HC 107 - The Centre of Government

Download HC 107 - The Centre of Government PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : The Stationery Office
ISBN 13 : 0215078330
Total Pages : 24 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (15 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis HC 107 - The Centre of Government by : Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts

Download or read book HC 107 - The Centre of Government written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A strong and effective centre of government is vital for the effective operation of government as a whole and for ensuring a focus on improved value for money for the taxpayer. However, there is a lack of clarity about the centre's precise role, particularly the respective responsibilities of the Cabinet Office, HM Treasury and the Prime Minister's Office (Number 10), and how they work together as a coherent centre. The centre sometimes intervenes to address issues with high-priority government programmes, but has too often failed to do so effectively or at an early enough stage. In part, this is because the centre does not have a joined-up single view of strategic risks across government, meaning it is often reactive in its response rather than able to anticipate potentially serious problems. There are gaps in key skills at the centre and across departments, such as financial management capability and contracting expertise, which are compounded because government repeatedly fails to learn lessons and share good practice from past experience. The Government announced that the roles of Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service will be combined, and there will be a new Chief Executive post at the centre of government. Implementing these changes may provide an opportunity to make progress on the role of the centre

HC 678 - Whole of Government Accounts 2012-13

Download HC 678 - Whole of Government Accounts 2012-13 PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : The Stationery Office
ISBN 13 : 0215080963
Total Pages : 20 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (15 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis HC 678 - Whole of Government Accounts 2012-13 by : Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts

Download or read book HC 678 - Whole of Government Accounts 2012-13 written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the fourth WGA to be published and it remains the most comprehensive picture of the government's income, expenditures, assets and liabilities that is available. Parliament lacks real visibility over the government's delivery of its deficit reduction measures under the current Spending Review. The government has currently delivered only half of its planned measures to balance public sector income and expenditure (fiscal consolidation measures). The experience in the delivery of consolidation measures to date, where for example the planned increases in tax revenues have not been realised, also show that the government will face a significant challenge in delivering the next phase of the consolidation. In assessing the government's performance in its management of public finances, the WGA is now an essential tool in supporting Parliamentary accountability. The Treasury has been slow in ensuring that all parts of the public sector comply with the government's expectations on pay restraint, particularly in setting the pay of senior staff. The Committee welcomes the steps the Treasury has taken to ensure that 'off payroll' arrangements within central government are made more transparent and that the Treasury is sanctioning government bodies when they fail to comply with the guidance.

HC 708 - Managing and Removing Foreign National Offenders

Download HC 708 - Managing and Removing Foreign National Offenders PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : The Stationery Office
ISBN 13 : 021508103X
Total Pages : 24 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (15 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis HC 708 - Managing and Removing Foreign National Offenders by : Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts

Download or read book HC 708 - Managing and Removing Foreign National Offenders written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is eight years since the Committee last looked at this issue and they are dismayed to find so little progress has been made in removing foreign national offenders from the UK. This is despite firm commitments to improve and a ten-fold increase in resources devoted to this work. The public bodies involved are missing too many opportunities to remove foreign national offenders early and are wasting resources, through a combination of a lack of focus on early action at the border and police stations, poor joint working in prisons, and inefficient caseworking in the Home Office. This, combined with very poor management information and non-existent cost data, results in a system that appears to be dysfunctional. Our concerns about the system were not allayed by the evidence we received. The Home Office will need to act with urgency on the recommendations we make in this report if it is to secure public confidence in its ability to tackle effectively these and the wider immigration system issues on which the Committee has previously reported.

HC 457 - The Work Programme

Download HC 457 - The Work Programme PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : The Stationery Office
ISBN 13 : 0215078632
Total Pages : 20 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (15 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis HC 457 - The Work Programme by : Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts

Download or read book HC 457 - The Work Programme written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Department for Work and Pensions is responsible for the Work Programme, which aims to help people who have been out of work for long periods to find and keep jobs. Specifically the Work Programme aims to increase employment, reduce the time that people spend on benefit, and to improve support for the hardest-to-help - those participants whose barriers to employment are, relatively, greater than others on the programme. The Department assigns people to one of nine payment groups depending on characteristics such as age and the benefit each person is claiming. The Department pays prime contractors to provide support to people to get them into long-term employment using a payment-by-results approach. The amount the Department pays a prime contractor depends on its success in getting people into sustained work and the payment group of the individual. The Department has 40 contracts with 18 prime contractors. Either two or three prime contractors operate in 18 different geographic areas across England, Scotland, and Wales. Prime contractors may subcontract some or all of the support they provide. The Department will stop referring people to the Work Programme in March 2016, although payments to prime contractors will continue until March 2020. Between June 2011 and March 2016, the Department expects to refer 2.1 million people to the Work Programme and forecasts total payments to prime contractors of £2.8 billion.

