Download or read book National Offender Management Service written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2006-06-06 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The prison population in England and Wales has been increasing since the 1990s and by November 2005 it reached a record level of 77,800, resulting in increased levels of overcrowding and stretched resources. Following on from a NAO report (HC 458, session 2005-06 (ISBN 0102935696) published in October 2005, the Committee's report examines how the Home Office, the Prison Service and the National Offender Management Service (which has responsibility for managing and accommodating prisoners) are dealing with the challenges involved in accommodating this record number of prisoners, the construction and use of temporary accommodation and the impact on the delivery of education and other training for prisoners. The Committee makes a number of conclusions and recommendations including in relation to: the deportation of foreign nationals, the use of alternatives to remand such as electronic tagging, contingency planning to ensure greater flexibility in accommodation plans including pilot testing new accommodation to identify possible problems early on, the application of best practice in anti-suicide monitoring measures, and the impact of moving prisoners around the prison estate on their training needs.

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 Reducing Brain Damage written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2006-07-11 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Strokes are one of the top three causes of death in England and a leading cause of adult disability. There are 110,000 strokes each year in England, with a quarter occurring to people under 65 years. Some 300,000 people in England are living with moderate to severe disabilities as a result of a stroke. As the NAO report on this subject pointed out (HCP 452, session 05/06 NAO ISBN 010293570X), it costs the economy in total about £7 billion a year, with the direct cost to the NHS about £2.8 billion. This Committee of Public Accounts report takes evidence from the Department of Health and sets out a number of recommendations. The cost of stroke, in both economic and human terms, could be reduced by re-organizing existing services more effectively. Brain scans of many stroke patients are being delayed, everyone who suffers a stroke should be scanned as soon as possible after arrival in hospital, and should not wait more than 24 hours. Stroke patients should spend longer in hospital on a stroke unit, this could reduce the number of deaths. There needs to be an increase in the number of consultants who have training in dealing with strokes, as well as therapists and other specialist staff with expertise in stroke care across the primary and secondary healthcare sectors. The Department of Health should improve provision of information to stroke survivors and carers, so they are made more aware of the support services available. The Department should run an awareness campaign to improve public knowledge about strokes

Download or read book The BBC s efficiency programme written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-03-06 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: BBC's efficiency Programme : Seventy-third report of session 2010-12, report, together with formal minutes, oral and written Evidence

Download or read book Providing the UK s carrier strike capability written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-11-29 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) had started, the Department had contracts for two carriers with an estimated cost of £5.24 billion and delivery dates of 2016 and 2018. Decisions taken in the Review mean the UK will have no carrier aircraft capability from 2011-2020. While two carriers are still being built, only one will be converted to launch the planes that have now been selected, and the other will be mothballed. The UK will only have one operational carrier with a significantly reduced availability at sea when Carrier Strike capability is reintroduced in 2020. That carrier is being built according to the old design and will have to be modified to make it compatible with the requirements of the new aircraft: the cost of these modifications will not be known until 2012. The SDSR decision is forecast to save £3.4 billion, but only £600 million of this is cash savings while the remainder is simply deferring expenditure beyond the Department's 10 year planning horizon. The decision will lead to nine years without Carrier Strike and full capability will not be achieved until 2030. And more work will be needed to get the best and most flexible operational use from the carrier. The Committee is disappointed that the systemic issues that have appeared in its other recent defence reports continue to arise. The Committee has built on what has been said in past reports and focussed on two key areas: strategic decision-making and delivery of capabilities

Download or read book Tax Avoidance written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-04-26 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Among those ranged against HMRC are the big four accountancy firms, Deloitte, Ernst and Young, KPMG, and PwC, which earn £2 billion each year from their tax work in the UK. They employ nearly 9,000 people just to provide tax advice aimed at minimizing the tax paid. Between them they boast 250 transfer pricing specialists whereas HMRC has only 65 people working in this area. The firms declare that their focus is now on acceptable tax planning and not aggressive tax avoidance however they continue to sell complex tax avoidance schemes with as little as 50 per cent chance of succeeding if challenged in court. The large accountancy firms are in a powerful position in the tax world and have an unhealthily cosy relationship with government. They second staff to the Treasury to advise on formulating tax legislation. When those staff return to their firms, they have the very inside knowledge and insight to be able to identify loopholes in the new legislation and advise their clients on how to take advantage of them. This is a clear conflict of interest which should be banned in a code of conduct for tax advisers. The UK must also take the lead in demanding urgent reform of international tax law, so that companies have to pay a fair share of tax where they actually do business and make profits. Furthermore, the job of simplifying our tax code needs to be taken seriously; yet the Office of Tax Simplification has just 6 people working in it

