Download or read book The Rural Broadband Programme HC 834 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-04 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Government has failed to deliver meaningful competition in the procurement of its £1.2 billion rural broadband programme, leaving BT effectively in a monopoly position. Despite warnings the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has allowed poor cost transparency and the lack of detailed broadband rollout plans to create conditions whereby alternative suppliers may be crowded out. Whilst BT claims it is making further concessions, this is not impacting on rural communities. Local authorities are still contractually prevented from sharing information to see if they are securing best terms for the public money they spend. Communities can still not access the detailed data they need to understand whether they will be covered by BT's scheme in their area. The lack of transparency on costs and BT's insistence on non-disclosure agreements is symptomatic of BT's exploiting its monopoly position. The Department needs to work urgently with all local authorities to publish detailed mapping of their implementation plans, down to full (7-digit) postcode level. The information should include speed of service, as soon as that is available. The Department should collect, analyse and publish data on deployment costs in the current programme, to inform its consideration of bids from suppliers under the next round of fundingMargaret Hodge was speaking as the Committee published its 50th Report of this Session which, on the basis of evidence from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and BT, examined the roll out of the rural broadband programme

Download or read book House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts Universal Credit Early Progress HC 619 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-11-07 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Universal Credit is the DWP's single biggest programme and enjoys cross-party support, yet its implementation has been extraordinarily poor. The failure to develop a comprehensive plan has led to extensive delay and the waste of a yet to be determined amount of public money. £425 million has been spent so far on the programme. It is likely that much of this, including at least £140 million worth of IT assets, will now have to be written off. Lack of day-to-day control meant early warning signs were missed, with senior managers becoming aware of problems only through ad hoc reviews. Pressure to deliver a programme of this magnitude within such an ambitious timescale created a fortress culture where only good news was reported and problems were denied. There has been a shocking absence of control over suppliers, with the Department failing to implement the most basic procedures for monitoring and authorising expenditure. The pilot programme is not a proper pilot. Its scope is limited and does not deal with the key issues that Universal Credit must address: the volume of claims; their complexity; change in claimants' circumstances; and the need for claimants to meet conditions for continuing entitlement to benefit. The programme will not hit its current target of enrolling 184,000 claimants by April 2014. The Department will have to speed up the later stages of the programme if it is to meet the 2017 completion date but that will pose new risks. Meeting any specific timetable from now on is less important than delivering the programme successfully

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 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 House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts The New Homes Bonus HC 114 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-10-31 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New Homes Bonus was introduced as a financial incentive for local authorities to encourage the building of new homes. The scheme is funded from existing local authority grants. £7.5 billion will have been redistributed between councils by 2018-19, so there is a lot of money at stake. It is clearly vital that the incentives work and the Government achieves its aim. It is therefore disappointing that after more than two years of the scheme being up and running, no evaluation is in place and no credible data is available to show whether the scheme is working or not. So far the areas which have gained most money tend to be the areas where housing need is lowest. The areas that have lost most tend to be those where needs are greatest. The Department has yet to demonstrate whether the New Homes Bonus works. Is it helping to create more new homes than would have been built anyway? Is it the best way for Government to use its limited resources to create more homes where they are needed most? Its planned evaluation of the Bonus scheme is now urgent

Download or read book House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts The Fight Against Malaria HC 618 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-11-15 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Department for International Development is committed to tackling malaria, which affected 219 million people in 2010 and led to 660,000 deaths. However, there is concern that spending by DFID on measures to combat the disease, rising each year to £500 million a year by 2015, may not provide good value as the Department does not have good enough infrastructure everywhere to manage the expenditure effectively. About half of the total number of malaria cases worldwide occur in just two countries - Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo - but the Department has been spreading its resources across 17 countries. It now agrees it should do more work in these two countries but has yet to complete an analysis which would ensure well-informed decisions on where to focus resources. Cuts in funding carry their own risks. On the other hand, long-term commitments can create an equally long-term dependence on UK funding. DfID need to plan and support long term sustainable programmes to combat malaria for which developing countries can take responsibility themselves. DfID must ensure their actions do not have unintended consequences. The Department, for example, the mass distribution of free or subsidised bed nets can damage local businesses selling locally produced nets. It is also essential that the Department make the most of quick, cheap and easy diagnostic tests to increase the number of people who can be quickly diagnosed and effectively treated. This could lead to a halving of the current expenditure on drugs.