HC 675 - Oversight of the Provate Infrastructure Development Group

Download HC 675 - Oversight of the Provate Infrastructure Development Group PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : The Stationery Office
ISBN 13 : 0215081218
Total Pages : 20 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (15 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis HC 675 - Oversight of the Provate Infrastructure Development Group by : Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts

Download or read book HC 675 - Oversight of the Provate Infrastructure Development Group written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Department for International Development is the main funder of the Private Infrastructure Development Group, a multilateral agency which invests in infrastructure projects in developing countries. The Department has not used its position as by far the dominant funder of PIDG to influence the direction of its operations and improve its performance. The Department's oversight of PIDG has not been sufficiently 'hands on'. The Committee is concerned that the Department has insufficient assurance over the integrity of PIDG's investments and the companies with which it works and the Department has not done enough to put a stop to PIDG's wasteful travel policies and poor financial management.

HC 705 - Managing and Replacing the Aspire Project

Download HC 705 - Managing and Replacing the Aspire Project PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : The Stationery Office
ISBN 13 : 0215081137
Total Pages : 24 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (15 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis HC 705 - Managing and Replacing the Aspire Project by : Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts

Download or read book HC 705 - Managing and Replacing the Aspire Project written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most of HM Revenue and Customs' (HMRC's) major tax collection systems are provided under one contract, the Aspire contract. While this has provided stability over the last ten years HMRC has not managed the costs of the contract well. It has cost some £7.9 billion over this period and generated profits for the suppliers of some £1.2 billion. When the current contract ends in 2017 HMRC intends, in accordance with government IT procurement policy, to move from the current single contract to a new model with many short-duration contracts with multiple suppliers. However, HMRC has made little progress in defining its needs and has still not presented a business case to government. Once funding is agreed, it will have only two years to recruit the skills and procure the services it will need. Moreover, HMRC's record in managing the Aspire contract and other IT contractors gives the Committee little confidence that HMRC can successfully achieve this transition or that it can manage the proposed model effectively to maximise value for money. HMRC also demonstrates little appreciation of the scale of the challenge it faces or the substantial risks to tax collection if the transition fails. Failure to collect taxes efficiently would create havoc with the public finances.

HC 892 - The Effective Management of Tax Reliefs

Download HC 892 - The Effective Management of Tax Reliefs PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : The Stationery Office
ISBN 13 : 0215085582
Total Pages : 21 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (15 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis HC 892 - The Effective Management of Tax Reliefs by : Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts

Download or read book HC 892 - The Effective Management of Tax Reliefs written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tax and tax reliefs are plainly different and require different accountability arrangements. Put simply tax is where you get money in through taxation and a tax relief is where you make a conscious decision to forgo that income. Some reliefs are structural parts of the system to ensure a more progressive system or avoid double taxation. But other reliefs, costing some £100 billion a year, are designed to deliver a policy objective that could be met instead through spending programmes. HM Treasury and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) do not keep track of those tax reliefs intended to influence behaviour. They do not adequately report to Parliament or the public on whether reliefs are working as intended and what they cost and whether they represent good value for money. While HMRC is accountable for implementing and monitoring all tax reliefs, its statements about the extent of its responsibilities are inconsistent with its actual practices. HMRC accepts it has a role to assess, evaluate and monitor reliefs, but is unable or unwilling to define or to categorise reliefs by their purpose. While HMRC accepts the need for reporting the costs of tax reliefs, it does not see the merit in assessing the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of reliefs, or considering their cost effectiveness alongside that of alternative policy instruments such as spending programmes. HMRC does not generally assess the effectiveness of reliefs with specific objectives although in a few instances it does consider their impact on taxpayer behaviour. HMRC's failure to articulate a set of principles to guide its management and reporting of tax reliefs is a serious omission which it now needs to rectify.