Download or read book Recovery of Debt by the Inland Revenue Forty Ninth Report of Session 2003 04 Report Together with Formal Minutes Oral and Written Evidence written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2004 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Inland Revenue collects over £200 billion a year in tax and National Insurance contributions from 30 million taxpayers, ranging from individuals to multinational corporations. The total amount of debt from unpaid taxes stood at £12 billion at the end of March 2004, of which £3 billion was more than a year old. Following on from a NAO report (HCP 363, session 2003-04; ISBN 0102927596) published in March 2004, the Committee has examined the progress made by the Inland Revenue to speed up debt recovery, whether more can be done to encourage prompt payment and the application of good practice in debt management. Findings include that the Department should impose a surcharge on persistent late payers; use other government departmental records to find taxpayers it cannot trace; seek additional powers for enforcing debts similar to those of other tax authorities; and include debt management data in its performance measures.

Download or read book Services for people with neurological conditions written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-03-16 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Approximately two million people in the United Kingdom have a neurological condition, including Parkinson's disease, motor neurone disease or multiple sclerosis. But individual care is often poorly coordinated and the quality of services received depends on where you live. Some areas simply don't have enough expertise, both in hospitals and the community. In 2005, the Department for Health launched a new Framework to provide services for people with a neurological condition. There have been some improvements, such as a reduction in waiting times. But unlike the strategies for Cancer and Stroke, the model used to implement the Framework hasn't worked. For this clinical area, the Department left the implementation to local health commissioners but gave them no leadership at all and set no clear targets. It set no baselines and failed to monitor progress and so could not hold them to account where things went wrong. The present Government needs to understand what went wrong here for the future. Health spending on neurological conditions increased by nearly 40 per cent in three years. Over much the same period, emergency admissions have risen by 32 per cent and readmissions to hospital within 28 days have increased from 11.2 per cent to 14 per cent. The Department is moving towards a decentralised health and social care landscape. In doing so, it must set clear objectives for joint health and social care outcomes and services for people with neurological conditions

Download or read book Oversight of user choice and provider competition in care markets written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-12-06 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Currently, 340,000 people, or 30 % of eligible care users, have a personal budget, which enables the individual to choose their care provider. The Government wants all eligible users to be offered a personal budget by April 2013. Personal budgets currently cost the taxpayer £1.5 billion each year. The total annual expenditure on care is around £23 billion. Effective oversight of the care market is essential to protect the interests of both social care users and of taxpayers. There is growing consolidation in the social care market at a regional level. Yet the Department did not have a view on what level of market share represents a risk of provider dominance, or arrangements to protect users should a large-scale provider fail. This is worrying given the recent experience of Southern Cross and the high levels of debt that some providers are carrying. There are risks to the future functioning of the social care market from local authority budget reductions. The report notes some difficult areas with personal budgets: provision of advice, ease of changing support, redress. The Department has to rely on local authorities to implement its policy of universal provision of personal budgets but it cannot compel local authorities to act. The Department will shortly issue a White Paper on reforming social care delivery. The changes the Department makes must address concerns about giving users a real choice, overseeing the market to ensure competition and stability, and putting in place arrangements and contingencies to deal with major provider failure.

