Download or read book The cancellation of Bicester Accommodation Centre written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2007-11-08 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This NAO report examines the Government's decision in June 2005 to cancel plans for a new purpose-built accommodation centre at Bicester, which was to have been built as part of a pilot accommodation programme for people seeking asylum in the UK. This programme, announced in October 2001, was seen as a way of making the asylum process more efficient, by housing asylum seekers onsite during the whole application process from initial arrival through to decision and possible appeal. The decision was taken in light of significant local opposition to the centre which delayed the planning process, the success of other initiatives to speed up the processing of asylum applications and a fall in the number of people claiming asylum in the UK. By the end of March 2007, the Home Office had spent about £33 million on the accommodation project, of which £28 million related to Bicester. The NAO report makes a number of recommendations for departments planning similar projects in order to identify key risks to successful delivery and project management. These include the need for departments to identify in the business case the impact of a range of planning delays on cost and delivery for schemes that require planning permission using a range of scenarios; to ensure the necessary co-ordination of the process takes place at a sufficiently senior level to effect proper control; and to include only realisable benefits in cost benefit analyses.

Download or read book The Cancellation of Bicester Accommodation Centre 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: Between 2001/02 and 2005/06, the Home Office spent £29.1 million planning and designing a purpose-built accommodation centre for asylum seekers at Bicester. It was a pilot project and formed part of a wider Home Office initiative to cope with rising numbers of asylum applications by speeding up the processing of asylum claims and reducing the social tensions and the risk of fraud inherent in the way that asylum seekers were dispersed around the UK. Falling numbers of asylum applicants, a rise in the projected net cost of the planned facility at Bicester, and a general improvement in the speed of processing asylum applications under the existing system, led to the cancellation of the Bicester Centre and the shelving of the wider accommodation centre policy in June 2005. As the project was cancelled before building work began, the only benefit to the taxpayer is the semi-derelict site, valued at some £4.6 million, which remains in the Home Office's ownership. The strength of opposition to the proposed accommodation centres from national refugees groups and local resident groups, which was identified during the passage of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, was not fully reflected in the business case for Bicester. The business case also did not take into account the potential adverse impact on cost and delivery arising from a protracted planning delay. The decision by the Home Office to sign the contract with its preferred bidder before completing the outline and detailed planning processes increased the risk of nugatory expenditure. The lessons to be learnt from Bicester have wider application to government bodies planning innovative projects. These lessons include: the need to strengthen corporate governance arrangements where consultants are engaged at an early stage, to co-ordinate policy changes in different parts of an organisation together with consideration of external events, and to increase the effectiveness and scope of consultation with the local community and other stakeholders. On the basis of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, the committee examined the Home Office on the reasons why the cancellation of the wider accommodation centre policy resulted in nugatory expenditure of £29.1 million being noted in the Home Office's financial statements. It also examined the potential future use of the Bicester site.

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 Nothing Personal written by Nick Gill and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-02-23 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this groundbreaking new study, Nick Gill provides a conceptually innovative account of the ways in which indifference to the desperation and hardship faced by thousands of migrants fleeing persecution and exploitation comes about. Features original, unpublished empirical material from four Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded projects Challenges the consensus that border controls are necessary or desirable in contemporary society Demonstrates how immigration decision makers are immersed in a suffocating web of institutionalized processes that greatly hinder their objectivity and limit their access to alternative perspectives Theoretically informed throughout, drawing on the work of a range of social theorists, including Max Weber, Zygmunt Bauman, Emmanuel Levinas, and Georg Simmel

Download or read book British Council 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 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report (HC 814, session 2007-08, ISBN 9780215525468) looks at the work of the British Council and what impact the Council has working with whole societies, how it makes best use of resources and their efforts to increase consistency across the British Council network. It follows an NAO report (HCP 625, session 2007-08, ISBN 9780102954173), on the same topic. The British Council is a Registered Charity and an executive Non-Departmental Public Body as well as a Public Corporation. It aims to build relationships between people in the UK and other countries, through teaching English and running cultural projects. It operates in over 110 countries and engages with over 15 million people a year worldwide. The Committee has set out a number of conclusions and recommendations, including: that the British Council should be congratulated for its achievements in promoting the English language and culture overseas; the Committee believes though that the current teaching model, based on premium prices and concentrated mainly in capital cities, severely restricts its reach; that the Council's recent programme of change has had a negative effect on staff and their view of the Council's leadership; the Council is without a single customer relationship management system, which it is now going to address; that sponsorship and partner income has fallen year on year since 2000-01, and the Council should do more to reverse this trend; the Committee has identified a lack of consistency across the network.

