Download or read book Reducing costs in the Department for Work and Pensions written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-06-23 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The NAO reports that the Department for Work and Pensions will have to make rapid progress in reorganising the way it operates if it is to meet its target of achieving sustainable running cost reductions of £2.7 billion while implementing substantial welfare reforms and a £17 billion reduction in benefits and pensions by 2014-15. Since 2007, the Department has reported reductions of £2 billion in its running costs, and initial out-turn data show that it met its target from the June 2010 Budget to reduce running costs by £535 million in 2010-11. However, the NAO has concluded that the Department must make progress quickly in order to be able to demonstrate that it can secure sustained cost reductions in a structured and strategic way. The report recognises that the DWP is only at the start of its new cost reduction challenge. However, without basing its running cost reduction plans more on robust information on the profile of its business costs and how that relates to the value of the services delivered, the Department is not in the position to make rational choices about what it should stop doing, what it should change and what it should continue. Recent cost reductions have been based largely on budget restrictions rather than on fundamental reform of working practices. Three months into the Spending Review and the Department does not yet have a detailed model of how it wants to run in the future.

Download or read book Cost reduction in central government written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-02-02 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report by the National Audit Office on progress by central government departments in reducing costs concludes that departments took effective action in 2010-11, cutting spending in real terms by 2.3 per cent or £7.9 billion, compared with 2009-10. The analysis of departments' accounts supports the Efficiency and Reform Group's estimate that Government spending moratoria and efficiency initiatives, including cuts to back-office and avoidable costs, contributed around half of the figure, some £3.75 billion. However, the report warns that departments are less well-placed to make the long-term changes needed to achieve the further 19 per cent over the four years to 2014-15, as required by the spending review. This is partly because of gaps in their understanding of costs and risks, making it more difficult to identify how to deliver activities and services at a permanently lower cost. Fundamental changes will be needed to achieve sustainable reductions on the scale required. It is unclear how far spending reductions represent year-on-year changes in efficiency, or whether front-line services are affected; and the departments' forward plans examined by the NAO are not based on a strategic view. Departments' financial data on basic spending patterns is sufficient to manage budgets in-year, but information about the consequences of changes in spending is less good. Longer term reform is a Cabinet Office priority and departments will need to look beyond short-term cost cutting measures and make major operational change. Cost reduction plans also need to build in contingency measures to cover unexpected risks.

Download or read book Reducing costs in the Department for Work and Pensions written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-09-13 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report examines plans for reducing costs and reforming services in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The Department has to reduce its running costs by £2.7 billion by March 2015. The Department intends to achieve over half of this reduction in 2011-12. While the Department aims to improve value for money through fundamental reform, it faces a considerable challenge in doing so at the same time as implementing savings. For example, the introduction of Universal Credit is dependent upon the successful implementation of new IT, and this requires effective resourcing of the IT back office support services in DWP. Furthermore, the Department is assuming running costs reductions from an optimistic expectation that most customers will communicate online with the Department. Both of these areas are high risk, and any delays are likely to impact on planned cost reductions. There are insufficient contingencies in place and services could be adversely affected if things do not go to plan. Spending cuts of this magnitude necessitate fundamental reform to generate sustained efficiency savings - more focus needs to be on the cost and value of activities so that short term benefits are not prioritised above long term efficiency savings. The Department is currently unable to reconcile its proposals for reducing costs with the spending cuts required for the Spending Review (£1.45 billion in 2011-12). The absence of a clear model of how the Department will operate in future creates uncertainty and risks unsettling staff whose morale is already low.

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 Child Maintenance Enforcement Commission written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-02-29 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plans by the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission to reduce its spending are high risk. There is already a £44 million shortfall in the £161 million reduction originally expected by 2014-15. The Commission is reliant on raising £71 million in fee income from parents as part of its planned savings. These estimates are very uncertain, increasing the risk that additional cuts might be needed late on in the Spending Review that could have an adverse effect on services. The existing child maintenance schemes were problematic from the start and large backlogs of work built up. Efficiency has improved since 2006 and the cost of administering child maintenance has reduced. There are, however, strong indications that costs remain high and questions remain about the relative efficiency of the Commission. The Commission does not monitor staff productivity adequately and operated with duplicate management, finance and HR functions in 2010-11 because it retained the former Child Support Agency as a separate division. The Commission has 70 offices, a quite different arrangement from the head office and six processing centres originally planned by the Child Support Agency. The planned cost reductions rely heavily on the introduction of a new child maintenance scheme and associated IT system. Yet IT costs have increased and the Commission risks repeating some of the mistakes made on the earlier child maintenance schemes. The estimates for fee income include assumptions that the NAO cannot substantiate. There is no contingency plan if forecast income for the last year of the Spending Review in 2014-15 proves optimistic