Download or read book Hmrc 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 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tax lost through the hidden economy could be over £2 billion and involve some 2 million people. HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) spent 41 million in 2006-07 on encouraging people and businesses into the formal economy, detecting and imposing sanctions on those operating in the hidden economy, achieving a return/cost ration of 4.5:1. HMRC detects some 30,000 hidden economy cases a year, a detection rate of only around 1.5 per cent, but the amount of tax recovered has increased by 13 per cent in real terms since 2003-04. Areas of risk include: self-employed builders and decorators who often receive cash payments; individuals who trade on the internet; and buy-to-let landlords. To increase detections HMRC is making more use of data matching techniques, and the Tax Evasion hotline received over 120,000 calls in 2006-07, but progress in investigating cases has been slow with only 2000 completed against a target of 5,500. HMRC can impose penalties of up to 100 per cent of tax owed, but usually imposes a lower penalty or waives them. Prosecutions are not given much publicity, limiting their wider deterrent effect. Advertising campaigns to encourage people to declare tax owed have led to 8,300 registrations bringing in extra tax of £38 million over three years. Offshore Disclosure arrangements have been even more successful following landmark rulings requiring financial institutions to release details of around 400,000 offshore accounts. Some 45,000 people came forward bringing in around £400 million at a cost of £6 million, a return of £67 for every £1 spent.

Download or read book The Supervision of Community Orders in England and Wales written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008-11-04 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since their introduction under the Criminal Justice Act 2003, community orders have offered courts the ability to impose a range of 12 possible 'requirements', including accredited programmes (such as anger management courses or alcohol and drug rehabilitation), unpaid work in the community and supervision by the National Probation Service. There is little information available nationally on the effectiveness of community orders. On the key measure of reconviction, figures from the Ministry of Justice showed that for those sentenced to community orders, their actual reconviction rate was significantly lower than those sentenced to custodial sentences for similar offences. There is, though, no basic information such as national data on whether offenders have completed their community orders, nor on why offenders have failed to complete them. The National Probation Service has set national standards but these are applied inconsistently. The Ministry's current method of funding Probation Areas is unsatisfactory and slow to respond to changes in demand from the courts and it is felt that there is a need for a more flexible system. On the basis of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Committee examined the Ministry of Justice on increasing effectiveness of community orders; building the confidence of both the court and the community in community orders; improving the funding formula; and tightening adherence to the requirements of orders.

Download or read book British Council written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Public Accounts Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report (HC 814, session 2007-08, ISBN 9780215525468) looks at the work of the British Council and what impact the Council has working with whole societies, how it makes best use of resources and their efforts to increase consistency across the British Council network. It follows an NAO report (HCP 625, session 2007-08, ISBN 9780102954173), on the same topic. The British Council is a Registered Charity and an executive Non-Departmental Public Body as well as a Public Corporation. It aims to build relationships between people in the UK and other countries, through teaching English and running cultural projects. It operates in over 110 countries and engages with over 15 million people a year worldwide. The Committee has set out a number of conclusions and recommendations, including: that the British Council should be congratulated for its achievements in promoting the English language and culture overseas; the Committee believes though that the current teaching model, based on premium prices and concentrated mainly in capital cities, severely restricts its reach; that the Council's recent programme of change has had a negative effect on staff and their view of the Council's leadership; the Council is without a single customer relationship management system, which it is now going to address; that sponsorship and partner income has fallen year on year since 2000-01, and the Council should do more to reverse this trend; the Committee has identified a lack of consistency across the network.

Download or read book The London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-04-19 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The success of the London 2012 Games demonstrates that it is possible for government departments to work together and with other bodies effectively to deliver complex programmes. The £9.298 billion Public Sector Funding Package for the Games is set to be underspent. The Department is also committed to reflect on what more it can do to present costs in a way that goes further and brings out those costs associated with the Games and the legacy that are not covered by the Funding Package. The notable blemish on planning for the Games was venue security. Also, during the Games a large number of accredited seats went unused at events for which the public demand for tickets could not be met. International sports bodies and media organisations wield a lot of power but demands should be challenged. It is now up to the London Legacy Development Corporation to attract investment in the Olympic Park and generate the promised returns to funders. There is concern that the lottery good causes do not have any clear influence over decisions about future sales, despite these decisions directly affecting how much will be available to them and when. On the wider legacy, we look to the Cabinet Office to provide strong leadership to ensure delivery of the longer term benefits. The Government also needs to do all it can to learn and disseminate lessons and to encourage volunteering opportunities both within sport and beyond

