Download or read book Progress in tackling tobacco smuggling written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-06-06 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: HMRC's renewed strategy for tackling tobacco smuggling is logical and includes a wide range of complementary measures, but the Department does not yet have an integrated approach to deterring and disrupting the distribution of illicit tobacco within the UK. This report identifies some good progress in building intelligence overseas, with the expansion of HMRC's network of intelligence officers, which helped overseas authorities seize goods equivalent to a prevented revenue loss of £658 million between 2011-12 and 2012-13. HMRC met all but one of its key operational targets for tobacco in 2011-12 but failed to meet any of its targets in 2012-13. HMRC is unlikely to achieve its plan to prevent £1.4 billion in revenue being lost to tobacco smuggling from investment in new tobacco initiatives over the spending review period. Key initiatives have been delayed or cancelled. HMRC achieved £328 million by the end of 2012-13 from these new initiatives, less than two-thirds of the benefit expected so far (£527 million). HMRC recognizes the need for better intelligence on distribution networks, if it is to target its domestic enforcement activities efficiently. It also lacks a good understanding of the volume of prosecutions and other sanctions needed to deter effectively the trade in illicit tobacco. Tobacco manufacturers have a legal obligation not to facilitate smuggling so far as is reasonably practical, and HMRC has worked with them to review supply chain policies. However, so far it has issued only one warning letter and no penalties.

Download or read book House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts HM Revenue Customs Progress in Tackling Tobacco Smuggling HC 297 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-10-10 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tobacco smuggling represents a significant risk to revenues. It undermines initiatives to reduce smoking and it is linked to the activities of organised criminal gangs. HMRC estimates that duty not paid on tobacco smoked in the UK in 2010-11 resulted in revenue losses of around £1.9 billion. Some 9% of cigarettes and 38% of hand-rolling tobacco sold in the UK are estimated to be illicit, yet there were only 265 prosecutions for tobacco smuggling in 2012-13. HMRC's 2010 Spending Review settlement included £25 million over four years to invest in new initiatives to tackle tobacco smuggling. However HMRC was also required to find efficiency savings so total spending on HMRC's tobacco strategy in 2011-12 rose by only £3 million to £68.9 million and fell to £67.4 million in 2012-13. By the end of 2012-13, three of the five Spending Review-funded projects had yielded nothing and the Committee is not convinced that the Spending Review projects will deliver the £900 million benefit, in terms of revenue loss prevented, that HMRC now predicts they will achieve by March 2015. The Department has also failed to challenge UK tobacco manufacturers who turn a blind eye to the avoidance of UK tax by supplying more of their products to European countries than the legitimate market in those countries could possibly require. The tobacco then finds its way back into the UK market without tax being paid. The supply of some brands of hand-rolling tobacco to some countries in 2011 exceeded legitimate demand by 240%.

Download or read book Mischief Morality and Mobs written by Dick Hobbs and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-08-05 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Geoffrey Pearson, who died in 2013, was one of the outstanding social scientists of the post second world war era. His work spanned social work, social theory, social history, criminology and sociology. In particular, his work has had a huge impact upon studies of youth, youth culture and drugs. This collection is made up of contributions from scholars producing empirical work on some of the key areas upon which Geoff Pearson established his reputation. All of the writers in this collection have been profoundly influenced by his scholarship. This collection focuses on urban ethnography, race and ethnicity, youth, and drugs. It includes chapters on: women working in male boxing gyms; understanding the English Defence League; Black male adults as an ignored societal group; drug markets and ethnography; and sex, drugs and kids in care. The result is a cutting edge collection that takes readers into social worlds that are difficult to access, complex, yet utterly normal. Overall this is an exciting and fittingly challenging tribute to one of the UKs most important scholars. This volume will appeal to scholars and students of criminology, sociology, social history and research methodology – in particular ethnography.

Download or read book Financing of Organised Crime written by Center for the Study of Democracy and published by Center for the Study of Democracy. This book was released on 2015 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The report Financing of Organised Crime contributes to a better understanding of the financial aspects of organised crime. The analysis explores topics such as the sources and mechanisms for financing organised crime, settlement of payments, access to financing in critical moments, costs of business and the management of profits. Drawing on the results of the analysis, the report also suggests possible new approaches to tackling organised crime.

Download or read book Dual Markets written by Ernesto U. Savona and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-11-14 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive volume analyzes dual markets for regulated substances and services, and aims to provide a framework for their effective regulation. A “dual market” refers to the existence of both a legal and an illegal market for a regulated product or service (for example, prescription drugs). These regulations exist in various countries for a mix of public health, historical, political and cultural reasons. Allowing the legal market to thrive, while trying to eliminate the illegal market, provides a unique challenge for governments and law enforcement. Broken down into nine main sections, the book studies comparative international policies for regulating these “dual markets” from a historical, legal, and cultural perspective. It includes an analysis of the markets for psychoactive substances that are illegal in most countries (such as marijuana, cocaine, opiods and amphetimines), psychoactive substances which are legal in most countries and where consumption is widespread (such as alcohol and tobacco), and services that are generally regulated or illegal (such as sports betting, the sex trade, and gambling). For each of these nine types of markets, contributions focus on the relationship between regulation, the emerging illegal market, and the resulting overall access to these services. This work aims to provide a comprehensive framework from a historical, cultural, and comparative international perspective. It will be of interest to researchers in criminology and criminal justice, particularly with an interest in organized crime, as well as related fields such as sociology, public policy, international relations, and public health.