HC 860 - Tax Avoidance: The Role Of Large Accountancy Firms (Follow-Up)

Download HC 860 - Tax Avoidance: The Role Of Large Accountancy Firms (Follow-Up) PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : The Stationery Office
ISBN 13 : 0215081323
Total Pages : 20 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (15 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis HC 860 - Tax Avoidance: The Role Of Large Accountancy Firms (Follow-Up) by : Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts

Download or read book HC 860 - Tax Avoidance: The Role Of Large Accountancy Firms (Follow-Up) written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The tax arrangements PwC promoted in Luxembourg bear all the characteristics of a mass-marketed tax avoidance scheme according to the Public Accounts Committee. Large accountancy firms advise multinational companies on complex strategies and contrived structures which do not reflect the substance of their businesses and are instead designed to avoid tax. In light of the publication of leaked documents detailing some of the tax advice it has given to its multinational clients, the Committee took evidence from PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC). PwC did not convince the Committee that its widespread promotion of schemes to numerous clients, based on artificially diverting profits to Luxembourg through intra-company loans, constituted anything other than the promotion of tax avoidance on an industrial scale. The fact that PwC's promotion of these schemes is permitted by its own code of conduct is clear evidence that Government needs to take a more active role in regulating the tax industry, as it evidently cannot be trusted to regulate itself. HMRC should set out how it plans to take a more active role in challenging the advice being given by accountancy firms to their multinational clients. In contributing to the OECD's discussions aimed at reforming international tax law, HMRC should push for a more rigorous and meaningful definition of what "substance" means in respect of business, particularly if multinational companies conduct any business in the countries where they shift profits to in order to avoid tax. The Committee believes strongly that the Government must act by introducing a code of conduct for all tax advisers.

HC 833 - 16- to-18-Year-Old Participation in Education and training

Download HC 833 - 16- to-18-Year-Old Participation in Education and training PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : The Stationery Office
ISBN 13 : 0215081099
Total Pages : 24 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (15 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis HC 833 - 16- to-18-Year-Old Participation in Education and training by : Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts

Download or read book HC 833 - 16- to-18-Year-Old Participation in Education and training written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Committee are pleased that more 16- to 18-year-olds continue in education, although note the UK still lies behind other OECD countries. Whether this is because of changes in legislation or more effective interventions is debatable. The Committee note, however, that at the end of 2013, 148, 000 out of the cohort of 2 million 16- to 18-year-olds in England were NEET (not in education, employment or training). Some within this NEET group have been reached by the Youth Contract, but the Committee notes this is expected to only support half the number it was originally predicted to assist, will end soon and the Department has no plans to replace it. Careers remains patchy across the country and local authorities do not know what large numbers of the young people in their areas are doing. This means these young people are difficult to target. In 2010 the Department transferred responsibility for providing careers advice to schools but did not give them additional resources to fund it.

HC 973 - Care Services for People with Learning Disabilities and Challenging Behaviour

Download HC 973 - Care Services for People with Learning Disabilities and Challenging Behaviour PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : The Stationery Office
ISBN 13 : 0215085647
Total Pages : 25 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (15 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis HC 973 - Care Services for People with Learning Disabilities and Challenging Behaviour by : Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts

Download or read book HC 973 - Care Services for People with Learning Disabilities and Challenging Behaviour written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 25 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Winterbourne View scandal in 2011 exposed the horrific abuse of people with learning difficulties and challenging behaviour in a private mental health hospital. Concerns were also raised about a number of other institutions. As a result, the Government committed to discharging those individuals for whom it was appropriate back into their homes and communities. However, since then, too many children and adults have continued to go into mental health hospitals, and to stay there unnecessarily, because of the lack of community alternatives. The number of people with learning disabilities remaining in hospital has not fallen, and has remained broadly the same at around 3,200. It was refreshing that NHS England took responsibility for this lack of progress and has now committed to develop a closure programme for large NHS mental health hospitals, along with a transition plan for the people with learning disabilities within these hospitals, from 2016-17. Discharges from hospital are being delayed because funding does not follow the individual when they are discharged into the community. This acts as a financial disincentive for local commissioners who have to bear the costs and responsibility for planning and commissioning community services. Delaying discharge has the effect of institutionalising people, making their reintegration into the community more difficult. Some local authorities' reluctance to accept and fund individuals in the community will be exacerbated by current financial constraints. The Department should set out its proposals for 'dowry-type' payments from NHS England to meet the costs of supporting people discharged from hospital.

