Download or read book The cost effective delivery of armoured vehicle capability written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-05-20 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The suspension and cancellation of a number of key armoured vehicle projects since the 1998 defence review has resulted in the Armed Forces facing a significant shortage in the principal armoured vehicles they require, until at least 2024-2025. Despite the commitment of considerable resources, since 1998, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) has received only a fraction of the armoured vehicles it has set out to buy through its standard acquisition process. The MOD's reluctance to compromise in setting technologically demanding requirements under its standard acquisition process has put the timely and cost-effective delivery of the equipment at risk. Unwieldy procurement processes have not coped well with rapid changes to equipment requirements in the light of operational experience, resulting in a number of armoured vehicle projects being delayed or abandoned. Projects have also suffered from unstable budgets and continual changes to financial plans, with a cycle of unrealistic planning followed by cost overruns. Spending to date includes £321 million on cancelled or suspended projects and a further £397 million funding on-going, but delayed, projects. To address shortfalls in equipment for current operations, such as in Afghanistan, the MOD has placed greater reliance on the Urgent Operational Requirements (UORs) since 2003, at an additional cost of £2.8 billion. This has been more successful and has significantly improved protection levels for UK forces against today's threats but it is not a sustainable substitute for the standard acquisition process.

Download or read book The cost effective delivery of armoured vehicle capability written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-12-09 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Armoured vehicles such as tanks, reconnaissance and personnel-carrying vehicles are essential for a wide range of military tasks. Since the 1998 Strategic Defence Review, the Ministry of Defence has attempted to acquire the vehicles it needs through a number of procurement projects. However, none of the principal armoured vehicles it requires have yet been delivered, despite the MoD spending £1.1 billion since 1998, including £321 million wasted on cancelled or suspended projects. As a result there will be gaps in capability until at least 2025, making it more difficult to undertake essential tasks such as battlefield reconnaissance. Partly as a result of this £1.1 billion failure to yet deliver any armoured vehicles, and to meet the specific military demands of operating in Iraq and Afghanistan, the MoD was provided with a further £2.8 billion from the Treasury Reserve to buy Urgent Operational Requirements (UOR) vehicles. Over the past six years, the Department has removed £10.8 billion from armoured vehicle budgets up to 2021. This has left £5.5 billion available for the next ten years, which is insufficient to deliver all of the armoured vehicle programmes which are planned. The MoD needs to be clearer about its priorities, and stop raiding the armoured vehicles chest every time it needs to make savings across the defence budget. It will also need to set more realistic requirements in future if it is to deliver projects on time and to budget. The Committee expressed concern that the Department was unable to identify anyone who has been held to account for the clear delivery failures. Further, the MoD has yet to balance its defence budget fully and devise a plan to close capability gaps, despite having conducted the SDSR and two subsequent planning exercises. It needs to determine its armoured vehicle equipment priorities and deliver these as rapidly and cost-effectively as possible, including making an assessment of which of its existing vehicles should be retained after combat operations in Afghanistan cease.

Download or read book The Political Economy of Risk in Finance and the Military written by Marc Schelhase and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-12-12 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about risk conceptions, experiences and reflections. It applies the concept of the risk triangle, with its societal, organisational and personal angles, to two areas of inquiry: financial markets and the military, seeking to demonstrate the challenges, dilemmas and, in many ways, also the impossibilities of risk analysis and risk management. Drawing on empirical and micro- and macro-level analysis, this innovative work will appeal to students of political science, economics and business as well as to risk professionals and risk-takers.

Download or read book Treasury minutes on the fifty second to the fifty fifth and on the fifty seventh to the sixty first reports from the Committee of Public Accounts Session 2010 12 written by Great Britain. Treasury and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-02-27 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The reports published as HC 1398 (ISBN 9780215561848), HC1469 (ISBN 9780215561862), HC 1468 (ISBN 9780215038548), HC 1502 ((9780215038585), HC 1530 (ISBN 9780215038913, HC 1565 (ISBN 9780215039910), HC 1444 (ISBN 9780215038968), HC 1566 (9780215039941), HC 1531 (9780215040077)

Download or read book HC 97 Private Finance 2 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Treasury Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-06-09 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written evidence is contained in Volume 2, available on the Committee website at www.parliament.uk/treascom

Download or read book Setting Priorities in the Age of Austerity written by Michael Shurkin and published by Rand Corporation. This book was released on 2013-05-03 with total page 63 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the British, French, and German armies’ approaches to accommodating significant budget cuts while attempting to sustain their commitment to full spectrum operations. Specifically, it looks at the choices these armies are making with respect to how they spend dwindling resources: What force structure do they identify as optimal? How much readiness do they regard as necessary? Which capabilities are they abandoning?

