Download or read book The Impact of the Office of Government Commerce s Initiatives on the Delivery of Major IT enabled Projects written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2005-07-05 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Central civil government annually spends £2.3 billion on information technology, some 16% of its total procurement budget. This report examines the progress the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) has made in improving departments' capacity to deliver successful IT projects and programmes. In particular it looks at the application of the Gateway Review Process, where there is an independent review of projects at critical points; the use of OGC initiatives by departments; and engagement with suppliers.

Download or read book Sessional Papers written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons and published by . This book was released on 1977 with total page 1082 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book H M Treasury written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2007-11-27 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Under the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) there are now 800 contracts with private sector suppliers for services worth in total £155 billion up to 2032. To achieve value for money, all stages of a project have to be managed effectively, including in the tendering process. The Committee, in a 2003 report highlighted a number of issues regarding the PFI tendering process (HCP 764, session 2002-03, ISBN 9780215011244). This report re-examines the tendering and benchmarking in PFI, finding that the Treasury had done little to apply what it had learned from the large number of PFI deals signed; that there has been no improvement in tendering times and significant risks to value for money continue to be taken when public authorities make late changes to deals. The Committee has set out 7 conclusions and recommendations, including: that since 2004, the proportion of deals attracting only two bidders has more than doubled with the risk of no competition; one third of public sector teams made changes to PFI projects after they had selected a single, preferred bidder; benchmarking and market testing have increased prices by up to 14%; public authorities have found it difficult to find appropriate data to benchmark PFI service costs; there is evidence that public authorities, faced with price increases have had to cut back services in hospitals, including portering, to keep contracts affordable; that there is a continuing lack of PFI experience and skills within public procurement teams.

Download or read book The right of access to open countryside written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2007-06-21 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Countryside Rights of Way Act 2000 introduced a public right to walk across designated mountain, moor, heath, downs and registered common land in England. DEFRA tasked the Countryside Agency with opening-up the new access by the end of 2005, and the target was met with two months to spare. However the implementation of the right to roam cost the Countryside Agency £24.6 million more than anticipated, with knock-on impacts on other programmes. This report looks at the implementation of open access and the effect of the policy under the headings: encouraging the public to use the right to roam across the countryside; protecting the environment of access land and the rights of landowners; improving planning and project management. However the success of legislation is as yet unknown because there is no information on the extent to which the public are making use of their new right. In October 2006 the responsibility for open access passed from the Countryside Agency to Natural England.

Download or read book The modernisation of the West Coast Main Line written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2007-06-14 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Railtrack first planned the upgrade of the West Coast Mainline it was to have been completed in two phases in 2002 and 2005, used untried signalling technology and cost £2.6 billion. In the event the signalling was not installed, progress was much slower than anticipated and Railtrack collapsed. Network rail took over the project and put in place a more robust strategy to deliver the upgrade in three stages between 2004 and 2008. The first two stages have already been delivered on schedule. However the total modernisation cost is likely to be around £8.6 billion and the line will still be prone to overcrowding at peak times and is thus likely to need further investment. This report looks at the project on the basis of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General.

Download or read book Department of Health written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2007-06-07 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Properly managed, the use of temporary nurses can play an important role in helping hospital achieve flexibility. However their high use can have a detrimental impact on patient care and satisfaction. In 2001 the Department of Health anticipated that a growth in the NHS workforce would lead to a decline in the use of temporary staff but in spite of this intention temporary nurses still account for the same percentage of the nursing budget (around 9%). On the basis of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Committee has investigated the extent of the use of temporary nurses; whether the process is properly planned and managed; and whether there are safety and quality implications. One of the conclusions is that there has a lack of planning and it is only as a result of the problem with deficits that the NHS has taken a more co-ordinated approach

Download or read book HM Revenue and Customs written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2007-06-12 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In January 2004, the Inland Revenue entered into a contract with Capgemini to provide IT services to support the Department's business. The contract, known as ASPIRE (Acquiring Strategic Partners for the Inland Revenue), replaced two previous contracts with EDS and Accenture and, following the merger of the Inland Revenue and HM Customs & Excise in 2005, the latter's IT services contract with Fujitsu was incorporated within ASPIRE in April 2006. This change from one supplier to another was the first of this scale in the public sector, and the contract provides wider lessons for the public sector in re-competing major contracts, particularly relating to the payment of transition costs. The cost of the contract has risen from £2.83 billion to £8.5 billion over the 10 year term. Following on from a NAO report on this topic (HCP 938, session 2005-06; ISBN 9780102939170) published in July 2006, the Committee's report examines the procurement process, the transition to a new supplier and the performance of the ASPIRE contract to date. Findings include: i) before concluding the deal, the Department should have evaluated bids against a range of demands for IT services and analysed the effect of different scenarios on suppliers' prices and profit margins; ii) it should have evaluated the performance of consultants and the lessons to be learned from their use, not only for their own benefit but for that of other departments; iii) by contributing to bid costs and paying transition costs to secure competition for the contract, the Department incurred a premium of £51.9 million; iv) it should set more challenging performance targets to impose sufficient discipline on suppliers; and v) the Government should not be placed in the invidious position of having to commission further work from a contractor in order to recover compensation for underperformance.