HC 674 - Procuring New Trains

Download HC 674 - Procuring New Trains PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : The Stationery Office
ISBN 13 : 0215079019
Total Pages : 20 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (15 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis HC 674 - Procuring New Trains by : Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts

Download or read book HC 674 - Procuring New Trains written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Department for Transport's decision to buy the new trains for Intercity Express and Thameslink itself has left the taxpayer bearing all the risk. The Department has no previous experience of running a procurement of this kind, let alone two with a combined value of £10.5 billion. The only way the Department can limit this risk is by requiring train operating companies to use these new trains to run their services regardless of whether they best fit the services they would like to offer. The Department could have addressed the lack of incentives that mean train operating companies do not have an interest in buying trains which minimise maintenance costs to Network Rail. Furthermore the Department's decision to take over the procurement has led to confusion over the respective roles and responsibilities of government and the industry which need to be clarified. The Intercity Express Programme was poorly managed from the outset. After Sir Andrew Foster completed a review into the value for money of Intercity Express in 2010, the original successful bidder Agility Trains came back with a revised bid that was 38% cheaper than its original one. The taxpayer could have been badly ripped off. The Department had begun the procurement without a clear idea of how many trains would be needed, which routes they would run on and what form of power would be required. In future the Department must be much more assertive in ensuring that the UK economy benefits from large public sector capital investment programmes

HC 709 - Lessons from Major Rail Infrastructure Programmes

Download HC 709 - Lessons from Major Rail Infrastructure Programmes PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : The Stationery Office
ISBN 13 : 0215081013
Total Pages : 20 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (15 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis HC 709 - Lessons from Major Rail Infrastructure Programmes by : Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts

Download or read book HC 709 - Lessons from Major Rail Infrastructure Programmes written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Department for Transport is responsible for a number of ambitious, expensive transport infrastructure programmes including the planned High Speed 2 programme. The Committee though is not convinced that these programmes are part of a clear strategic approach to investment in the rail network. In particular, recent proposals for a railway connecting cities in the north of England - a possible High Speed 3 - suggest that the Department takes a piecemeal approach to its rail investment, rather than considering what would benefit the system as a whole and prioritising its investment accordingly. The Department told us it will deliver the full High Speed 2 programme within its overall funding envelope of £50 billion. However, this funding includes a generous contingency and the Committee is concerned that, without appropriate controls, it could be used to mask cost increases. When it comes to the wider regeneration benefits, insufficient planning meant that regeneration benefits in Ebbsfleet did not flow from High Speed 1 as expected. Although the Department told the Committee that it has learned and is applying these lessons on High Speed 2, it needs to set out clearly who is responsible for ensuring that benefits are realised, and how that work will be coordinated.

HC 584 - Reforming the UK Border and Immigration System

Download HC 584 - Reforming the UK Border and Immigration System PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : The Stationery Office
ISBN 13 : 0215078470
Total Pages : 20 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (15 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis HC 584 - Reforming the UK Border and Immigration System by : Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts

Download or read book HC 584 - Reforming the UK Border and Immigration System written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Home Office acquired direct responsibility for the significant problems faced by the UK Border Agency when it was abolished in March 2013 and its functions were transferred to the Department. While performance in most of the areas transferred has held steady, the Department has failed to deal with long standing backlogs of asylum claims. Many older asylum claims - some over seven years old - remain undecided, while a new backlog of cases awaiting an initial decision is forming. This is partly as a result of a botched attempt by the Agency to downgrade staff that resulted in 120 experienced caseworkers leaving. The Department lacks the data it needs to manage its backlogs and the overall workload effectively. The failure of a number of IT projects has also compromised the Department's ability to track people through the immigration system and ensure that those with no right to remain are removed from the UK.

HC 737 - Strategic Flood Risk Management

Download HC 737 - Strategic Flood Risk Management PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : The Stationery Office
ISBN 13 : 0215084489
Total Pages : 21 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (15 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis HC 737 - Strategic Flood Risk Management by : Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts

Download or read book HC 737 - Strategic Flood Risk Management written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Given financial constraints, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Environment Agency have done a good job in improving the cost effectiveness of their approach to flood risk management. They have adopted rational methods to prioritise spending on both new capital flood defences and maintaining existing ones. However, risks remain to the sustainability of current levels of flood protection. The Agency will need to make difficult decisions about how it prioritises its maintenance budget, including some defences where it will need to reduce or stop maintenance. In these cases, there is a risk that lack of maintenance will mean that capital costs are incurred sooner, when defences require replacement earlier. Since our evidence session, the Agency has published a long term investment strategy, which presents a number of flooding scenarios and outlines how much funding would be needed to protect against these.

