Download or read book Helping individuals understand and complete their tax forms written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2007-04-27 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each year up to 10 million taxpayers contact the HM Revenue and Customs for help with their tax affairs and the Department spends £35 million on producing and distributing printed information and £55 million dealing with contacts. This report looks at the type of communication between the Department and the individual taxpayer whether forms and guidance are easy to obtain, easy to understand, accurate and comprehensive. The potential benefits and savings in making services more responsive to customer needs have previously been highlighted and the Department has already instituted some changes, with more being planned. This report contains recommendations to continue this process.

Download or read book HM Revenue and Customs written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Helping people to provide accurate information about their tax affairs is essential if they are to pay the right amount of tax. Accurate and timely information also helps to reduce the cost to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) of seeking information or correcting errors. HMRC spends £35 million a year on producing and distributing printed forms and other guidance, and £55 million a year answering 12.5 million enquiries on how to complete forms through 13 telephone helplines, face to face meetings at 279 enquiry centres or via its website. It handles over 20 million telephone calls a year from taxpayers. Its performance in answering telephone calls has improved with 72 per cent of calls answered within 20 seconds in 2006-07, compared with 45 per cent in 2005-06. But it is still below the general industry benchmark of 80 per cent. HMRC is encouraging people to use the most cost-effective method of contact that meets their needs. Improving its forms and guidance, as well as its website, should reduce avoidable calls. It estimates that it could save over £100 million by encouraging more people to use its website and online services. It is estimated that 3.3 million taxpayers filing Income Tax Self Assessment returns understated their tax by £2.8 billion in the 2001-02 tax year. Of this, around £330 million arose from unintentional mistakes by taxpayers. HMRC provides accurate and complete advice in 95 per cent of telephone enquiries. But taxpayers sometimes receive inaccurate or incomplete advice because more complicated enquiries are not always referred to expert staff.

Download or read book Your Federal Income Tax for Individuals written by United States. Internal Revenue Service and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Compensating victims of violent crime written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2007-12-14 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme provides compensation to victims of violent crime. In 2006-07, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (the Authority), which covers England, Scotland and Wales, received 61,000 applications and paid some £192 million to victims. Awards are determined by a tariff, with fixed compensation for each type of injury. Dissatisfied applicants can apply to the Authority for a review of their case and, if they remain dissatisfied, can appeal to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Appeals Panel (the Panel), which received 2,136 appeals in 2006-07. In 2006-07, the Authority's administrative costs were £23.6 million, and the Panel's £4.9 million. This report examines whether the Authority and Panel provide a more cost effective and better quality of service than when last investigated in 2000. The report finds the Authority's service has declined, and it has not met its targets. The average time to resolve a tariff case has increased from 364 days in 1998-99 to 515 days in 2006-07. There were 81,600 unresolved cases at the Authority and 2,400 at the Panel in October 2007. Half of the applications are rejected as ineligible, and these need to be identified much earlier in the assessment process. The Authority has recently initiated a major reform programme, and has diagnosed problems with current ways of working - too bureaucratic and repetitive - and early signs are that the changes are bringing improvements. The NAO makes a number of recommendations for further improving the service to victims and on improving the efficiency of case processing and management of the caseload.

Download or read book Shared Services in the Department for Transport and Its Agencies written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Public Accounts Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The NAO report on this topic published as HCP 481, session 2007-08 (ISBN 9780102954159)

Download or read book HM Revenue Customs written by Great Britain. National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2010 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2008-09 HM Revenue and Customs' Customer Contact Directorate, which answers 95 per cent of calls to the Department's contact centres, only answered 57 per cent of 103 million call attempts, compared with 71 per cent in the year before and an industry benchmark of over 90 per cent.

