Download or read book Sessional Index for Session written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 276 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 House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts The New Homes Bonus HC 114 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-10-31 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New Homes Bonus was introduced as a financial incentive for local authorities to encourage the building of new homes. The scheme is funded from existing local authority grants. £7.5 billion will have been redistributed between councils by 2018-19, so there is a lot of money at stake. It is clearly vital that the incentives work and the Government achieves its aim. It is therefore disappointing that after more than two years of the scheme being up and running, no evaluation is in place and no credible data is available to show whether the scheme is working or not. So far the areas which have gained most money tend to be the areas where housing need is lowest. The areas that have lost most tend to be those where needs are greatest. The Department has yet to demonstrate whether the New Homes Bonus works. Is it helping to create more new homes than would have been built anyway? Is it the best way for Government to use its limited resources to create more homes where they are needed most? Its planned evaluation of the Bonus scheme is now urgent

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 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 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 Reports from Committees written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons and published by . This book was released on 1862 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

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 The Law Times written by and published by . This book was released on 1855 with total page 790 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 1847 with total page 896 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Appendices accompany vols. 64, 67-71.

Download or read book Report from the Select Committee on Finance written by and published by . This book was released on 1797 with total page 826 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Parliamentary Papers written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons and published by . This book was released on 1861 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Report written by Commonwealth Shipping Committee and published by . This book was released on 1909 with total page 706 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

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 House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts The Duchy of Cornwall HC 475 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Duchy of Cornwall (the Duchy) delivered a good financial performance in 2012-13, increasing its total income and also its net revenue after taking account of costs. However, the Treasury is not doing enough to scrutinise the Duchy's financial strategy or transactions-it does not independently verify information offered by the Duchy, and details of its approvals for the Duchy's land transactions over £500,000 are not published. The Duchy has a Crown Exemption from tax, but there is no clear understanding of any consequences for its competitors, which are subject to corporation and capital gains tax. The transparency of The Prince of Wales's tax payments is limited by reporting only a combined amount for income tax and VAT. The Duchy's charter rules that each future Duke of Cornwall will be the eldest son and heir of the Monarch, which is out of line with the Succession to the Crown Act 2013.

Download or read book Managing Financial Resources to Deliver Better Public Services written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annually, central government spends some £558 billion, and this is forecast to increase to £678 billion by 2010-11. Strong and competent financial resources management is central to departments meeting their objectives cost effectively and delivering public services which represent value for money. Since the Committee's last report on this topic (HC 181, 25th report of session 2003-04, ISBN 9780215023636) the number of qualified finance directors with a seat on the departmental board has increased, enhancing the focus on financial performance at senior management level, but the lack of financial skills and awareness amongst non-finance staff remains a barrier to improving financial management more generally across government. Accruals-based accounting and budgeting systems are helping some departments identify under-utilised assets and dispose of those no longer required. Departments need to improve their forecasting capabilities to strengthen budgetary control and to avoid underspends not being identified early enough to reallocate resources to other priorities. Departments are continuing to spend less money than they forecast, particularly on capital projects, increasing the risk that resources are not being allocated across government in the most effective way. Few departmental boards are presented with accurate, timely and integrated financial and operational performance information to enable them to take sufficiently informed decisions on the use of resources and to review performance. Although the Treasury and Cabinet Office have a number of initiative to improve resource management, there is some way to go before financial management is fully embedded within departmental cultures.