Download or read book The BBC s efficiency programme written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-03-06 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: BBC's efficiency Programme : Seventy-third report of session 2010-12, report, together with formal minutes, oral and written Evidence

Download or read book Securing the MRAP written by James Hasik and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2021-08-16 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dwight D. Eisenhower once quipped, “You will not find it difficult to prove that battles, campaigns, and even wars have been won or lost primarily because of logistics.” Military acquisition and procurement—that is, how a nation manages investments, technologies, programs, and support—is critical to wartime success or failure. When unexpected battlefield problems arise, how do the government, the military, and industry work together to ensure effective solutions? During the American counterinsurgent campaign in Iraq, the improvised explosive device emerged as a disruptive and devastating threat. As Humvees, and their occupants, were ripped apart by IEDs, it was clear that new solutions had to be found. These solutions already existed but had not been procured, highlighting the need for more effective marketing to the military by industry. The ultimate successful response—the mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle, or MRAP—required years of entrepreneurial marketing by the defense industry. In Securing the MRAP: Lessons Learned in Marketing and Military Procurement, James Hasik explores how these vehicles, which the American military mostly rejected despite the great need for them, eventually came to be adopted as the Pentagon’s top procurement priority. Hasik traces the story of the MRAP from the early 1970s to the future of mine-resistant vehicles on the battlefields of tomorrow. An important contribution to the seemingly disparate fields of marketing and defense policy, Securing the MRAP is an eye-opening revelation to defense industrialists, military officers, and government officials who want to understand how to avoid another IED-Humvee debacle.

Download or read book The use of information to manage the defence logistics supply chain written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-08-19 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report assesses the Ministry of Defence's performance in managing the supply chain to front line troops. The MoD rightly puts a strong emphasis on ensuring troops get the supplies they need. Equally, providing an efficient supply chain would release resources for the front line. The Committee believes there should be greater emphasis on securing value for money and that there is room for it to find efficiencies in the supply chain without jeopardising operational effectiveness. Previous reports have identified persistent problems with late deliveries, unnecessary costs and missed targets. At present, the MoD does not have the information to identify where savings could be made. It does not know the full costs of its current activities or the cost of alternative supply options. The failure to collect basic data about where supplies are stored has directly contributed to the MoD accounts being qualified for three consecutive years. The MoD is now seeking to resolve these information problems through a major initiative known as the Future Logistics Information Services project, expected to be implemented by 2014. Until then, the Department will continue to store data in systems that are at critical risk of failure. It is vital that the MOD sustains its programme in order to secure value for money. Measures which could improve the efficiency of supply operations include putting more pressure on suppliers to deliver on time, keeping stocks at lower levels to reduce the risk of them deteriorating, and benchmarking performance against relevant comparators such as other armed forces.

Download or read book Cost reduction in central government written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-04-27 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The National Audit Office report on this topic published as HC 1788, session 2010-12 (ISBN 9780102975376)

Download or read book Reducing costs in the Department for Transport written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-03-13 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As part of the 2010 Spending Review the government announced a significant reduction in the budget of the Department for Transport, with spending due to be 15% lower by 2014-15, in real terms, than the Department's £12.8 billion budget in 2010-11. The Department prepared early, identifying areas for budget reductions based on good analysis. But for road users, railway passengers and taxpayers, there are many questions which remain unanswered. The Department doesn't fully understand the impact of its cuts to road maintenance. There is concern that short-term budget cutting could prove counter-productive, costing more in the long-term as a result of increased vehicle damage and the higher cost of repairing the more severe road damage. Another area of concern is rail spending. The Department spends two-thirds of its budget through third party organisations such as Network Rail and Transport for London. While information and assurance have improved over some third party spending, there is still a lack of proper accountability and transparency for Network Rail. Rail budgets aren't being reduced as much as other areas, yet passengers still face high fares. The Department hands Network Rail over £3 billion each year, underwrites debt of over £25 billion and continues to treat it as a private sector company. The National Audit Office must be allowed full audit access as quickly as possible.. Better contingency plans for dealing with threats to its planned budget reductions also need to be developed - for example if some of its planned efficiency savings do not deliver or if inflation is higher than forecast

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 Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-05-18 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Around half of all children in the UK from separated families are being brought up in poverty. In 2010-11 the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission collected and transferred £1.1 billion to parents caring for more than 880,000 children. Nevertheless significant, all too familiar and recurring challenges remain: parents are frustrated with the standard of support received from the Commission. Maintenance payments totalling some £3.7 billion are outstanding, but the Commission estimates that only £1 billion of this is collectable; and costs remain high. The Commission also faces further significant challenges in introducing its new child maintenance scheme. In particular, it will need to respond to substantial cost reductions and successfully implement a new system of charging fees to parents who choose to use the Commission's services. The Commission needs to deliver acceptable standards of service at a reasonable cost. The new child maintenance scheme should improve efficiency, but further changes are needed to streamline existing processes. The Commission has to deliver cost reductions of £117 million by 2014-15 and its plans are currently £16 million short of this target. Its cost reduction plans depend in part on a new IT system which is already late. To meet the current timetable critical testing will have to be undertaken in parallel with development work, mirroring poor practices that have contributed to the failure of a number of government IT projects. Each month of delay will increase the Commission's costs by at least £3 million and may delay planned income from fees.