Download or read book House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts The Duchy of Cornwall HC 475 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Duchy of Cornwall (the Duchy) delivered a good financial performance in 2012-13, increasing its total income and also its net revenue after taking account of costs. However, the Treasury is not doing enough to scrutinise the Duchy's financial strategy or transactions-it does not independently verify information offered by the Duchy, and details of its approvals for the Duchy's land transactions over £500,000 are not published. The Duchy has a Crown Exemption from tax, but there is no clear understanding of any consequences for its competitors, which are subject to corporation and capital gains tax. The transparency of The Prince of Wales's tax payments is limited by reporting only a combined amount for income tax and VAT. The Duchy's charter rules that each future Duke of Cornwall will be the eldest son and heir of the Monarch, which is out of line with the Succession to the Crown Act 2013.

Download or read book House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts Whole of Government Accounts 2011 12 HC 667 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-12-12 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Whole of Government Accounts for 2011-12 presents the combined financial activities of some 3,000 organisations. It provides vital data on which Government needs to act. Key issues have been identified, such as the £19.4 billion liability for clinical negligence claims. But it is frustrating to see other issues seemingly ignored in long-term policy making and spending decisions. In one year, the public sector was defrauded of over £20 billion and the tax gap rose to £35 billion. The financial liabilities for dealing with nuclear waste also keep growing. There is room for improvement in the document itself and how it is used. Users find it hard to understand, for example, why the Government debt and deficit highlighted in the WGA differ from those reported in the ONS's National Accounts. Also, by changing definitions in its commentary published alongside the WGA, the Treasury makes it difficult to track changes over time. The Treasury's introduction in the commentary of a new concept of so-called 'direct' expenditure leaves out key costs such as the interest paid on the National Debt. The publicly owned and controlled bodies - such as Network Rail and the taxpayer owned banks - are still being excluded, in defiance of normal accounting rules. The usefulness of the WGA is also being limited by the length of time it takes to produce the document and by poor quality data from some of the bodies. The accounts have again been qualified over the completeness, timeliness and accuracy of the information supplied for schools and academies

Download or read book House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts Emergency Admissions to Hospital HC 885 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nearly one fifth of consultant posts in emergency departments were either vacant or filled by locums in 2012. Neither the Department nor NHS England have a clear strategy to tackle the shortage of A&E consultants and there is too much reliance on temporary staff to fill gaps. The Committee raised the possibility of paying consultants more to work at struggling hospitals. Greater use in A&E of consultants from other departments could also be made, or mandate that all trainee consultants spend time in A&E, or make A&E positions more attractive through improved terms and conditions. The slow introduction of round-the-clock consultant cover in hospitals - which will not be in place before the end of 2016-17 - is also having a negative impact. More people die as a result of being admitted at the weekend when fewer consultants are in A&E. Changing this relies on the British Medical Association and NHS Employers negotiating a more flexible consultants' contract, and neither the Department nor NHS England has direct control over the timescale or details of these negotiations. Hospitals, GPs and community health services all have a role to play in reducing emergency admissions - but financial incentives to make this happen are not in place. While hospitals get no money if patients are readmitted within 30 days, there are no financial incentives for community and social care services to reduce emergency admissions. Both the Department of Health and NHS England struggled to explain to us who is ultimately accountable for the efficient delivery of local A&E services

Download or read book House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts Access to Clinical Trial Information and the Stockpiling of Tamiflu HC 295 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-01-03 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The report Access To Clinical Trial Information And The Stockpiling Of Tamiflu (HC 295) examines two separate but connected issues; the routine withholding of clinical trial information from doctors and researchers, and the effectiveness of stockpiling of Tamiflu during an influenza pandemic. The full results of clinical trials are being routinely and legally withheld from doctors and researchers by the manufacturers of medicines. The ability of doctors, researchers and patients to make informed decisions about treatments is being undermined. Regulators and the industry have recently made proposals to open up access, but these do not cover the issue of access to the results of trials in the past which bear on the efficacy and safety of medicines in use today. Research suggests that the probability of completed trials being published is roughly 50%. Trials which give a favorable verdict are about twice as likely to be published as trials giving unfavorable