Download or read book OECD Reviews of Risk Management Policies Illicit Trade Converging Criminal Networks written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2016-04-18 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report assesses the magnitude, flows and drivers of illicit trade and the illegal economy including: narcotics, human trafficking, wildlife, sports betting, counterfeit medicines, alcohol and tobacco.

Download or read book Combatting Illicit Trade on the EU Border written by Celina Nowak and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book provides the first-ever comparative study on criminal policy concerning the illicit trade of tobacco, conducted among four comparatively new EU Member States (Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Romania) and two "old" EU countries (Germany and Italy). The book addresses the national legal frameworks, current criminological situation regarding illicit trade of tobacco, and the practical challenges faced by national law enforcement authorities in the countries examined. It also considers the international framework, and concludes with a horizontal report. The objective of the book is to highlight legislative and practical challenges in the fight against illegal tobacco products at the national and transnational level, and to formulate recommendations for overcoming them more effectively in Europe.--

Download or read book Combating Tobacco Use in Military and Veteran Populations written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2009-10-21 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The health and economic costs of tobacco use in military and veteran populations are high. In 2007, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) requested that the Institute of Medicine (IOM) make recommendations on how to reduce tobacco initiation and encourage cessation in both military and veteran populations. In its 2009 report, Combating Tobacco in Military and Veteran Populations, the authoring committee concludes that to prevent tobacco initiation and encourage cessation, both DoD and VA should implement comprehensive tobacco-control programs.

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 National Audit Office The Border Force Securing the Bordr Home Office HC 540 written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-09-04 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the UK Border Force was separated from the UK Border Agency, it has met some important objectives such as reducing queuing times. To provide value for money, however, it needs to perform effectively and in a sustained way across the full range of its activities. Border Force officers reported that staff shortages and the requirement to prioritize full passenger checks while managing queue times often prevented their performing other important duties, such as checking freight. In addition, during the first months of 2012-13, the Border Force's performance in some of its activities, such as seizures of cigarettes and counterfeit goods, entry refusals and detecting forgeries, was below target. The Home Office's internal auditors confirmed that the 2012 Olympics and wider resourcing issues had an effect on the Border Force's ability consistently to resource customs controls. The Border Force's workforce lacks organizational identity. The Border Force consists largely of officers who previously worked in separate customs and immigrations agencies, who typically still identify themselves as 'ex-customs' or 'ex-immigration'. To meet the demands the Border Force is recruiting more staff. Despite this, there are continuing staff shortages at the border. The Border Force has not established whether it has the resources it needs to deliver all its objectives. It needs to deploy staff flexibly to respond to its competing demands, but is prevented from doing this as efficiently as possible because almost a fifth of its workforce is employed under terms and conditions that restrict working hours to fixed periods during the week

Download or read book House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts Progress in Delivering the Thameslink Programme HC 296 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-10-29 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first proposals to modernize the Thameslink route and increase capacity were developed by a succession of rail industry sponsors but nothing much happened until the Department for Transport became sponsor in 2005. The Department has delivered the first phase of the infrastructure project under budget and on time. The other two aspects of the programme are going less well. The procurement of new trains through a £1.6 billion PFI deal has taken over three years longer than expected. And the timetable and approach for letting the new franchise have been revised. The planned completion date has been put back to 2018. But meeting the timetable for delivering the new trains will be very demanding and risky. The Committee is also sceptical about using PFI to fund this project. It is alarming that the Department compared the PFI option against only one other private sector option and did not construct a public sector comparator to understand better the relative costs, risks and rewards of choosing a PFI funding route over a public one. Another source of worry is the small size of the Department's core Thameslink team - just five people for a programme of this size and complexity. The impression that there is a scarcity of these skills is reinforced by the apparent need to move the key civil servant leading the Thameslink team, the man whose experience, skills and continuity have been crucial to the delivery of the programme, over to the High Speed 2 team

Download or read book Health Inequalities written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Health Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2009 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report from the House of Commons Health Committee shows that whilst the health of all groups in England is improving, over the last ten years health inequalities between the social classes have widened with the health of the rich improving more quickly than that of the poor. Health inequalities are not only apparent between people of different socio-economic groups - they exist between different genders, different ethnic groups, and the elderly and people suffering from mental health problems or learning disabilities also have worse health than the rest of the population. The causes of health inequalities are complex, and include lifestyle factors - smoking, nutrition, exercise to name only a few - and also wider determinants such as poverty, housing and education. Access to healthcare may play a role, and there are particular concerns about 'institutional ageism', but this appears to be less significant than other determinants. [Ed.].