Download or read book Progress in Tackling Benefit Fraud written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Benefit fraud is a crime and undermines public confidence in the benefits system. In 2006-07, the Department for Work and Pensions estimated that it spent some £154 million on tackling fraud, identifying £106 million of overpaid benefit, against total benefit expenditure of £120 billion. The Department estimates that fraud fell from £2 billion in 2001-02 to £800 million in 2006-07, which is 0.6% of benefit expenditure. But the Department must do more to reverse the rise in official and customer error. Estimated error rose from £1 billion in 2001-02 to £1.9 billion in 2006-07. Benefit complexity is believed to be a major cause of error. Increasing the volume of pre-payment checks and encouraging customers to receive benefit payments directly into their bank accounts has prevented some fraud. The Department now works closely with the police, the Serious Organised Crime Agency and local authorities to prevent, identify and act against fraud. But it could make more effective use of its powers and resources. While the Department successfully prosecutes 90 per cent of the cases it takes to court, the Prosecution Division has lost 17 per cent of its staff since 2003. Debt recovery is an essential part of tackling fraud, yet in 2006-07 the Department only recovered £22 million of fraud debt out of a known fraud debt stock of £339 million. The Department has been slow to improve its management information systems, hampering its ability to measure the cost-effectiveness of counter-fraud activities. It has taken from 2003 until February 2008 to roll out a new national management information system, known as FRAIMS, at a cost of £65 million.

Download or read book Parliamentary Commissions of Inquiry written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report considers the case for Parliament to be able to initiate and conduct inquiries into serious and significant matters of public concern. It takes up the recommendationmade by this committiee's predecessor Committee (in the Government by Inquiry Report) that there should be a parliamentary mechanism for initiating inquiries. These would take the form of Parliamentary Commissions of Inquiry, composed of parliamentarians and others. In the Report, the committee examines the justification for creating Parliamentary Commissions of Inquiry in particular, that they would enable Parliament to hold the Executive to account more effectively. Then it covers some of the practical issues involved in setting up inquiries of this nature: how Parliament could instigate an inquiry, its composition, and its operation and powers. The committee concludes that it is crucial, in constitutional sense, that Parliament has the necessary powers and abilities to scrutinise the Executive and hold it to account. Proper parliamentary scrutiny should include the ability to establish and undertake inquiries into significant matters of public concern. Parliament has, in the past, conducted investigationsof this kind and as the great forum of the nation, should be expected to do so. The committee's recommendation for Parliamentary Commissions of Inquiry would promoteeffective parliamentary accountability by creating a process for Parliament to initiate inquirieswhere it rather than the Executive sees fit.

Download or read book Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2007-08, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (the Department) received £3,617 million from the Treasury. The Accounting Officer is expected to manage these resources efficiently and effectively to deliver a range of services and operations within the funding provided by Parliament. The Department failed to allocate final budgets to each of its business areas until five months into the 2007-08 financial year because: (a) planned expenditure was in excess of funds provided; (b) budget holders did not declare all financial commitments from the outset; and (c) the costs of unforeseen floods and the outbreaks of animal disease had to be managed. A similar situation had arisen in 2006-07 when the Department had to make mid-year budget reductions of £170 million to avoid the risk of overspending. The late notification of the reductions had an adverse impact on performance. In part the problems arise from the difficulties faced in sponsoring 31 delivery bodies, each with its own administrative functions and with different approaches to setting budgets and monitoring progress. Obtaining timely and realistic financial reports from delivery bodies was also difficult. A lack of awareness amongst the Department's Board Members of good financial management practice, together with cultural issues which did not prioritise financial management at a corporate level, added to the challenges. The Department's Management Board has since put in place more rigorous financial and outcome monitoring systems. Having agreed budgets for 2008-09 that accord with the Department's allocation from the Comprehensive Spending Review 2007, the problems of 2006-07 and 2007-08 are not expected to recur in 2008-09.

