Download or read book Twenty second report of session 2010 11 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: European Scrutiny Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-03-24 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twenty-second report of Session 2010-11 : Documents considered by the Committee on 16 March 2011, report, together with formal Minutes

Download or read book Forty second report of session 2010 12 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: European Scrutiny Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-10-25 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forty-second report of Session 2010-12 : Documents considered by the Committee on 12th October 2011, including the following recommendations for debate, financial services: prudential requirements; application of the Schengen acquis in Bulgaria and Romani

Download or read book Twenty second Report of Session 2012 13 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: European Scrutiny Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-12-13 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee Twenty Second Report of Session 2013 14 HC 83 xx written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: European Scrutiny Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-11-27 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Sessional Returns written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-09-14 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On cover and title page: House, committees of the whole House, general committees and select committees

Download or read book Caught Red Handed Why We can t Count on Police Recorded Crime Statistics HC 760 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: International Development Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-02-13 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the next ten years, development aid in the form of grants should be replaced for lower middle income countries. DFID should continue to channel some of its finance through multilaterals, making greater use of their specialist skills and expertise rather than replicating these within its own bilateral programmes. DFID should also establish a financial instrument team, prepare a development finance strategy and publish a Development Finance White Paper during 2014. This strategy should include consideration of whether to establish a UK development bank. The overwhelming drive in UK aid should continue to focus on lifting people out of poverty and meeting post-2015 development objectives. The UK should continue to fund the development and delivery of key services to the very poorest people in low income countries through a system of grants. We should also continue to channel 0.7 % of GNI into development cooperation. But, to support structural transformation in lower middle income countries a significant proportion of future UK development finance should also be delivered via a system of concessional loans and other financial instruments

Download or read book HM Revenue Customs accounts 2010 11 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-12-20 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Commons Public Accounts Committee publishes its 61st Report of the Session which, on the basis of evidence from the Cabinet Office and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), examined tax disputes. At 31 March 2011 HM Revenue & Customs was seeking to resolve tax issues valued at over £25 billion with large companies, some of which included disputes over outstanding tax. In this report, the Committee expresses concern about how the Department handled some cases involving large settlements and that there needs to be proper separation between the negotiation of tax settlements and the authorization of such settlements. The Committee also states that HMRC made matters worse by trying to avoid scrutiny of these settlements, keeping confidential the details of specific settlements with large companies. This effects Parliament's ability to establish value for money, compounded further by imprecise, inconsistent and potentially misleading answers given by senior departmental officials, including the Permanent Secretary for Tax in particular over his evidence on his relationship with Goldman Sachs, in facilitating a settlement with the company over their tax dispute. HMRC governance processes in these matters were inconsistent and it has now appointed two new Commissioners with tax expertise, and plans to introduce a new assessor role to permit independent review of large settlements before they are finalised. The Committee further states that it saw little evidence of personal accountability within the Department, and that a perception has developed that large companies are treated more favourably, receiving preferential treatment compared to small businesses and individuals.

Download or read book The major projects report 2010 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-02-22 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report examines the Ministry of Defence's progress in meeting cost, time and performance targets for its 15 top-spending military equipment projects. The Committee has reported before that the defence equipment programme is unaffordable with commitments exceeding forecast budgets over a ten year period by £36 billion. The MoD's short term decisions to keep in year expenditure within voted limits and the need to understand the full cost implications of these decisions have damaging consequences. In this year alone the cost of the major projects rose by £3.3 billion and nearly £5 billion was lost by late cancellations. The scale of problems created by this financial imbalance masks the improved performance of the majority of projects against cost and budget. The Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) offered the Department an opportunity to bring its plans into balance with the expenditure limits set in the Comprehensive Spending Review. Projects such as the Nimrod MRA4 and Sentinel aircraft have been cancelled, accepting greater operational risks in some areas and writing off nearly £5 billion of taxpayer's money. But implementing the SDSR will require further decisions and the renegotiation or cancellation of a significant number of existing contracts to make the programme affordable. The Department has a poor track record in taking such decisions on the well informed basis necessary to optimise value for money. Other projects examined in detail include the Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers and the Typhoon aircraft.

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 Legislative scrutiny written by Great Britain: Parliament: Joint Committee on Human Rights and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2010-11-29 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Legislative Scrutiny : (1) Superannuation Bill; (2) Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, sixth report of session 2010-11, report, together with formal minutes and Appendices

Download or read book HC 219 xxvii Twenty eighth Report of Session 2014 15 written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. European Scrutiny Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Reducing errors in the benefits system written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-03-10 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are around 30 different types of benefits and pensions, and £148 billion was paid out to 20 million people in 2009-10. The Department for Work and Pensions estimates that £2.2 billion of overpayments and £1.3 billion of underpayments were made in 2009-10 as a result of administrative errors by its staff and mistakes by customers. Efforts to tackle error have had little success and levels of error have remained constant since 2007. A joint HM Revenue and Customs and Department for Work and Pensions fraud and error strategy announced in October 2010, along with additional funding of £425 million over four years, is an opportunity to inject a new impetus. Importantly, the Department has not addressed underpayments, despite the hardship that benefit underpayments can create for people in need. Interventions to reduce error must be targeted where they are most likely to get the greatest return. Progress on reducing error requires a better understanding of where and why errors arise, and a greater focus on preventing errors occurring in the first place. The Department is not making use of all available sources of information to identify the reasons why staff make mistakes, where guidance and training efforts should be directed, and to identify which customers are most likely to make mistakes on their benefit claims. Wider welfare reforms have the potential to reduce errors in the long term by simplifying benefits administration, but waiting for the implementation of the Universal Credit is not an option.