Download or read book Public Private Partnerships and the Law written by Yseult Marique and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2014-08-30 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This timely book examines the legal regulation of Public_Private Partnerships (PPPs) and provides a systematic overview of PPPs and their functions. It covers both the contractual relationships between public and private actors and the relationships be

Download or read book Management of Large Business Corporation Tax 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 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2006-07, Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs (the Department) raised a total of £23.8 billion in Corporation Tax from large businesses. There are some 700 of these businesses, and in 2005-06, just 50 of them paid 67 per cent of the large business Corporation Tax, whilst 181 businesses paid none. Two-thirds of the tax comes from the banking, oil and gas and insurance sectors. Businesses pay little or no Corporation Tax because, for example, they have made a loss, or had losses in previous years, or they are using tax reliefs, or engaging in tax avoidance. In 2006-07, the Department's large business Corporation Tax enquiry programme raised nearly £2.7 billion. Many of these enquiries were poorly targeted, with nearly 60 per cent producing less than 1 per cent of the additional tax raised. The enquiries also take too long: in January 2008, 42 per cent of its enquiries were over two years old, and 10 per cent over four years old. In February 2007, based on initial review of tax returns from the previous 12 months, the Department estimated that the potential Corporation Tax at risk was £8.5 billion. The tax assessments are very complicated and there has been a widening gap between the skill set of large business tax staff and that of the Large Business Service. The Department is bringing in external recruits, including retired tax advisors, to help to train its staff and to deal with the more complicated technical work.

Download or read book Preparing for Sporting Success at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and Beyond 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 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) and UK Sport have responsibility for elite sport in the UK. To support goals for London 2012, the Government has agreed a package of funding of over £700 million, while the DCMS will be required to raise £100 million from the private sector. This report follows up recommendations in the Committee's previous report on supporting elite athletes published in July 2006 (HC 898, session 2005-06. ISBN 9780215029768). It was found then that many funded sports had not met their medal targets at the Athens games in 2004. In particular concerns were raised about the way UK Sport measured and reported its own performance and the need for greater clarity about the level of performance required from individual sports in order to secure future funding was highlighted. UK Sport continues to plan on the basis that it will receive all of its funding up to 2012. However there remains a risk that the £100 million from the private sector will not all be raised.On the basis of a report by Comptroller and Auditor General (HC 434, session 2007-08, ISBN 9780102953084) the Committee took evidence from the DCMS and UK Sport on their fudning strategy for medial success at London 2012; their setting of targets and monitoring of progress towards the Games; and their approach to securing wider and long term benefits from elite sporting success.

Download or read book The Roll out of the Jobcentre Plus Office Network 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: Between 2002 and 2008 the Department for Work and Pension replaced over 1,500 jobcentres and social security offices across Great Britain with a network of just over 800 modernised Jobcentre Plus offices. The aim was to improve significantly the job-seeking experience and the delivery of benefits by providing a service similar to that offered by a bank or modern retailer. To achieve such a radical shift the Department merged the Employment Service and the Benefits Agency into a new integrated service Jobcentre Plus. This roll-out was one of the largest public sector construction programmes undertaken in the UK in recent years. Having learnt lessons from early difficulties, the project was successful in delivering nearly all the planned offices, while making savings against the original budget of £2.2 billion. The estate rationalisation generated savings of £135 million a year, and the Department estimates that the roll-out will ultimately lead to cumulative benefits of £6 billion. The successful delivery of the programme can be attributed to sound governance, intelligent use of existing guidance and external advice, strong support from the leadership of the organisation and, critically, the consistent senior management team. The successful implementation of the project has important lessons for other major government programmes.