Download or read book Reducing the Risk of Violent Crime written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the 45th report from the Committee of Public Accounts (HCP 546, session 2007-08). It follows an NAO report on the same topic published as HCP 241, session 2007-08 (ISBN 9780102952964). In general, violent crime has fallen in recent years, but mores serious violent offences, such as homicide and wounding, have not fallen as swiftly. The number of recorded crimes involving a firearm doubled between 1998-99 and 2005-06, as did the number of 15-17 year olds convicted of carrying a knife in public. The Committee has set out a number of conclusions and recommendations, including: that only since 2007 has it been mandatory for the police to record the presence of a knife at the scene of a crime; that the majority of victims of violent crime treated in A & E units did not report their injuries to the police; that the Committee believes that the Home Office and the Department of Health should jointly establish a national system for the automatic sharing of depersonalised violent crime data between hospitals, police and the Crime & Disorder Reduction Partnerships; that the Department has made little progress since 2005 in managing to distribute funding for tackling violent crime to the Crime & Disorder Reduction Partnerships; that the Home Office has a limited understanding of the nature of gang membership and activity and how such activity has changed over time; that only one third of the Crime & Disorder Reduction Partnerships had developed written strategies to tackle violent crime and that they also lacked the analytical capacity needed to assess the data they collect on violent crime in their locality.

Download or read book Reducing Passenger Rail Delays by Better Management of Incidents written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the 53rd report from the Committee of Public Accounts (HCP 655, session 2007-08, ISBN 9780215524973), and examines how the rail industry, led by the Department for Transport and Network Rail, manages incidents on the rail network, and how passengers are treated when delays occur. The Committee has set out a number of conclusions and recommendations, including: that Network Rail receives only half of its funding from the taxpayer but as a private sector company it is not directly accountable to Parliament, the Committee states the Department should strengthen the governance and accountability arrangements; that the Office of Rail Regulation should review and revise targets where appropriate to take account of changing conditions and challenges; the Committee states that the Department needs to play a more active role in bringing together the rail industry, emergency services and other stakeholders to improve incident management; and further that the Office of Rail Regulation should make sure mechanisms are in place so that the emergency services know who to contact during rail incidents; that passengers are not receiving the information they need during delays and are not always told how to claim compensation for delays. During the 2006-07 period over 1.2 billion passenger journeys were made in Great Britain on services that arrived on time almost nine times out of ten. The Department provided £3.4 billion to Network Rail and £1.7 billion to the train operating companies, whilst passengers paid some £5.1 billion in fares, with the NAO estimating that delays cost passengers £1 billion in terms of lost time. This report follows on from a National Audit Office report (HCP 308, session 2007-08, ISBN 9780102953053).

Download or read book Hmrc written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tax lost through the hidden economy could be over £2 billion and involve some 2 million people. HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) spent 41 million in 2006-07 on encouraging people and businesses into the formal economy, detecting and imposing sanctions on those operating in the hidden economy, achieving a return/cost ration of 4.5:1. HMRC detects some 30,000 hidden economy cases a year, a detection rate of only around 1.5 per cent, but the amount of tax recovered has increased by 13 per cent in real terms since 2003-04. Areas of risk include: self-employed builders and decorators who often receive cash payments; individuals who trade on the internet; and buy-to-let landlords. To increase detections HMRC is making more use of data matching techniques, and the Tax Evasion hotline received over 120,000 calls in 2006-07, but progress in investigating cases has been slow with only 2000 completed against a target of 5,500. HMRC can impose penalties of up to 100 per cent of tax owed, but usually imposes a lower penalty or waives them. Prosecutions are not given much publicity, limiting their wider deterrent effect. Advertising campaigns to encourage people to declare tax owed have led to 8,300 registrations bringing in extra tax of £38 million over three years. Offshore Disclosure arrangements have been even more successful following landmark rulings requiring financial institutions to release details of around 400,000 offshore accounts. Some 45,000 people came forward bringing in around £400 million at a cost of £6 million, a return of £67 for every £1 spent.

