Download or read book Thirteenth report of session 2010 11 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: European Scrutiny Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-01-27 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thirteenth report of Session 2010-11 : Documents considered by the Committee on 12 January 2011, including the following recommendations for debate, road safety, Treaty change, EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, report, together with formal Minutes

Download or read book Thirteenth Report of Session 2012 13 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: European Scrutiny Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-11-02 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book HC 287 Government Motoring Agencies the User Perspective written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Transport Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Government's motoring agencies are undergoing reorganisation and are introducing digital services; both changes have potential to bring welcome improvements. The Government has a mixed approach to organisational change in the agencies with different emphasis on efficiency savings, restructuring, and private sector involvement across the agencies. It needs to do more to explain the future direction for all the motoring agencies and how it will create a more unified service. The agencies could do more to recognise and respond to the needs of business users. There are a number of specific areas that require action by the Government and its motoring agencies: the driver Certificate of Professional Competence may not be delivering all the benefits expected of it and the Government should negotiate changes at a European level; the agencies need to have effective assisted digital strategies in place to help those who cannot or are unwilling to use the internet to access services; the agencies need to work with the Government Digital Service and others to address the problem of misleading copycat websites; the DVLA needs to do more to explain how it is required to share personal data with private parking companies and the safeguards that are in place to protect such data; the DVLA needs to adjust it's fees to ensure costs are covered and do more to explain it's calculations; and data sharing needs to be effective, if revenue collection, action on safety and work by enforcement agencies are to be effective, and new services need to be planned with data sharing in mind

Download or read book House of Commons Transport Committee Forging Ahead UK Shipping Strategy HC 630 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Transport Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-03-26 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: UK is a globally competitive location for shipping. The maritime sector earns £8.8 - £11.8 billion for the economy and supports 214,000 jobs. The Government's new maritime strategy poses the right questions about UK shipping but does not yet provide compelling answers on a range of key points. In particular, it is unclear how the Government plans to address the looming skills gap whereby the UK will have 5,000 fewer deck and engineering officers than the UK's maritime sector is predicted to require by 2021. The Committee recommends that the Government: make an explicit commitment to address fully a significant looming shortfall in UK trained seafarers partly through the Tonnage Tax, SMaRT funding and apprenticeships; commission an independent review of the MCA to evaluate how far a ongoing budget cuts may weaken the UK's ability to enforce compliance with international shipping regulations, undermine its status as a high-quality flag nation and shrink its influence within the International Maritime Organisation.; review the support the UK provides through its oversight of the Red Ensign Group to a number of competing registries of crown dependencies and UK overseas territories to raise the standards of the vessels which fly under the this flag; implement stronger seamanship qualifications by 2016 for the crew of all transfer vessels taking staff to and from offshore wind farm installations (and to call for voluntary compliance with these higher standards before that deadline); and support London International Shipping Week 2015 but showcase shipping around the country

Download or read book The Coastguard Emergency Towing Vessels and the Maritime Incident Response Group written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Transport Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-12-11 with total page 78 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Implementation of the Government's modernisation programme risks damaging the coastguard. Confusion about the role of the new national Maritime Operations Centre (MOC) and mixed messages about local knowledge and coastguard station closures has undermined staff morale across the service and caused great concern that the vacancy rate for skilled staff has doubled since 2010. There is a worrying lack of information about what coastguards at the MOC will actually do from day to day or how these new staff will work with local coastguards. The MCA's stance in respect of the local knowledge which coastguards in co-ordination centres must have is also confusing and contradictory. The MCA needs to set out its strategy for staff training and articulate its vision of why coastguards in MRCCs need to gain and retain local knowledge. MCA management must schedule and remunerate staff to pursue this expertise, not leave them to organise themselves when they are off duty. The Committee also expresses concern about arrangements for Emergency Towing Vessels and plans for fire fighting at sea now that the Maritime Incident Response group has been withdrawn. The Government is called to provide statistics on the age profile and length of service of coastguards at each MRCC and to set out its strategy for retaining experienced coastguards, particularly in terms of recruitment to positions based at the MOC