Download or read book House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts BBC Severance Packages HC 476 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-12-16 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the three years to December 2012, the BBC gave 150 senior managers severance payments totalling £25 million. The BBC paid more salary in lieu of notice than it was obliged to in 22 of the 150 severance payments for senior managers in the three years to December 2012, at a cost of £1.4 million. It is unacceptable for the BBC, or any other public body, to give departing senior managers huge severance payments that far exceed their contractual entitlements. Some of the justifications put forward by the BBC were extraordinary. The Committee welcomes the changes that the BBC's Director General, Lord Hall, has made to cap severance pay. Recommendations include: the BBC should remind its staff that they are all individually responsible for protecting public money and challenging wasteful practices; to protect licence fee payers' interests and its own reputation, the BBC should establish internal procedures that provide clear central oversight and effective scrutiny of severance payments; the BBC Executive and the BBC Trust need to overhaul the way they conduct their business, and record and communicate decisions properly; the BBC Trust should be more willing to challenge practices and decisions where there is a risk that the interests of licence fee payers could be compromised; the BBC Trust and the BBC Executive need to ensure that decision-making is transparent and accountability taken seriously, based on a shared understanding of value for money, with tangible evidence of individuals taking public responsibility for their decisions.

Download or read book House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts Charges for Customer Telephone Lines HC 617 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-11-11 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Telephone services are a vital part of government support, accounting for 43% of all customer contacts. But departments are continuing to make extensive use of higher rate phone numbers for customer telephone lines despite the fact that many people are put off calling as a result. The most vulnerable callers, on the lowest incomes, face some of the highest charges. Costs to callers are even higher because the caller has to endure long waiting times and poor customer service. In the face of this evidence we welcome the Cabinet Office's acknowledgement that it was "inappropriate" for vulnerable citizens to pay a substantial charge to access public services and its commitment to establish best practice in this field and ensure it is followed across government

Download or read book Programmes to Help Families Facing Multiple Challenges HC 668 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-04-04 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this report the Public Accounts Committee examines DCLG and DWP's programmes to help families facing multiple challenges. In 2006, the Government estimated that there were 120,000 families in England facing multiple challenges, such as unemployment and poor housing, crime and antisocial behaviour. The estimated cost to the taxpayer of providing services to support these families is £9 billion a year, of which £8 billion is spent reacting to issues and £1 billion in trying to tackle them. In 2012, DCLG and DWP each introduced separate programmes to help these families. DCLG's Troubled Families programme, with a central government budget of £448 million, aims to 'turn around' all 120,000 families by May 2015. DWP's Families with Multiple Problems programme, with a budget of £200 million, seeks to move 22% of those joining the programme into employment by March 2015. There was no clear rationale for the simultaneous introduction of two separate programmes, which focused on addressing similar issues. The integration of the programmes at the design phase was poor, leading to confusion, and contributing to the low number of referrals to the DWP's programme. But the good practice evident in DCLG's Troubled Families programme, demonstrates how central and local government agencies can work together effectively. Data sharing is critical to identifying the families most in need of the support available. Both departments should publish, alongside details of the programmes' progress against their respective targets, details of the wider benefits and financial savings that they have identified.

Download or read book BBC Digital Media Initiative HC 985 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-04-10 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Public Accounts Committee concludes that the BBC's Digital Media Initiative (DMI) was a complete failure. The DMI was a transformation programme that involved developing new technology for BBC staff to create, share and manage video and audio content and programmes from their desktops. Siemens were contracted to build the DMI system, but the contract was terminated and brought in-house in 2009. But the BBC failed to complete the DMI Programme and in May 2013 cancelled it at a cost to licence fee payers of £98.4 million. The BBC was far too complacent about the DMI's troubled history and the very high risks involved in taking it in-house. The DMI was 18 months behind schedule when the BBC took it in-house from Siemens. The BBC did not obtain independent technical assurance for the system design or ensure that the intended users were sufficiently engaged with the Programme. Poor governance meant that these important weaknesses went unchallenged, even when things started to go badly wrong. Projects like the DMI need to be led by an experienced senior responsible owner who has the skills, authority and determination to see the project through to successful implementation. The BBC needs to report using clear milestones that give the Executive and the Trust an unambiguous and accurate account of progress and any problems. The BBC Executive should apply more rigorous and timely scrutiny to its major projects to limit potential losses and the BBC Trust must be more proactive in chasing and challenging the BBC Executive's performance.

