Download or read book Government response to the House of Commons Health Select Committee report on public expenditure second report of session 2010 11 written by Great Britain: Department of Health and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-01-31 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Government response to HC 512, session 2010-11 (ISBN 9780215555601)

Download or read book Government response to the House of Commons Health Select Committee third report of session 2010 11 written by Great Britain: Department of Health and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-01-31 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Government response to HC 513-I, session 2010-11 (ISBN 99780215555960)

Download or read book House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee PASC Latest Proposals for Ministerial Involvement in Permanent Security Appointments PASC s Recommendations HC 1041 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-02-28 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At present the Prime Minister can only veto a candidate selected on merit. But new proposals put forward by the Civil Service Commission would give the Prime Minister the power to choose between two candidates considered equally well qualified for the role. This report follows a long-running debate between the Civil Service Commission and the Government on the appointment of lead permanent secretaries - the most senior civil servant in a department. In January 2014 the Civil Service Commission put out to consultation two proposals on expanding ministerial influence on the recruitment process. PASC has concluded that the first option - to formalise the recruitment panel's powers to seek, and take into account, the view of the relevant minister during the appointment process - should be adopted. The Committee has warned that the adoption of the Commission's second option - allowing the Prime Minster or Secretary of State to effectively appoint a permanent secretary by choosing between two candidates 'of equivalent merit' risks the appearance that the choice will be made on grounds other than merit alone

Download or read book House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee Trith to Power How Civil Service Reforem Can Succeed HC 74 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-09-06 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) has concluded a year-long inquiry into the future of the Civil Service with only one recommendation: that Parliament should establish a Joint Committee of both Houses to sit as a Commission on the future of the Civil Service. It should be constituted within the next few months and report before the end of the Parliament with a comprehensive change programme for Whitehall with a timetable to be implemented over the lifetime of the next Parliament. The Report considers the increased tensions between ministers and officials which have become widely reported, and places the problems in Whitehall in a wider context of a Civil Service built on the Northcote-Trevelyan settlement established in 1853 and the Haldane principles of ministerial accountability set out in 1919. The government's Civil Service Reform Plan lacks strategic coherence and clear leadership from a united team of ministers and officials. The Northcote-Trevelyan Civil Service remains the most effective way of supporting the democratically elected Government and future administrations in the UK. Divided leadership and confused accountabilities in Whitehall have led to problems: a low level of engagement amongst civil servants in some departments and agencies, and a general lack of trust and openness; the Civil Service exhibits the key characteristics of a failing organisation with the leadership are in denial about the scale of the challenge they face. There is a persistent lack of key skills and capabilities across Whitehall and an unacceptably high level of churn of lead officials, which is incompatible with good government.

Download or read book House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee PASC The Failure of the Cabinet Office to Respond to our Report on the Business Appointment Rules Published July 2012 HC 1156 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-03-27 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There has been concern in the last few years that former Ministers and Crown Servants have inappropriately used knowledge they gained in Government to seek new employment in other sectors. Over two years ago the Committee launched an inquiry to examine the effectiveness of the Business Appointment Rules in ensuring propriety in the future employment of former Ministers and senior Crown servants; and to consider the potential of the Big Society agenda to increase traffic through the "revolving door" between the public sector and business and the voluntary sector. The report "The Business Appointment Rules" was published on 17 July 2012. Some twenty months later, the Government has not responded to the Report. The Committee has raised this matter both through correspondence with the Rt Hon Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office, and by way of Parliamentary Questions. The Committee views the Government failure to respond to a Select Committee Report as unacceptable behaviour and in this instance as obstructive and secretive, both showing a cavalier attitude in its responsibilities towards Parliament and thereby deliberately impeding a cross-party scrutiny of Government policy in this area.

Download or read book House of Commons Health Committee After Francis Making A Difference HC 657 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Health Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-09-18 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The NHS needs to be an organization in which an open dialogue about care quality is part of the natural culture of the organization, not a duty which only arises in cases of service failure. Robert Francis made 290 recommendations in his report, but in truth they boil down to just one - that the culture of 'doing the system's business' is pervasive in parts of the NHS and has to change. Many who raise their concerns in the NHS at present risk serious consequences for their employment and professional status. But disciplinary procedures, professional conduct hearings and employment tribunals are not the proper place for honestly-held concerns about patient safety and care quality to be aired constructively. The NHS standard contract imposes a duty of candour on all NHS providers. This is an essential principle, but it is not adequately understood or applied. It should mean that all providers create a culture which is routinely open both with their patients and their commissioners. The same principle should apply to commissioners so that they are routinely open and accountable to local communities. The Health Committee recommended this approach in 2011 and repeats that now. It should be a prime role of the CQC to encourage the development of this culture within care providers, and of NHS England to develop the same culture within commissioners. The Health Committee will in future work closely with the Professional Standards Authority to develop the accountability process for professional regulators in healthcare