Download or read book HC 429 Motoring of the Future written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Transport Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Motoring is being transformed by new materials, new fuels and information technology. However, the Government must act if people and businesses in the UK are to obtain the full benefit of this ongoing automotive revolution. The Committee found that the Department for Transport (DfT) is yet to set out a comprehensive strategy to link the introduction of new automotive technology to the achievement of its policy goals. It should develop a comprehensive vision to shape motoring of the future in partnership with other Government Departments and agencies. This strategy needs to set out a co-ordinated set of actions to: (i) reduce or eliminate fatalities and serious injuries on the roads; (ii) cut emissions from road transport; (iii) increase road capacity; (iv) facilitate social inclusion and accessibility of road transport; and (v) support economic growth.

Download or read book Sessional Returns written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-09-14 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On cover and title page: House, committees of the whole House, general committees and select committees

Download or read book Cancellation of the InterCity West Coast Franchise Competition written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Transport Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-01-31 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Embarking on an ambitious, perhaps unachievable, reform of rail franchising, in haste, on the UK's most complex piece of railway was irresponsible. Many of the problems with the franchise competition, detailed in the Laidlaw report, reflect very badly on civil servants at the DfT. However, ministers approved a complex - perhaps unworkable - franchising policy at the same time as overseeing major cuts to the Department's resources. This was a recipe for failure which the DfT must learn from urgently. While the Department has already published a response to the Laidlaw report which Mr Laidlaw described as 'very encouraging', and has initiated a review of franchise MPs warn that a number of matters remain to be adequately resolved. The Committee calls on the Secretary of State and the Department for Transport to: explain why ministers and senior officials were misled about how subordinated loan facilities were calculated, if necessary after disciplinary proceedings against staff have concluded; complete a full email capture and get to the bottom of whether or not any officials manipulated the outcome of the competition to ensure First Group were awarded the contracts; provide a comprehensive breakdown of costs arising from the cancellation of the West Coast Mainline franchise competition. The Committee also wants to establish what lessons current and future ministers must learn from this episode

Download or read book Land Transport Security Scope for Further EU Involvement written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Transport Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-03-22 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Last year the European Commission published a staff working document that was principally concerned with extending the Commission's involvement in transport security matters. Land transport security measures seek to prevent acts of unlawful interference against passengers, freight or transport infrastructure in the road and rail sectors. Unlawful interference, as referred to in the Commission's document, includes anything from terrorism to relatively minor crime against passengers and transport operators. The conflation of such wide-ranging security issues is not helpful and the Government is urged to ensure that any future EU land security transport proposals are more focussed. Overall, the current risk-based approach to land transport security in the UK are working well and security measures deployed across UK transport modes are proportionate to the current threats that any given sector is exposed to. However, some weaknesses in the UK's current land transport security regime were identified, including, for example, procedures for dealing with multi-modal transport hubs at which different threat levels are applied to different modes; ensuring that staff had a consistent level of training and an understanding of potential threats, risks and preventative measures; and the difficulty of maintaining a high level of both staff and public vigilance. The principal recommendation is that the Government should participate actively in EU discussions to ensure that any detailed proposals are focussed and appropriate to the UK. Parliament should be keep abreast of developments so that we can continue to contribute to the shaping of policy in this area

Download or read book Public Trust in Government Statistics written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-02-25 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this report the Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) concludes that, despite the positive steps implemented by the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 (the Act), there remain issues and concerns about the way government statistics are produced and disseminated which remain a genuine risk to public confidence in the statistical system and must be addressed. The Act was intended to ensure that statistics are produced to the highest professional standards and that effective governance structures are in place to protect transparency and accountability and the Committee found the Act had helped to improve the operation of the statistical system. However, the Act needs to have greater clarity and transparency in the way it operates and in the functioning of the UK Statistics Authority (the Statistics Authority). Those who regulate the quality of National Statistics are in the same organisation as those officials who produce data: the two groups should have a clear separation in practice, but this is hard to demonstrate when they work in the same building and share support services. It is also not appropriate that ministers should have lengthy prior access to certain statistics but other interested parties do not. The Statistics Authority does not seem to have sufficient control over the quality and integrity of the different data sets and statistical products produced by departments and their agencies. Planning and improving data access both within Government and for users outside Government should be given greater attention by the Statistics Authority, as well as by Government departments.