Download or read book Excess Votes 2012 13 HC 1068 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-04-30 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Committee of Public Accounts scrutinises the reasons behind individual departments exceeding their allocated resources, and reports to the House of Commons on whether it has any objection to the amounts needed to rectify the reported excesses. In 2012-13 two bodies breached their expenditure limits: the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Food Standards Agency. The Ministry of Defence also required a token increase because of a Defence Votes A excess. On the basis of the examination of the reasons why these bodies exceeded their voted, the Committee has no objection to Parliament providing the necessary amounts by means of an Excess Vote. Nevertheless, it expects the Department for Communities and Local Government to set out what actions it has taken to improve their financial management and avoid exceeding their allocated resources in the future. And, as recommended last year, HM Treasury, as the UK's Ministry of Finance, should ensure departments are fully aware of the need to operate within their voted provisions. HM Treasury should continue to regularly monitor the progress departments are making against their Estimates during the year and, where possible, take appropriate action to prevent departments exceeding their provision.

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 HC 1060 The Ministry of Defence Rquipment Plan 2013 23 and Major Projects Report 2013 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-05-13 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are still concerns over whether the MoD's Equipment Plan is affordable. The Ministry underspent by a huge £1.2 billion on the Equipment Plan in 2012-13. Yet it has no idea whether this is because of genuine savings or whether costs are simply being stored up for later years because of delays on projects. This underspending makes it tempting for the Treasury to take them as savings at the expense of the defence equipment capabilities our armed services need. The MoD also does not properly understand the costs of maintenance and technical support, despite the fact that such support costs, £87 billion over ten years, and accounts for over half of the spend on the Equipment Plan budget. It also does not know whether its contingency of £4.7 billion is a sufficient buffer against risks to the Plan. The affordability of the Equipment Plan is heavily reliant on achieving significant savings in some of its major programmes. For example, the MoD has assumed savings of over £2 billion in two large programmes, the Complex Weapons and Submarine Enterprise Performance Programmes, but achieving these will be a challenge. Any changes to these two programmes could jeopardise the expected savings and so put affordability at risk. Project teams do not yet have enough staff with the right skills to employ proper cost and risk management techniques. Treasury and Cabinet Office should look across Government at skills shortages and go for solutions that do not require bureaucratic reorganisations to recruit skilled people at market rates.

Download or read book HC 1063 Education Funding Agency And Department For Education 2012 13 Financial Statements written by 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: This Public Accounts Committee report examines the Education Funding Agency and Department for Education 2012-13 financial statements. Since it was set up in April 2012, the Education Funding Agency (the Agency) has succeeded in getting money to education providers on time. In 2012-13, the Agency distributed £51 billion of capital and revenue funding for 10 million learners to local authorities, academies, academy trusts, further education institutions, sixth-form colleges and other types of education providers. Between 2012-13 and 2015-16, the Agency expects that the number of all education providers it funds will increase by around 50% to almost 12,000, of which nearly 7,000 will be academies. At the same time, the Agency plans to reduce its administration costs by 15%, a huge challenge. It should improve efficiency, transparency and accountability in the education sector, especially in respect of the growing number of academies, but lacks the systems and data it needs. The Agency has not yet achieved an acceptable level of compliance with its reporting requirements and the Committee finds it is too reactive and does not spot risks or intervene in schools quickly enough. Not enough is known about conflicts of interest in academies and the risk they pose to the proper use of public money, not The Agency has no way of knowing whether academy chief executives and trustees are 'fit-and-proper persons', and there are flaws in the methodology used to consolidate the accounts of academies, as well as data quality issues, which undermine accountability.

Download or read book HC 1115 The Criminal Justice System written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-05-20 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Criminal Justice System is complex and to operate effectively relies on numerous interdependencies between the different bodies involved. There are weaknesses in the System which have persisted for far too long and which cause delay and inefficiency, and serve to undermine public confidence. One example is the failure to ensure the right information is available in case files, where the quality has consistently worsened; another is that a quarter of trials are cancelled or delayed because of late decisions by one or more of the agencies involved. The Home Office, Ministry of Justice and Crown Prosecution Service have made some efforts to improve, but progress in addressing the key problems remains disappointingly slow. Crime has fallen but the Departments gave little evidence linking this improvement to their actions, and while both crime and police officer numbers are down, prison numbers have remained static over the same period. The Departments' efforts to improve efficiency are taking place against a background of reduced resources and staffing, and a prison population twice as high as 20 years ago. The Departments are struggling to: improve the smooth passage of criminal cases through the System; achieve greater collaboration and efficiency between criminal justice organisations at local level; and improve the use of new technology for sharing information.