Download or read book Too Soon to Scrap the Census HC 1090 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-04-17 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the start of this Parliament, the Minister for the Cabinet Office indicated the ten-yearly census should be axed and the 2011 census should be the last. But in this report the Public Administration Select Committee urges the government not to scrap the 2021 census. Good figures on the people in the country are of fundamental importance to the statistical system, policy makers and society more widely, and the ten-yearly census gives detailed information on small areas. This report follows the National Statistician's announcement in March 2014 that she recommends that Government keep the Census in 2021, but that it should be conducted largely online, and that the Government should make much greater use of the data which it already holds in order to improve the accuracy of population estimates. The Committee supports the recommendation from the National Statistician, but urges the Office for National Statistics to do much more to make the best use of the data which the Government already collects, for example through the Department for Work and Pensions, HM Revenue and Customs and the Department of Health. The Committee says that the Office for National Statistics' work on the future of the Census has, to date, been limited, and recommends that the Office for National Statistics now sets out a much more ambitious vision for the use of this data to provide rich and valuable population statistics.

Download or read book Legislation at Westminster written by Meg Russell and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-01 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Westminster parliament is a highly visible political institution, and one of its core functions is approving new laws. Yet Britain's legislative process is often seen as executive-dominated, and parliament as relatively weak. As this book shows, such impressions can be misleading. Drawing on the largest study of its kind for more than forty years, Meg Russell and Daniel Gover cast new light on the political dynamics that shape the legislative process. They provide a fascinating account of the passage of twelve government bills - collectively attracting more than 4000 proposed amendments - through both the House of Commons and House of Lords. These include highly contested changes such as Labour's identity cards scheme and the coalition's welfare reforms, alongside other relatively uncontroversial measures. As well as studying the parliamentary record and amendments, the study draws from more than 100 interviews with legislative insiders. Following introductory chapters about the Westminster legislative process, the book focuses on the contribution of distinct parliamentary 'actors', including the government, opposition, backbenchers, select committees, and pressure groups. It considers their behaviour in the legislative process, what they seek to achieve, and crucially how they influence policy decisions. The final chapter reflects on Westminster's influence overall, showing this to be far greater than commonly assumed. Parliamentary influence is asserted in various different ways - ranging from visible amendments to more subtle means of changing government's behaviour. The book's findings make an important contribution to understanding both British politics and the dynamics of legislative bodies more broadly. Its readability and relevance will appeal to both specialists and general readers with interests in politics and law, in the UK and beyond.

Download or read book Change 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 2011-09-22 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Coalition Government has set a sizeable challenge for the Civil Service: to transfer power out of Whitehall and into communities and as a result fundamentally change the way it works. The Committee found that while the Government seeks to embrace change, they have failed to recognise the scale of reform required or to set out the change programme required to achieve this reform. The lack of coordination from the centre and strong political leadership will result in the failure of key policies like the 'Big Society' agenda. The Committee recommended a comprehensive change programme articulating clearly what the Government believes the Civil Services is for, how it must change and with a timetable of clear milestones. This change programme must also include proposals for the Civil Service to retain and develop the new skill sets required to meet the demands of the Big Society policy agenda, and address long-running concerns about the decline in specialist expertise in Whitehall, the failure to innovate and take risks, and the failure to work across departmental silos. The reflect the changing role of the Civil Service, the Committee has also recommended that the Government should consider the development of a new Haldane model of accountability or they must explain how the model remains relevant. The new realities of devolving power out of Whitehall to local government and elsewhere should be codified in the Civil Service governance structure.

Download or read book HC 1152 Our Work in the 2010 2015 Parliament written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Public Administration Select Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 37 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As one of a small number of cross-government select committees, this Committee has gained a perspective on the state of Whitehall and its agencies which is not available to departmental select committees. Throughout the past five years, the recurring theme of their findings and recommendations reflects the importance of effective leadership in creating effective organisations. It is the positive or negative attitudes and behaviour in the people and the culture of an organisation which determines success or failure. Structures, processes and systems are important too, but preoccupation with these so often becomes a distraction from the real problems, which are about why people do not share information for the common good, collaborate effectively and trust one another. PASC took control of the process of selection of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) away from the Government altogether, so that for the first time Parliament has appointed its Ombudsman. They have also held many pre-appointment hearings for the Chairs of public bodies and were the first Select Committee to refuse to accept a government nomination for the chair of a public body. The Government was forced to re-run the selection for the post of Chair of the UK Statistics Authority under a new selection panel, and to propose a different candidate. They also hold hearings on PHSO's thematic reports, to interrogate and hold to account those who must respond to its recommendations. PASC has worked together effectively as a team despite political differences and the often controversial issues tackled