Download or read book HM Revenue Customs written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-03-17 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The two directorates in HMRC responsible for civil investigation work brought in £8.5 billion of tax revenue in 2009-10, nearly 50 per cent more than the total three years before. At the same time they reduced spending by 10 per cent. This was good progress but the Department now has a much more stretching target. Government spending plans require HMRC to bring in an extra £18 billion of tax revenue over the next four years while reducing its costs. A crucial point is that the Department has lacked detailed information on how much different types of enforcement activity cost and what the returns are. It will need this information to meet the challenge of the new target. HMRC must improve its performance in key areas. Its targets for its investigation directorates have not been demanding enough, sometimes being set below the yield achieved in the previous year. Only a quarter of civil investigations of fraud cases were completed within the 18-month target. The level of penalties being imposed in cases of fraud has been too low. And the systems for tracking whether tax debts are being collected are poor.

Download or read book Accountability for public money written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-04-05 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Public Accounts Committee report addresses an issue at the core of the relationship between Parliament and government - accountability for public spending. The Committee is interested in the implications for accountability of two recent developments: the governance reforms which include Ministers chairing departmental boards and greater non-executive involvement in those boards; and the reform and localism proposals which envisage a significant devolution of responsibility for service delivery to a wide range of new bodies, in some cases independent of both central and local government. The reform and localism proposals raised fundamental points about the current model of accountability which the report explores. In practice government has long chosen to discharge accountability through the senior civil servant in each department, the Accounting Officer. Government vests in each Accounting Officer a direct and personal accountability to Parliament for his or her department's stewardship of public funds. While significant sums are spent locally, local taxes account for just 5% of revenue raised and so the overwhelming majority of public spending in the UK is routed through departments and is the responsibility of the departmental Accounting Officer. Parliament vests responsibility in the Public Accounts Committee to hold Accounting Officers accountable on its behalf. Sir Bob Kerslake has been appointed to review how the policy objectives of the reform and localism agenda might be reconciled with the current accountability model based on the Accounting Officer. The Committee sets out its fundamental elements for an effective accountability model.

Download or read book Delivering the cancer reform strategy written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-03 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report examines the Department of Health's and the NHS's performance in delivering cancer services; improving information on activity, cost and outcomes of cancer services; and how the Department intends to deliver cost-effective cancer services in the new NHS. The NHS spent £6.3 billion on cancer services in 2008-09. Tackling Cancer has been a priority for the Department since its ten year NHS Cancer Plan was published in 2000. In 2007 the Department published its five year Cancer Reform Strategy (the Strategy) to deliver improved patient outcomes. The NHS has made significant progress in delivering important aspects of cancer services, with falling mortality rates and consistent achievement of the cancer waiting times targets. However, early diagnosis does not happen often enough. And the gap in survival rates between England and the best European countries has not been closed. There remain wide, unexplained variations in the performance of cancer services and in the types of treatment available across the country; and significant gaps in information about important aspects of cancer services, in particular information on chemotherapy, on follow-up treatment, and on the stage that a patient's cancer has reached at the time of diagnosis. The Department cannot yet measure the impact of the Strategy on key outcomes, such as survival rates, and does not know if cancer services are being commissioned cost-effectively, due to poor data on costs and because outcomes data are not sufficiently timely. The Department must ensure the collection of high quality, comprehensive and timely data.

Download or read book Management of NHS hospital productivity written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-03-15 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Government spending on the NHS has increased by 70%, from £60 billion in 2000-01 to £102 billion in 2010-11., with around 40% spent on services provided by acute and foundation hospitals. There have been significant improvements in the performance of the NHS, particularly in those areas targeted by the Department of Health (the Department) such as hospital waiting times and outcomes for patients with cancer and coronary heart disease. But productivity has actually fallen over the last decade. The Office for National Statistics estimates that, since 2000, total NHS productivity fell by an average of 0.2% a year, and by an average of 1.4% a year in hospitals. The trend of falling productivity will need to be reversed if the NHS is to meet the Department's productivity challenge, to deliver up to £20 billion of efficiency savings a year, by 2014-15, without compromising services. The Payment by Results approach (a tariff for procedures) has driven some improvements, but it only covers 60% of hospital activity and there is substantial variation in hospital costs and activity. The tariff system could, though, prioritise price over quality. National pay contracts have not yet been used to manage staff performance effectively, and consultants' productivity has fallen at the same time as they have had significant pay rises. There are risks to the NHS being able to deliver up to £20 billion savings annually, for reinvestment in healthcare, alongside implementing a substantial agenda of reform. Productivity improvements will be key to delivering these savings.

Download or read book The BBC s management of digital media initiative written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-04-07 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report examines the management of the contract with Siemens and the BBC's in-house development of the Digital Media Initiative Programme. The Programme is designed to transform the way in which BBC staff create, use and share video and audio material. It involves the development of new technology to allow staff to manage content efficiently on their desktops, in order to give greater accessibility of digital content for audiences on TV, online and radio. The BBC has made good progress in delivering the programme in-house since it terminated its contract with Siemens. It is now on course to deliver the complete technology by summer 2011. With hindsight, the BBC should not have let the contract for its Digital Media Initiative to Siemens without testing the contractor against other suppliers, especially as there was a high degree of innovation involved. The Programme is no longer expected to deliver the overall net financial benefit of £17.9 million originally anticipated. The BBC approved the Programme on the basis that it would cost £81.7 million and deliver benefits of £99.6 million, but now forecasts costs of £133.6 million and benefits of £95.4 million - a net cost of £38.2 million. The Committee welcomes the Trust's assurance that it would now take a more challenging approach when considering procurements but are concerned with the ease with which the BBC found over £50 million in savings to make up for the losses it suffered through late delivery of the project and its own increased delivery costs. This suggests the need for a more vigilant approach to value for money.