Download or read book Improving Patient Care by Reducing the Risk of Hospital Acquired Infection written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2005-06-23 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The best available estimates suggest that annually there are at least 300,000 cases of hospital acquired infection, causing 5,000 deaths and costing the NHS £1 billion. This report follows on from a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General ( HC 876 2003-04, ISBN 0102929157) and examines the progress made by the Department of Health and NHS trusts in reducing the risks. It looks at three main areas: the extent and impact of hospital acquired infection; improving knowledge of and compliance with good infection control practice; improving infection control systems and management processes. The conclusion is that progress has been patchy, with a lack of urgency on several key issues such as ward cleanliness and hand hygiene. Progress has also been hampered by a lack of data, a national mandatory surveillance programme and evidence of the effectiveness of different intervention strategies

Download or read book The Impact of the 2007 08 Changes to Public Service Pensions written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2007-08, new pension schemes were introduced for civil servants, NHS staff and teachers, designed to make public service pensions affordable. The changes are likely to reduce costs to taxpayers of the pension schemes by £67 billion over 50 years, with costs stabilising at around 1% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or 2% of public expenditure. The Committee is concerned that the Treasury did not test the potential impact of changes in some of the key assumptions underpinning the long-term cost projections. In addition, the Treasury has not tested whether reducing the value of pensions would affect the public sector's ability to recruit and retain high quality staff. Three-fifths of the savings to the taxpayer were expected to come from the cost sharing and capping mechanism - a transfer, from employers to employees, of extra costs that arise if pensioners live longer than previously expected. Employees would potentially pay 70% more for their pensions over the next 50 years if life expectancy continues to increase more than expected. Implementation remains on hold while the Government decides how to respond to the Independent Public Service Pensions Commission (the Hutton Commission). Public service employees do not have a clear understanding of the value of their pensions because they are not provided with clear and intelligible information to enable them to make rational decisions. Further changes to public service pensions are expected as Hutton's recommendations are implemented, but this should bring a period of stability and certainty for long-term public service pensions policy.

Download or read book Journals of the House of Commons written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons and published by . This book was released on 1802 with total page 1290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Journals of the House of Lords written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Lords and published by . This book was released on 1856 with total page 669 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Appendices accompany vols. 64, 67-71.

Download or read book Reports from Committees of the House of Commons which Have Been Printed by Order of the House written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons and published by . This book was released on 1803 with total page 869 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Child Support Agency written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2007-07-05 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since it was established in 1993, the Child Support Agency has consistently underperformed, plagued by enormous backlogs of unprocessed cases and uncollected maintenance. Where it works well, the Agency has secured regular contributions from non-resident parents and helped lift an estimated 100,000 children out of poverty. It has to administer complex assessment, collection and enforcement processes and deal with complicated emotional, financial and legal issues to bring about a degree of financial stability for children and parents. Following on from a NAO report (HCP 1174, session 2005-06; ISBN 9780102938692) published in June 2006, the Committee's report examines the implementation of child support reforms, focusing on why the problems in implementing the reforms arose, the impact on the quality of service, the remedial action taken by the Child Support Agency and the lessons learnt. The report finds that implementing the reforms has cost the taxpayer £539 million since 2000, with plans for a further £320 million to improve service levels over the next three years; but the money has failed to deliver improvements in efficiency and quality of service. The Agency still performs less effectively than its counterparts in Australia and New Zealand, with higher average costs per case and lower rates of compliance. The Government published its White Paper (Cm. 6979, ISBN 9780101697927) in December 2006, drawing on the recommendations made by Sir David Henshaw in his report "Recovering child support: routes to responsibility" (Cm. 6984, ISBN 9780101689427). Amongst the reforms announced, the Government will replace the Child Support Agency (CSA) with a new organisation, the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission (C-MEC) by 2008.

Download or read book PFI the STEPS Deal written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2005-06-14 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report from the Committee of Public Accounts looks at the PFI deal struck between HM Customs and Excise and the Inland Revenue, in April 2001, when it transferred the ownership and management of most of their estates to Mapeley, a private sector consortium. The deal was to provide a reduction in costs, particularly in having the ability to vacate up to 60% of the estates, with residual lease costs being borne by Mapeley. The contract was won by Mapeley because it offered a cheaper bid, based on speculative returns from the increases in commercial property values over a 20-year time period, also it believed it would win other business contracts to increase profits. Once the PFI contract was signed the freehold and long-leasehold properties were transferred to a company based in Bermuda. Because of the implications for capital gains tax and a later request from Mapeley for additional money, The Committee makes a number of recommendations on how the contract could have been better handled by the Department.

Download or read book The Irish Administration written by R. B. McDowell and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-10-01 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The developments and achievements of the Irish administration, overshadowed by the more spectacular aspects of Irish history have received comparatively little attention. But Irish conditions in the 19th Century encouraged and compelled the state to exert itself on a more extensive front than in contemporary England and a number of government departments played a very active and often creative part in Irish social and economic life. In this work, originally published in 1964, and based on a wide range of printed and manuscript sources, the author shows how the administrative structure was drastically rationalised and modernised. The author is also interested both in the work the administration performed and the men who staffed it. The Irish administration during the century came into contact with many different aspects of Irish society.

Download or read book Reports from Committees of the House of Commons written by and published by . This book was released on 1803 with total page 870 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Journals of the House of Commons written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: