, combined with very poor management information and non-existent cost data, results in a system that appears to be dysfunctional. Our concerns about the system were not allayed by the evidence we received. The Home Office will need to act with urgency on the recommendations we make in this report if it is to secure public confidence in its ability to tackle effectively these and the wider immigration system issues on which the Committee has previously reported.
Download or read book HC 833 16 to 18 Year Old Participation in Education and training written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Committee are pleased that more 16- to 18-year-olds continue in education, although note the UK still lies behind other OECD countries. Whether this is because of changes in legislation or more effective interventions is debatable. The Committee note, however, that at the end of 2013, 148, 000 out of the cohort of 2 million 16- to 18-year-olds in England were NEET (not in education, employment or training). Some within this NEET group have been reached by the Youth Contract, but the Committee notes this is expected to only support half the number it was originally predicted to assist, will end soon and the Department has no plans to replace it. Careers remains patchy across the country and local authorities do not know what large numbers of the young people in their areas are doing. This means these young people are difficult to target. In 2010 the Department transferred responsibility for providing careers advice to schools but did not give them additional resources to fund it.
Download or read book HC 709 Lessons from Major Rail Infrastructure Programmes written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Department for Transport is responsible for a number of ambitious, expensive transport infrastructure programmes including the planned High Speed 2 programme. The Committee though is not convinced that these programmes are part of a clear strategic approach to investment in the rail network. In particular, recent proposals for a railway connecting cities in the north of England - a possible High Speed 3 - suggest that the Department takes a piecemeal approach to its rail investment, rather than considering what would benefit the system as a whole and prioritising its investment accordingly. The Department told us it will deliver the full High Speed 2 programme within its overall funding envelope of £50 billion. However, this funding includes a generous contingency and the Committee is concerned that, without appropriate controls, it could be used to mask cost increases. When it comes to the wider regeneration benefits, insufficient planning meant that regeneration benefits in Ebbsfleet did not flow from High Speed 1 as expected. Although the Department told the Committee that it has learned and is applying these lessons on High Speed 2, it needs to set out clearly who is responsible for ensuring that benefits are realised, and how that work will be coordinated.