Download or read book Reducing costs in HM Revenue Customs written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-07-20 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: HM Revenue & Customs faces a significant challenge in securing a £1.6 billion reduction in running costs over the next four years, at the same time as increasing tax revenues, improving customer service and achieving reductions in welfare payments. HMRC has reported savings of some £1.4 billion since 2005. To achieve its cost reductions it plans to implement 24 change projects and other measures including savings in the provision of IT services, improvements in productivity, reduced sickness absence and headcount reductions. The size and shape of HMRC will change substantially as it reduces staff numbers by 10,000 and significantly reduces the number of offices it operates. HMRC has established a clear vision and specified operational priorities and revenue targets. It has not yet sufficiently defined the business performance and customer service it intends to achieve by 2015. It has good information on the different costs it incurs but only limited information on the cost of its end-to-end processes and on the cost of servicing different customers groups. It also has a limited understanding of the link between the cost and value of its activities. This has restricted its ability to assess fully the impact of cost reductions on business performance. HMRC has made no allowance in its cost reduction plans for under-delivery or slippage, and currently has no reserve of proposals on which to draw. HMRC has begun to implement its cost reduction plans but has not yet assessed all the dependencies between projects and the critical path for delivery.

Download or read book Progress on Reducing Costs written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-02-07 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In challenging circumstances in 2011-12, HM Revenue and Customs maintained its performance in key strategic areas at the same time as reducing its staff and spending. The challenge for HMRC will be to make more and deeper reductions over the spending review period while increasing tax revenues, improving customer service and introducing its 'real time information' project and changes to benefits and credits. HMRC made £296 million of savings in 2011-12, exceeding its target by 19 per cent. This is about a third of the total savings it is required to make over the four years of the spending review period. However, HMRC expects these projects to save £162 million less over the spending review period than when the NAO last reported on this subject, in July 2011. This is partly because its forecasts are now more refined and realistic, and partly because, as some projects took longer to start, the benefits will take longer to be realised. HMRC has strengthened how it manages its change programme in ways that address NAO and Public Accounts Committee recommendations. The Department has also started to address the recommendations that it should improve its understanding of interdependencies between projects and of the cost and value of its activities though it has more to do in these areas. At September 2012, HMRC was on track to exceed its 2012-13 cost reduction target by £29 million. However, the reduction in planned savings being delivered by change projects means that HMRC needs to find £66 million more savings than it originally planned through other initiatives

Download or read book Department for Work and Pensions Five Year Strategy written by Great Britain: Department for Work and Pensions and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2005 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The welfare state of the 20th century was designed to provide support from the cradle to the grave, but the changing demographic profile of Britain - longer life-spans mean that by 2007 the number of people over state pension age will exceed the number of children - presents a challenge to such a system of support. This plan sets out the Government's strategy of aiming for an 80 per cent employment rate as the best means of keeping people out of poverty, and allowing saving for a secure retirement. Such an aspiration requires the movement into work of a proportion of those people traditionally seen as outside the labour market and with complex barriers preventing entry into that market. Supporting these inactive people into employment will require carefully tailored support. The strategy outlines the approach in three major areas: (1) supporting children and families, including helping lone parents into gainful work; (2) helping those on incapacity benefits to return to work; (3) breaking down barriers to employment faced by disabled people, older workers and ethnic minorities.

Download or read book Department for Work and Pensions departmental report 2007 written by Great Britain: Department for Work and Pensions and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2007-05-16 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dated May 2007

Download or read book Improving the Efficiency of Postal Services Procurement in the Public Sector written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2006-03-24 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All public sector organisations rely to varying degrees on postal services, costing nearly £650 million annually of which £250 million is spent by central government departments. The two biggest spenders are the Department for Work and Pensions and HM Revenue and Customs which account for over half this amount, with ten organisations accounting for 95 per cent of the total. Despite the growth in the use of internet and email, at least for the foreseeable future conventional mail will remain essential to the way public bodies communicate with the public. This NAO report examines how public sector organisations can become more effective in their procurement and management of postal services, and identifies six main areas where further improvements can be made in order to realise an estimated £31 million a year in savings by 2008-09. Two accompanying documents are available separately: case studies which examine the use of postal services in five organisations (HCP 946-II, ISBN 0102937354); and a guide which sets out examples of good practice across public and private sectors (HCP 946-III, ISBN 0102937362).

Download or read book Managing Risks to Improve Public Services written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2004 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years a great deal of effort has been put into improving risk management in departments and in 2002 this was given further impetus when a two year risk programme was launched by the Prime Minister. This report looks at the progress made since the previous NAO report in 2000 (HC 864 1999-2000, ISBN 0105569488). It is based on a survey of the 20 main Whitehall departments, focus groups of 27 departmental risk managers, comparisons with the private sector, academic research and five case studies. The general conclusion is that significant improvement has been made but more needs to be done to make effective risk management a central part of general management processes. The ability to take risks and innovate, keep projects on track and handle complex service delivery needs to be further developed.