Download or read book Department for Education written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-05-11 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Department for Education is distributing £56.4 billion in 2011-12 to schools, local authorities and other public bodies for the delivery of education and children's services in England. The Department has set out how it intends to provide Parliament with assurance about the regularity, propriety and value for money in an Accountability System Statement (the Statement) of which the Committee has now seen three drafts. Responsibility for value for money is shared by the Department with schools, academy trusts, local authorities, the Young People's Learning Agency and the Department for Communities and Local Government. However, the Statement does not yet clearly describe the specific responsibilities of each body, how these will interact, or how the Department will assess value for money across the entire education system. The Department relies on local authorities and the YPLA to exercise financial oversight over local authority maintained schools and academies respectively. However, oversight by some local authorities is currently weak and could worsen as many authorities reduce the resources they devote to overseeing their schools. There are also concerns about whether the YPLA will have the right skills, systems and capacity to oversee the rapidly increasing numbers of academies expected in coming years. More consistent requirements for data and data returns must be applied to all schools so that academic and financial performance can be benchmarked, and all schools can be held accountable. The Department needs to enforce these requirements more stringently, particularly given previous problems with lack of compliance

Download or read book Reorganising central government bodies written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-04-24 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Under the Public Bodies Reform Programme the Government is reducing the number of its arm's length bodies from 904 to between 632 and 642 by the end of the current Spending Review period and will have a substantial and lasting impact. The Programme is intended to improve accountability for functions currently carried out at arm's length from Ministers. The Cabinet Office says it is on track to make £2.6 billion of administrative savings by 2015. However there are substantial reservations about the robustness of this claim. Key concerns are that: there is a risk departments are claiming savings which are actually cuts to services, when they should be including only genuine savings arising from administrative reorganisations; estimates of transition costs such as redundancy and pension costs are incomplete; the savings estimate does not fully take account of the ongoing costs to other parts of government of taking on functions being transferred from abolished bodies and some departments have wrongly included wider savings from bodies being retained, rather than just administrative savings from bodies being abolished or substantially reformed. The Cabinet Office has accepted that its savings estimate needs to be reassessed and has undertaken to 'rebase' it. Focus now needs to be on managing the Programme effectively. Departments have decided on the form of individual reorganisations themselves without clear direction from the centre, leading in some cases to inconsistent treatment of bodies with similar functions. Furthermore, departments may not be getting the best value for money from the sale or transfer of assets of bodies being abolished

Download or read book Department for Business Innovation and Skills written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-03-23 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Skills Funding Agency provide funding for further education students aged 19-plus. The Department for Education and the Young People's Learning Agency fund further education for 16-to-18-year-olds. These two departments provided £7.7 billion in funding to the sector during the 2010/11 academic year. The various government bodies that interact with the sector have different funding, qualification and assurance systems. Differences in the information required and collected create an unnecessary burden for training providers and divert money away from learners. To provide value for money, the systems need to be appropriate, efficient, avoid unnecessary duplication, and balance the protections they provide for public money with the costs of the bureaucracy they impose. No one body is currently accountable for reducing bureaucracy in the further education sector. Instead, the two Departments and the two funding agencies maintain separate responsibilities based on their funding streams. BIS has a stated policy objective of reducing bureaucracy imposed on further education providers but would not accept overall responsibility for bringing together efforts to reduce bureaucracy in the sector. Both BIS and DfE, and their funding agencies, have launched separate initiatives designed to simplify the requirements they place on providers. However BIS does not manage the simplification as a programme with a clear and consistent goal. While BIS has required the Agency to reduce its own administrative costs by 33%, there is no rational view on the amount by which they would like to reduce bureaucracy in providers nor do they accept that measurement of progress is necessary.

Download or read book Adult apprenticeships written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-05-17 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills works with the Skills Funding Agency (the Agency) and the National Apprenticeship Service (the Service), to deliver the Apprenticeship Programme. Adult apprentices represented 325,500, or 71%, of the 457,200 apprentices who started their apprenticeship in the 2010/11 academic year. During the 2010-11 financial year the Department spent £451 million on adult apprenticeships. The Programme has been a success more than quadrupling the number of adult apprenticeships in the four years to 2010/11 and the proportion of adult apprentices successfully completing their apprenticeship has also risen, from around a third in 2004/05 to over three-quarters in 2010/11. Further work, however, needs to be done to maximise its impacts. The Department should improve its understanding of which apprenticeships offer the biggest returns. The Service should give both employers and individuals better information about the benefits arising from different types of apprenticeship, as well as about the quality of the many training providers. The Service should do more to increase the number of employers offering apprenticeships, and to increase the proportion of advanced skill level apprenticeships achieved, moving England closer to the levels delivered in other European countries. Importantly, around one in five apprenticeships lasted for six months or less. The Service accepts concern that apprenticeships lasting for such a short period are of no proper benefit to either individuals or employers. The Service says it is tackling the problem but it needs to do more to guarantee the length and quality of training -especially the off-the-job training apprentices receive