HC 833 - Financial Sustainability of Local Authorities 2014

Download HC 833 - Financial Sustainability of Local Authorities 2014 PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : The Stationery Office
ISBN 13 : 0215081196
Total Pages : 28 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (15 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis HC 833 - Financial Sustainability of Local Authorities 2014 by : Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts

Download or read book HC 833 - Financial Sustainability of Local Authorities 2014 written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Department for Communities and Local Government does not have a good enough understanding of the impact of funding cuts, either on local authorities' finances or on services. It is unclear whether the Department is exercising a cross government leadership role with respect to local government. It relies on data on spending and has little information on service levels, service quality, and financial sustainability. HM Treasury should better support the Department by ensuring compliance with its requests for information at future spending reviews. While the Department has identified that local authorities will need to change the way they deliver services to remain financially sustainable, it is unclear if it is providing sufficient leadership to ensure they can implement service transformation programmes successfully. Furthermore, if funding reductions were to continue following the next spending review, we question whether the Department would be in a position to provide assurance that all local authorities could maintain the full range of their statutory services. Overall, as pressure from cuts grows, so do the risks to local authorities' finances and their provision of services. The depth and quality of the Department's insight into these issues needs to keep pace with these changes, something it has struggled to achieve so far.

HC 1141 - The Work of the Committee of Public Accounts 2010-15

Download HC 1141 - The Work of the Committee of Public Accounts 2010-15 PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : The Stationery Office
ISBN 13 : 0215085779
Total Pages : 41 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (15 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis HC 1141 - The Work of the Committee of Public Accounts 2010-15 by : Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts

Download or read book HC 1141 - The Work of the Committee of Public Accounts 2010-15 written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report summarises the key areas of the Committee's work over the past five years. It draws out the areas where progress has been made and where their successors might wish to press in future. The Committee has assiduously followed the taxpayer's pound wherever it was spent. Since 2010 they held 276 evidence sessions and published 244 unanimous reports to hold government to account for its performance. 88% of their recommendations were accepted by departments. In many cases they successfully secured substantial changes, for example with the once secret tax avoidance industry. They secured consensus from government and from industry that private providers of public services do have a duty of care to the taxpayer, and in pushing the protection of whistleblowers further up the agenda of all government departments. By drawing attention to mistakes in the Department for Transport's procurement of the West Coast Mainline, more recent procurements for Crossrail, Thameslink and Intercity Express have all benefited from more expert advice and a more appropriate level of challenge from senior staff. After discovery in 2012-13 that 63% of calls to government call centres were to higher rate telephone numbers, the Government accepted our recommendation that telephone lines serving vulnerable and low income groups never be charged above the geographic rate and that 03 numbers should be available for all government telephone lines. They also secured a commitment to close large mental health hospitals.

HC 811 - Financial Support for Students at Alternative Higher Education Providers

Download HC 811 - Financial Support for Students at Alternative Higher Education Providers PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : The Stationery Office
ISBN 13 : 0215081625
Total Pages : 24 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (15 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis HC 811 - Financial Support for Students at Alternative Higher Education Providers by : Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts

Download or read book HC 811 - Financial Support for Students at Alternative Higher Education Providers written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Approximately 140 institutions offering higher education are termed 'alternative providers'. These alternative providers comprise a diverse range of organisations ranging from private companies to charitable institutions. They do not receive government grants directly but do access public funding through student loans which are used to pay their fees. Following the announcement of higher education reforms in 2011, and the associated increase in tuition fee loans, there has been substantial and rapid growth in the sector. Between 2010/11 and 2013/14, the number of students claiming support for courses at alternative providers rose from 7,000 to 53,000. Over the same period, the total amount of public money paid to students at alternative providers, through tuition fee loans and maintenance loans and grants, has risen from around £50 million to around £675 million. The Department has overall responsibility for oversight of publicly-funded higher education, including alternative providers with publicly-funded students. The Department did not learn from previous Government experience, furthermore, it has been slow to react to warning signs. The rapid expansion in numbers was concentrated in five colleges that accounted for 50% of the expansion. 20% of students receiving funding were not registered for a qualification and drop-out rates were very high in some institutions. There was also evidence from whistleblowers that proficiency in English language was not tested, that some institutions were recruiting students on the streets, and that students claiming funding were not attending colleges.