Download or read book Preparations for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Within Central Government, preparations for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games are being led by the Government Olympic Executive, which is part of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). The Excutive is responsible for co-ordinating the activities of a wide range of organisations, including the Olympic Delivery Authority, whichis responsible for the construction of venues and associated infrastructure. Whilst individual organisations have their own programme management arrangements, the Governmetn Olympic Executive has not hyet developed a plan for the programme as a whole, or finalised arrangements for identifying and managing risks across the programme. On the basis of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (HC 490, session 2007-08, ISBN 97801102954197) the Committee took evidence from DCMS and the Olympic Delivery Authority onthe progress made in preparing for the London 2012 Olympc and Paralympic Games

Download or read book The Supervision of Community Orders in England and Wales written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008-11-04 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since their introduction under the Criminal Justice Act 2003, community orders have offered courts the ability to impose a range of 12 possible 'requirements', including accredited programmes (such as anger management courses or alcohol and drug rehabilitation), unpaid work in the community and supervision by the National Probation Service. There is little information available nationally on the effectiveness of community orders. On the key measure of reconviction, figures from the Ministry of Justice showed that for those sentenced to community orders, their actual reconviction rate was significantly lower than those sentenced to custodial sentences for similar offences. There is, though, no basic information such as national data on whether offenders have completed their community orders, nor on why offenders have failed to complete them. The National Probation Service has set national standards but these are applied inconsistently. The Ministry's current method of funding Probation Areas is unsatisfactory and slow to respond to changes in demand from the courts and it is felt that there is a need for a more flexible system. On the basis of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Committee examined the Ministry of Justice on increasing effectiveness of community orders; building the confidence of both the court and the community in community orders; improving the funding formula; and tightening adherence to the requirements of orders.

Download or read book Protecting Consumers written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the 52nd report from the Committee of Public Accounts (HC 571, session 2007-08, ISBN 9780215524928), and it follows an NAO report (HC 342, session 2007-08, ISBN 9780102953114). It looks at protection of consumers through removal of price controls by regulators, examines the benefits of this decision to different groups of consumers and the challenges of regulating these markets. The regulators Ofcom, Ofgem and Postcomm have statutory objectives requiring them to protect consumers through the introduction of competition, where appropriate. Between 2002 and 2006, each removed retail price controls from the following: fixed line telephone provision; gas and electricity supply; special delivery postal services for business account users. Once price controls are removed, regulators rely on consumers to switch suppliers, so in theory rewarding companies who offer good service and competitive prices. For this to work, consumers need good information about the different suppliers, must be able to switch supplier easily, have confidence in the market to believe changing supplier will make a difference and, when necessary, obtain redress if the company behaves anti-competitively. Regulators need to ensure the competition is working effectively and that there is protection for vulnerable consumers, especially at a time of large increases in energy prices and telecoms prices above those of most countries.

Download or read book Nhs Pay Modernisation written by House of Commons and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008-10-31 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Department for International Development written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Budget support is aid provided directly to a partner government's central exchequer, and aims to reduce poverty through helping to fund the poverty reduction strategy of the beneficiary country. DFID's use of budget support has risen to £461 million, representing nearly twenty per cent of bilateral expenditure. Budget support has been designed to improve aid effectiveness by reinforcing developing country policies and systems, and reducing transaction costs. Despite having provided budget support in some countries for many years, however, the Department has not established whether it is in practice cost-effective. DFID's main criterion for providing budget support is that benefits must outweigh the risks, a judgement which is assessed subjectively by country teams. DFID assesses weaknesses in financial systems but rarely estimates the associated risks of corruption or waste of UK funds. DFID's monitoring has basic weaknesses in specifying suitable indicators and tracking progress against objectives. Bodies such as Parliaments, State Audit Offices and civil society organisations can provide effective challenge to governments and ensure that the poor benefit from budget support funding. DFID has not historically paid sufficient attention to strengthening domestic accountability. DFID also has a responsibility to UK stakeholders to demonstrate that funds have been spent effectively.