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 Making automatic enrolment work written by Great Britain: Department for Work and Pensions and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2010-10-27 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Current policy is that new duties will be staged in between 2012 and 2016, requiring all employers to designate a pension scheme into which all of their employees, aged between 22 and state pension age, should be automatically enrolled, so long as they are earning above an annual earnings threshold (the Pensions Act 2008 sets this at £5,035, equivalent to £5,732 in today's terms). Upon automatic enrolment, a minimum of eight per cent of earnings within a band would be contributed to the pension, with at least three per cent coming from the employer. This policy is designed to maximise private pension saving by individuals without imposing compulsion. The right to opt out will remain. This review looks at the scope of automatic enrolment and whether a new national pension scheme (National Employment Savings Trust or NEST) needs to be put in place for it to work. One of the most significant recommendations that it makes is that people should only be automatically enrolled once they reach the income tax threshold (which will increase to £7.475 in 2011) but that contributions should be on earnings in excess of the National Insurance earnings threshold (£5,715 in today's prices). There should be no changes to age thresholds and automatic enrolment duties should apply to all employers, regardless of size, as now. Employers should be given three months before auto-enrolment to ease the burden on companies. If staff choose to enrol before the three month period then companies will have to make contributions

Download or read book Information Technology for Management written by Efraim Turban and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021 with total page 659 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Information Technology for Management provides students with a comprehensive understanding of the latest technological developments in IT and the critical drivers of business performance, growth, and sustainability. Integrating feedback from IT managers and practitioners from top-level organizations worldwide, the International Adaptation of this well-regarded textbook features thoroughly revised content throughout to present students with a realistic, up-to-date view of IT management in the current business environment. This text covers the latest developments in the real world of IT management with the addition of new case studies that are contemporary and more relevant to the global scenario. It offers a flexible, student-friendly presentation of the material through a pedagogy that is designed to help students easily comprehend and retain information. There is new and expanded coverage of Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Quantum Computing, Blockchain Technology, IP Intelligence, Big Data Analytics, IT Service Management, DevOps, etc. It helps readers learn how IT is leveraged to reshape enterprises, engage and retain customers, optimize systems and processes, manage business relationships and projects, and more.

Download or read book Managing change in the Defence workforce written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-02-09 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Department's approach to reducing its headcount has been largely in accordance with good practice and, up to now, it has acted in a way that is consistent with value for money. However, the urgent need for the Department to cut costs means it is having to cut its headcount in advance of planning in detail how it will operate in the future, thereby risking making current skills shortages worse. The Department plans to cut its civilian workforce by 29,000 and its armed forces by 25,000. To meet these targets, the MOD has started a redundancy programme and a Voluntary Early Release Scheme, both of which run in several tranches. The most recent estimates by the Department are that the process will cost £0.9 billion and produce £4.1 billion in cost reductions (just over £3 billion net). The potential savings fluctuate with the timing of the redundancy tranches (a delay of three months to the second military tranche has reduced savings from this tranche alone by an estimated £100 million to £138 million to 2015). The Department now has to reduce the numbers in the Army by a further 5,000 by 2015 but has not worked out in detail how it will do this. Delays to the process erode the level of potential savings as the Department continues to pay salaries, benefits and contributions to pensions. Without real changes to ways of working, cutting headcount is likely to result in the Department's doing less with fewer people or, alternatively, trying to do the same with greater risk

Download or read book Administration and Expenditure of the Chancellor s Departments 2007 08 written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Treasury Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2009 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Treasury Sub-Committee calls for much greater transparency from the Treasury in accounting for the liabilities taken on by the nationalisation and part-nationalisation of financial institutions. The report recommends that these disclosures appear in the annual Treasury resource accounts. Furthermore they should be at least as comprehensive as those made by major corporations and go further than meeting the minimum acceptable accounting standards. In particular, the Report notes that the Treasury's 2007-08 Annual Report and Accounts cover the Government's financial relationship with Northern Rock but do not comment on its performance under temporary public ownership. Given the level of interest in the fully nationalised institutions of Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley, and the Treasury's role in their governance, the report recommends that key performance information for these institutions be published in the resource accounts as well. The wholesale nationalisation of Northern Rock, and Bradford & Bingley has created governance responsibilities for the Treasury while these entities remain under public ownership. The Government's announcements of October 2008 created further responsibilities regarding the oversight of part-nationalised banks, and created a new body, UK Financial Investments (UKFI). The report calls for UKFI to report annually to Parliament and to be accountable to the Treasury Committee. The Committee wants the Government to identify and publish performance indicators for UKFI, and to report against these measures on a six-monthly basis. All these developments are additional challenges for the Treasury and require it to act in areas its current staff base may not be fully equipped for or familiar with. The Government must ensure the Treasury is sufficiently resourced to manage the extended responsibilities arising from the economic downturn, especially those regarding financial stability.

Download or read book Reducing the risk of violent crime written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008-02-21 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Home Office has been effective at raising the profile of domestic violence and alcohol related crime and encouraging local action to address these issues. Such action is likely to have made some contribution to the overall fall in levels of violent crime. It has not yet managed to address successfully barriers which are reducing the effectiveness of crime prevention activities at a local level and which have been raised in previous reports by the National Audit Office and the Committee of Public Accounts. However, the Home Office has made some progress in addressing these barriers. The persistence of these barriers means that good practice has not been extended from small initiatives, and Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships have not been able to take a long-term, strategic approach to tackling violent crime. There are a number of NAO recommendations.