Download or read book HC 1140 Local Transport Expenditure Who Decides written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Transport Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-06-03 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Transport infrastructure in some parts of the UK may get left behind under the new system to be used from next year (2015) to share out central government money for local major transport schemes. The Government has again changed the system for distributing money to local areas for major transport projects, with much more emphasis now on competition for funding. This will not necessarily help regions get a fairer share of transport funding and could make the situation worse. The Government's focus on using competition to bring in private sector funding for projects could disadvantage the regions, where there tends to be less private sector money available compared with London. Those Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) which are well organised and resourced will have an advantage in bidding for funds. Other areas may lose out as a result. In addition, with greater reliance on competitive bidding for funds, there will see more money wasted on failed bids. Strategically significant schemes such as access to ports must not get overlooked. The changes are set against a backdrop where far less money is spent on transport projects outside London than in the capital. Transport infrastructure spending is £2,500 per head in London compared with £5 per head in the north east. This inequality must change. The Committee calls for the new funding arrangements to be reviewed by the end of the next Parliament to ensure that they are efficient and effective in providing funding for the most urgent transport priorities.

Download or read book Public engagement in policy making written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee and published by Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-06-03 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this report the Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) calls for a "wiki" approach to policy-making, where public opinion, ideas and contributions are sought and welcome at any and all stages of the policy cycle. The Government should be able to demonstrate that it has adopted this approach alongside ministerial leadership and responsibility for policy and its outcomes. All policy making carries risks: a lack of appetite for participation, disappointment arising from unrealistic expectations and the dominance of vested interests. Government must frankly assess and address these risks in relation to open policy making. Digital technology has a significant role to play in opening up policy-making. Government could and should go further and embrace radical and innovative approaches, making use of existing platforms and technologies, such as Twitter. The success and impact of public engagement in policy-making must be effectively measured. Government must able to demonstrate value for money and improved outcomes with this new approach, particularly in a time of austerity. The Committee says proposals for both "open" and "contestable" policy-making demonstrate that Government recognises the value of public opinion in helping to identify problems and develop solutions. However, for open policy-making to work, it must be a genuine departure from more traditional forms of policy-making, where public engagement has usually only occurred after the Government has already determined a course of action. Care must be taken to ensure that open policy-making processes are not dominated by vested interests or 'the usual suspects' who are aware of policy 'opportunities'.

Download or read book Future oversight of administrative justice written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-03-08 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Administrative justice" includes the procedures used by public authorities for making decisions in relation to individual people, the law that regulates decision-making, and the systems (such as the various tribunals and ombudsmen) that enable people to challenge these decisions. There are around 650,000 administrative justice hearings each year - more than three times the number of criminal justice hearings - and it is estimated that resolving citizen's complaints costs central government over £500 million per year. The functions of the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council (AJTC) include keeping the whole administrative system under review and considering ways to make the system accessible, fair and efficient. The Government proposes to abolish the AJTC using powers in the Public Bodies Act 2011, and to give its functions to the Ministry of Justice. It is expected to bring forward the necessary secondary legislation later this year. The Committee finds that the Government's rationale for winding up the AJTC is questionable, that the Ministry of Justice may not have either the resources or the expertise to take on its functions and doubts the level of cost savings that the Government estimates will be achieved. The Committee also recommends that the House of Commons Justice Committee take its findings from this inquiry into account when it considers the Government's proposed legislation.