Download or read book Managing Financial Resources to Deliver Better Public Services 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 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annually, central government spends some £558 billion, and this is forecast to increase to £678 billion by 2010-11. Strong and competent financial resources management is central to departments meeting their objectives cost effectively and delivering public services which represent value for money. Since the Committee's last report on this topic (HC 181, 25th report of session 2003-04, ISBN 9780215023636) the number of qualified finance directors with a seat on the departmental board has increased, enhancing the focus on financial performance at senior management level, but the lack of financial skills and awareness amongst non-finance staff remains a barrier to improving financial management more generally across government. Accruals-based accounting and budgeting systems are helping some departments identify under-utilised assets and dispose of those no longer required. Departments need to improve their forecasting capabilities to strengthen budgetary control and to avoid underspends not being identified early enough to reallocate resources to other priorities. Departments are continuing to spend less money than they forecast, particularly on capital projects, increasing the risk that resources are not being allocated across government in the most effective way. Few departmental boards are presented with accurate, timely and integrated financial and operational performance information to enable them to take sufficiently informed decisions on the use of resources and to review performance. Although the Treasury and Cabinet Office have a number of initiative to improve resource management, there is some way to go before financial management is fully embedded within departmental cultures.

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 Making Grants Efficiently in the Culture Media and Sport Sector 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: This inquiry took evidence from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (the Department), Arts Council England, Big Lottery Fund, English Heritage and Sport England on assessing the cost-efficiency of making grants; on supporting grant applicants; on sharing services and information; and on making applications on-line. In 2006-07, the nine principal grant-makers sponsored by the Department awarded grants of £1.8 billion, and spent £200 million on administering the grants and related activities. The grants ranged in size from £200 to many millions of pounds. The bodies held little information on the costs of their individual grant programmes and how these costs compare with others. The average cost of awarding £1 of grant across a sample of open application programmes in the sector ranged from three pence to 35 pence. Much of the variance in cost can be explained by the different objectives of the programmes and the needs of applicants. Grant-makers often receive applications which are incomplete or inaccurate. One way they could reduce the burden on grant applicants would be through inviting applications on-line. This would also help reduce the costs to grant-makers by reducing the amount of paper applications they have to process and the number of incomplete and ineligible applications. In the past, the Committee has recommended that the Department should take the lead in identifying the scope for savings by encouraging the organisations it funds to share accommodation and services. Little progress appears to be have made in this area. The Department has also done little to encourage benchmarking and the sharing of good practice across the sector.

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 Nuclear Decommissioning Authority Taking Forward Decommissioning 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 38th report from the Committee of Public Accounts (HCP 370, session 2007-08, ISBN 9780215521668) on the subject of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. The NAO produced a report on the same subject (HCP 238, session 2007-08, ISBN 9780102951974). The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) was established in April 2005 with the aim of decommissioning the UK's civil public sector nuclear sites. By December 2007, 14 of its 19 sites had already shut down and were being decommissioned, with parts of Sellafield being cleaned-up. The NDA discharges its responsibilities through contracts with licensed operators at each site. The sites are managed by site licensees, including preparation of decommissioning plans and performing and sub-contracting work. The licensees are owned by four parent bodies. The NDA aims to improve site performance by putting the right to be the parent body out to tender. There is uncertainty over the costs of decommissioning, with an estimate of £73 billion prepared in 2007, up 30% since 2003. The Committee accepts that the legacy of deferred decision making over a period of 50 years is in part responsible for the cost increases, but believes that some of the escalating costs should be avoidable, including short-term changes to the decommissioning programme and the scale of site support costs. Further, the NDA's work has been hampered by the uncertainty in the level of commercial income earned from ageing and unreliable facilities, with the NDA cutting, at short notice, the levels of funding it projected to provide in the 2007-08 period of decommissioning. This has imposed additional costs on the taxpayer, with the NDA providing £31.6 million to cover costs of early contract closure, staff training and redundancy.

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 Compensating Victims 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 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme makes financial awards to individuals who have been injured as a result of violent crime. The Scheme is administered by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, a non-departmental public body of the Ministry of Justice. Appeal against the Authority's decisions are heard by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Appeals Panel which is part of the Tribunals Service, an executive agency of the Ministry. Between 2000 and 2006, performance in dealing with claims deteriorate due to poor management within the Authority, combined with a lack of oversight by the sponsoring department. In the seven years since the subject was previously examined only 5 of 16 recommendation have been met in full. On the basis of a report by Comptroller and Auditor General, the Committee examined the Ministry, Authority & Tribunals Service on the reasons for the deterioration in performance