Download or read book COMPASS Provision of Asylum Accommodation HC 1000 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-04-24 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At any one time the Home Office (the Department) provides accommodation for around 23,000 destitute asylum seekers awaiting the outcome of their application to remain in the UK. The cost of providing this accommodation in 2011-12 was £150 million. In March 2012 the Department decided to introduce a new delivery model involving fewer and bigger housing providers than under previous contracts. There are now six regional contracts (known collectively as COMPASS), delivered by three prime contractors (G4S, Serco and Clearel, each of which has two contracts): these replaced 22 separate contracts with 13 different suppliers from across the private and voluntary sectors and local authorities. Savings of £140 million over seven years are forecast. The decision to rely on fewer, larger contractors was risky and has so far led to delays in providing suitable accommodation. The Department expected this to result in economies of scale. However, it is inconsistent with the Government's wider approach of encouraging more small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) to supply services to government. The transition to the new contracts was poorly managed: the three month mobilisation period for the contracts was very challenging. The Department has incurred additional costs and so is less likely to achieve the expected savings. The standard of the accommodation provided has often been unacceptably poor for a very fragile group of individuals and families and the companies failed to improve quality in a timely manner.

Download or read book The Blunders of Our Governments written by Anthony King and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-09-04 with total page 668 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With unrivalled political savvy and a keen sense of irony, distinguished political scientists Anthony King and Ivor Crewe open our eyes to the worst government horror stories and explain why the British political system is quite so prone to appalling mistakes.

Download or read book Ministry of Justice and National Offender Management Service Managing the Prison Service HC 1001 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-04-25 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The National Offender Management Service (the Agency) is responsible for the prison system in England and Wales which holds around 84,000 prisoners. The prison estate consists of some 130 prisons of varying layout, geographical location, age and state of repair. The main factor behind the Agency's estate strategy, of closing small costly prisons and building new accommodation that is cheaper to run, is the need to make recurring savings. Under the strategy, the Agency had by the end of 2013, closed 13 prisons and built two new prisons. The estate strategy's objectives are to reduce resource costs; create durable, good standard accommodation and provide an estate that better meets offenders' needs, allowing more of them to work and be kept closer to their homes. Against these objectives, the Agency has built new, good quality, accommodation to time and within budget; is on track to achieve cost reductions of £70 million a year; and is starting to match better the geographical spread of prisons to the prison population. Key factors behind this good performance are that senior staff in the Agency have experience and knowledge and have remained in post throughout this period of change. However, the performance of the two new prisons, HMP Oakwood and HMP Thameside, has been poor and disappointing since they opened. They do not give sufficient priority to meeting offenders' rehabilitation needs, nor do they provide enough quality purposeful activity for prisoners. The Agency has also closed some prisons that were performing well.

Download or read book House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts HMRC Tax Collection Annual Report Accounts 2012 13 HC 666 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-12-19 with total page 78 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In pursuing unpaid tax, HMRC has not clearly demonstrated that it is on the side of the majority of taxpayers who pay their taxes in full. Last year the Department collected less tax in real terms than it managed to collect in 2011-12. This was despite the stated ambition to crack down on tax avoidance. The tax gap as defined by HMRC did not shrink, but in 2011-12 grew to £35 billion. Furthermore, this figure does not include all the tax revenue lost. HMRC pursues tax owed by the smaller businesses but seems to lose its nerve when it comes to mounting prosecutions against multinational corporations. It predicted that it would collect £3.12 billion unpaid tax from UK holders of Swiss bank accounts and this figure was built into budget estimates, but in 2013-14 it has so far secured just £440 million. HMRC aims to make the UK more attractive to business but the incentives to international corporations may also enable them to avoid tax. HMRC needs to strike the right balance between support and enforcement. The implementation of the Real Time Information system has been encouraging overall though some small businesses are continuing to struggle. It is of concern that HMRC is planning from April 2014 to fine companies even though some face continuing challenges. The successful implementation of Universal Credit depends on RTI continuing to work properly but the system does not have full disaster recovery arrangements. System failures could have serious consequences for payments to individuals