Download or read book Strategic thinking in Government written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-04-24 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the light of recent concerns about a strategic vacuum at the centre of Government, this Report explores the capacity of Ministers and officials to carry out long-term strategic thinking to tackle the complex, diverse and unpredictable domestic and global challenges the country faces. It finds that an absence of clear and precise definition of terms meant that policy and different levels of strategy became muddled, leading to unintended and unwelcome outcomes. Drawing on the evidence it received, the Report sets out clear definitions for national or 'grand' strategy, operational strategy and policy. PASC have produced a number of recommendations to overcome the barriers to working strategically in Government. Central to these recommendations is that the Government should publish an annual 'Statement of National Strategy' in Parliament which reflects the interests of all parts of the UK and the devolved policy agendas. The report states that the Cabinet and its committees are accountable for decisions, but there remains a critical unfulfilled role at the centre of Government in coordinating and reconciling priorities across departments, and of long-term and short-term goals. The report concludes that the government's six strategic aims as provided to PASC are "too meaningless to serve any useful purpose". The strategic aims of the Government, informed by public opinion, should reflect the UK's national character, assets, capabilities, interests and values, and provide an indication of the objectives which policies must achieve

Download or read book Caught Red Handed Why We can t Count on Police Recorded Crime Statistics HC 760 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: International Development Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-02-13 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the next ten years, development aid in the form of grants should be replaced for lower middle income countries. DFID should continue to channel some of its finance through multilaterals, making greater use of their specialist skills and expertise rather than replicating these within its own bilateral programmes. DFID should also establish a financial instrument team, prepare a development finance strategy and publish a Development Finance White Paper during 2014. This strategy should include consideration of whether to establish a UK development bank. The overwhelming drive in UK aid should continue to focus on lifting people out of poverty and meeting post-2015 development objectives. The UK should continue to fund the development and delivery of key services to the very poorest people in low income countries through a system of grants. We should also continue to channel 0.7 % of GNI into development cooperation. But, to support structural transformation in lower middle income countries a significant proportion of future UK development finance should also be delivered via a system of concessional loans and other financial instruments

Download or read book The Insolvency Service written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Business, Innovation and Skills Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-02-06 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Business, Innovation and Skills Committee has today published a report containing a number of conclusions and recommendations resulting from its inquiry into the Insolvency Service, including: (i) without an increase in resources the investigations unit will be unable to increase the number of cases it can prosecute which will further undermine stakeholder confidence; (ii) there is a risk that further reductions in annual running costs and staff may put undue pressure on the Insolvency Service to deliver; (iii) it is clear from the evidence that the fee-generated income model for the Official Receiver Service is unreliable in the current economic climate (iv) issues remain with pre-pack administration, which need to be addressed; (v) given the level of debt relief they can receive, it would not be unreasonable to increase the £525 upfront fee that individual debtor bankrupts have to pay. The Committee welcomes the news that the regulators and the insolvency industry have been working together to create common regulatory standards across the profession. The creation of a single gateway for complaints, common standards and a common appeals process would be an important step in this regard. The Service should be required to publish an annual report that charts progress in this area.

Download or read book Business appointment rules written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-07-25 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The current Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACoBA) lacks adequate powers and resources; does not have appropriate membership for its function; and should be abolished. Instead, the Committee says, Government should legislate to establish statutory ethics regulation with a code of conduct and enforceable statutory penalties, overseen by an independent ethics Commissioner. The new Commissioner would also take over the role of the Prime Minister's Adviser on Ministers' Interests - who advises on ministerial conduct. PASC also renews their call for the power to initiate investigations into the Ministerial Code on his or her own initiative. Enforceable statutory penalties should be introduced for failing to comply with the Commissioner's recommendations. Government reforms are implementing increasingly close working between public servants and the private and voluntary sectors. Changes to public service delivery - including the outsourcing of public sector functions and the active promotion of "interchange" between sectors-are blurring the boundaries between the public sector and other organisations. This could present greater opportunities for public officials to use their position for personal gain, and may give rise to public concern about the probity of former, and serving, public officials. The Committee says that ACoBA's procedures are "opaque" and not helpful to departing public officials who may need guidance about what appointments may be regarded as inappropriate for them to take up and does nothing to deter misleading and damaging mis-reporting of individual cases