Download or read book More Complains Please HC 229 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-04-14 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How complaints are handled determines the quality of the relationship between consumers and public services. The best performing organisations welcome complaints as a way of engaging consumers. A failure to recognise the importance of complaints leads to insufficient redress for the individual, limits the impact that complaints have in improving services, and alienates the public. In some parts of public services, there are encouraging signs of increased attention to good complaints handling. However, Government as a whole cannot be said to be complying with best practice in complaints handling or adapting to the needs and expectations of today's citizen. Success depends on the right leadership. The Committee recommend that: there should be a minister for government policy on complaints handling; the primary objective of the Cabinet Office review of complaints handling in Government should be to change attitudes and behaviour in public administration at all levels in respect of complaints handling; in respect of complaints from MPs handled by ministers, replies must be accurate, clear and helpful and with no sharing of confidential information or delegation of responsibility for responding; the Government should create a single point of contact for citizens to make complaints about government departments and agencies; and the Government should provide leadership to those responsible for various parts of administrative justice, to ensure that there is a clear and consistent approach to sharing, learning and best practice.

Download or read book Communicating statistics written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee and published by Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-05-29 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this report the Public Administration Select Committee recommends that departmental press officers and government statistics staff should work together much more closely to ensure that press releases give an accurate and meaningful picture of the truth behind the figures. Government statistics press releases do not always give a true and fair picture of the story behind the statistics, sometimes going too far to create a newsworthy headline. And the Committee says the ways that statistics are presented can be a challenge even for expert users. The lay user is left confused and disengaged. The Office for National Statistics website makes figures hard to find and statistics are often presented in a confusing way, for example, in formats which are not easily understandable. Other recommendations include: the UK Statistics Authority should work proactively to bring together and clearly present key statistics, from various sources, around common themes or events, such as elections and referendums, as well as broader topics such as the labour market and economic trends; the ONS website must be improved; the Statistics Authority should find more creative ways of communicating statistics, for example, through interactive guides; publication of more raw data in machine-readable format for experts who want the full results, not just the edited highlights presented in releases for a mass audience; government statisticians produce thousands of pieces of data on demand, known as 'ad hoc statistics' and these should be published proactively, rather than simply in reaction to requests.

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 Security as Politics written by Neal Andrew W. Neal and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-21 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Andrew W. Neal argues that while 'security' was once an anti-political 'exception' in liberal democracies - a black box of secret intelligence and military decision-making at the dark heart of the state - it has now become normalised in professional political life. This represents a direct challenge to critical security studies debates and their core assumption that security is a kind of illiberal and undemocratic 'anti-politics'. Using archival research and interviews with politicians, Neal investigates security politics from the 1980s to the present day to show how its meaning and practice have changed over time. In doing so, he develops an original reassessment of the security/politics relationship.

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 HC 110 Who s Accountable Relationships Between Government And Arm s Length Bodies written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Public Administration Select Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The controversy around the Government's handling of flooding last winter showed that arm's-length Government is confused and opaque. Organisational forms and names are inconsistent. Most public bodies answer to Ministers but some are directly accountable to Parliament. There is no agreement on how many types of body exist. There are overlaps and blurring between categories. Accountability arrangements and reforms so far have been ad hoc. The Government has reviewed non-departmental public bodies, but it should review all forms of arm's-length Government, including executive agencies and non-ministerial departments. The Government should establish a clear taxonomy of public bodies: constitutional bodies, independent public interest bodies, departmental sponsored bodies, and executive agencies. All public bodies should sit in one of the categories, so that it is clear how each is to be governed and sponsored. This is essential in order to clarify who is accountable for what. This would promote understanding of what is expected of relationships and explain the rationale for locating functions in particular organisational forms. Up to date, plain English statements of statuses, roles and relationships are needed even if the underlying arrangements are complicated. This is far from the reality in many cases, particularly in the NHS. With a budget of £95.6 billion NHS England is now by far the largest public body in England and its accountability should not be in any doubt, but it is still evolving. There is insufficient understanding across Government about how arms-length Government should work.

Download or read book Commissioning written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Health Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-04-05 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Further relates to white paper, 'Equity and excellence: liberating the NHS', Cm. 7881 (ISBN 9780101788120). An earlier report on this topic by the Committee published as HC 513-I, session 2010-11 (ISBN 9780215555960). Additional written evidence is contained in Vol. 2, available on the Committee's website at www.parliament.uk/healthcom