Download or read book Nuclear Decommissioning Authority Taking Forward Decommissioning 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 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the 38th report from the Committee of Public Accounts (HCP 370, session 2007-08, ISBN 9780215521668) on the subject of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. The NAO produced a report on the same subject (HCP 238, session 2007-08, ISBN 9780102951974). The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) was established in April 2005 with the aim of decommissioning the UK's civil public sector nuclear sites. By December 2007, 14 of its 19 sites had already shut down and were being decommissioned, with parts of Sellafield being cleaned-up. The NDA discharges its responsibilities through contracts with licensed operators at each site. The sites are managed by site licensees, including preparation of decommissioning plans and performing and sub-contracting work. The licensees are owned by four parent bodies. The NDA aims to improve site performance by putting the right to be the parent body out to tender. There is uncertainty over the costs of decommissioning, with an estimate of £73 billion prepared in 2007, up 30% since 2003. The Committee accepts that the legacy of deferred decision making over a period of 50 years is in part responsible for the cost increases, but believes that some of the escalating costs should be avoidable, including short-term changes to the decommissioning programme and the scale of site support costs. Further, the NDA's work has been hampered by the uncertainty in the level of commercial income earned from ageing and unreliable facilities, with the NDA cutting, at short notice, the levels of funding it projected to provide in the 2007-08 period of decommissioning. This has imposed additional costs on the taxpayer, with the NDA providing £31.6 million to cover costs of early contract closure, staff training and redundancy.

Download or read book Compensating Victims of Violent Crime 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 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme makes financial awards to individuals who have been injured as a result of violent crime. The Scheme is administered by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, a non-departmental public body of the Ministry of Justice. Appeal against the Authority's decisions are heard by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Appeals Panel which is part of the Tribunals Service, an executive agency of the Ministry. Between 2000 and 2006, performance in dealing with claims deteriorate due to poor management within the Authority, combined with a lack of oversight by the sponsoring department. In the seven years since the subject was previously examined only 5 of 16 recommendation have been met in full. On the basis of a report by Comptroller and Auditor General, the Committee examined the Ministry, Authority & Tribunals Service on the reasons for the deterioration in performance

Download or read book Preparing for Sporting Success at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and Beyond 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: The Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) and UK Sport have responsibility for elite sport in the UK. To support goals for London 2012, the Government has agreed a package of funding of over £700 million, while the DCMS will be required to raise £100 million from the private sector. This report follows up recommendations in the Committee's previous report on supporting elite athletes published in July 2006 (HC 898, session 2005-06. ISBN 9780215029768). It was found then that many funded sports had not met their medal targets at the Athens games in 2004. In particular concerns were raised about the way UK Sport measured and reported its own performance and the need for greater clarity about the level of performance required from individual sports in order to secure future funding was highlighted. UK Sport continues to plan on the basis that it will receive all of its funding up to 2012. However there remains a risk that the £100 million from the private sector will not all be raised.On the basis of a report by Comptroller and Auditor General (HC 434, session 2007-08, ISBN 9780102953084) the Committee took evidence from the DCMS and UK Sport on their fudning strategy for medial success at London 2012; their setting of targets and monitoring of progress towards the Games; and their approach to securing wider and long term benefits from elite sporting success.

Download or read book Making Grants Efficiently in the Culture Media and Sport Sector 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 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This inquiry took evidence from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (the Department), Arts Council England, Big Lottery Fund, English Heritage and Sport England on assessing the cost-efficiency of making grants; on supporting grant applicants; on sharing services and information; and on making applications on-line. In 2006-07, the nine principal grant-makers sponsored by the Department awarded grants of £1.8 billion, and spent £200 million on administering the grants and related activities. The grants ranged in size from £200 to many millions of pounds. The bodies held little information on the costs of their individual grant programmes and how these costs compare with others. The average cost of awarding £1 of grant across a sample of open application programmes in the sector ranged from three pence to 35 pence. Much of the variance in cost can be explained by the different objectives of the programmes and the needs of applicants. Grant-makers often receive applications which are incomplete or inaccurate. One way they could reduce the burden on grant applicants would be through inviting applications on-line. This would also help reduce the costs to grant-makers by reducing the amount of paper applications they have to process and the number of incomplete and ineligible applications. In the past, the Committee has recommended that the Department should take the lead in identifying the scope for savings by encouraging the organisations it funds to share accommodation and services. Little progress appears to be have made in this area. The Department has also done little to encourage benchmarking and the sharing of good practice across the sector.