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House Of Commons Committee Of Public Accounts The New Homes Bonus Hc 114
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Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215063311 Total Pages :44 pages Book Rating :4.0/5 (633 download)
Book Synopsis House of Commons - Committee of Public Accounts: The New Homes Bonus - HC 114 by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
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
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215064912 Total Pages :76 pages Book Rating :4.0/5 (649 download)
Book Synopsis House of Commons - Committee of Public Accounts: BBC Severance Packages - HC 476 by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book House of Commons - Committee of Public Accounts: BBC Severance Packages - HC 476 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-12-16 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the three years to December 2012, the BBC gave 150 senior managers severance payments totalling £25 million. The BBC paid more salary in lieu of notice than it was obliged to in 22 of the 150 severance payments for senior managers in the three years to December 2012, at a cost of £1.4 million. It is unacceptable for the BBC, or any other public body, to give departing senior managers huge severance payments that far exceed their contractual entitlements. Some of the justifications put forward by the BBC were extraordinary. The Committee welcomes the changes that the BBC's Director General, Lord Hall, has made to cap severance pay. Recommendations include: the BBC should remind its staff that they are all individually responsible for protecting public money and challenging wasteful practices; to protect licence fee payers' interests and its own reputation, the BBC should establish internal procedures that provide clear central oversight and effective scrutiny of severance payments; the BBC Executive and the BBC Trust need to overhaul the way they conduct their business, and record and communicate decisions properly; the BBC Trust should be more willing to challenge practices and decisions where there is a risk that the interests of licence fee payers could be compromised; the BBC Trust and the BBC Executive need to ensure that decision-making is transparent and accountability taken seriously, based on a shared understanding of value for money, with tangible evidence of individuals taking public responsibility for their decisions.
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215065834 Total Pages :78 pages Book Rating :4.0/5 (658 download)
Book Synopsis House of Commons - Committee of Public Accounts: HMRC Tax Collection: Annual Report & Accounts 2012-13 - HC 666 by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book House of Commons - Committee of Public Accounts: HMRC Tax Collection: Annual Report & Accounts 2012-13 - HC 666 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-12-19 with total page 78 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In pursuing unpaid tax, HMRC has not clearly demonstrated that it is on the side of the majority of taxpayers who pay their taxes in full. Last year the Department collected less tax in real terms than it managed to collect in 2011-12. This was despite the stated ambition to crack down on tax avoidance. The tax gap as defined by HMRC did not shrink, but in 2011-12 grew to £35 billion. Furthermore, this figure does not include all the tax revenue lost. HMRC pursues tax owed by the smaller businesses but seems to lose its nerve when it comes to mounting prosecutions against multinational corporations. It predicted that it would collect £3.12 billion unpaid tax from UK holders of Swiss bank accounts and this figure was built into budget estimates, but in 2013-14 it has so far secured just £440 million. HMRC aims to make the UK more attractive to business but the incentives to international corporations may also enable them to avoid tax. HMRC needs to strike the right balance between support and enforcement. The implementation of the Real Time Information system has been encouraging overall though some small businesses are continuing to struggle. It is of concern that HMRC is planning from April 2014 to fine companies even though some face continuing challenges. The successful implementation of Universal Credit depends on RTI continuing to work properly but the system does not have full disaster recovery arrangements. System failures could have serious consequences for payments to individuals
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215064868 Total Pages :40 pages Book Rating :4.0/5 (648 download)
Book Synopsis House of Commons - Committee of Public Accounts: Whole of Government Accounts 2011-12 - HC 667 by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book House of Commons - Committee of Public Accounts: Whole of Government Accounts 2011-12 - HC 667 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-12-12 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Whole of Government Accounts for 2011-12 presents the combined financial activities of some 3,000 organisations. It provides vital data on which Government needs to act. Key issues have been identified, such as the £19.4 billion liability for clinical negligence claims. But it is frustrating to see other issues seemingly ignored in long-term policy making and spending decisions. In one year, the public sector was defrauded of over £20 billion and the tax gap rose to £35 billion. The financial liabilities for dealing with nuclear waste also keep growing. There is room for improvement in the document itself and how it is used. Users find it hard to understand, for example, why the Government debt and deficit highlighted in the WGA differ from those reported in the ONS's National Accounts. Also, by changing definitions in its commentary published alongside the WGA, the Treasury makes it difficult to track changes over time. The Treasury's introduction in the commentary of a new concept of so-called 'direct' expenditure leaves out key costs such as the interest paid on the National Debt. The publicly owned and controlled bodies - such as Network Rail and the taxpayer owned banks - are still being excluded, in defiance of normal accounting rules. The usefulness of the WGA is also being limited by the length of time it takes to produce the document and by poor quality data from some of the bodies. The accounts have again been qualified over the completeness, timeliness and accuracy of the information supplied for schools and academies
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215068736 Total Pages :48 pages Book Rating :4.0/5 (687 download)
Book Synopsis House of Commons - Committee of Public Accounts: Student Loan Repayments - HC 886 by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book House of Commons - Committee of Public Accounts: Student Loan Repayments - HC 886 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-02-14 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is at present around £46 billion of outstanding student loans on the Government's books, and this figure is set to rise dramatically to £200 billion by 2042 (in 2013 prices). By 2042 there will be an estimated 6.5 million borrowers of student loans. At the same time estimates for the amount of loans that will not be repaid are also rising and the Government assumes that 35-40% of outstanding loans will never be repaid. That is some £16 billion to £18 billion on the current debt of £46 billion and £70 billion to £80 billion on the estimated value of student loans by 2042. The Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (the Department) is not doing enough to secure value for money from its collection arrangements. The Department is unable to accurately forecast student loan repayments, and does not have a sufficient understanding of the likely future cost of non-repayment to the taxpayer. The Student Loans Company is not doing enough to ensure that it identifies and collects all the repayments due, given the substantial size of the financial assets involved, and will need to demonstrate value for money from the proposed sale of the student loans book.
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215065971 Total Pages :52 pages Book Rating :4.0/5 (659 download)
Book Synopsis House of Commons - Committee of Public Accounts: Access to Clinical Trial Information and the Stockpiling of Tamiflu - HC 295 by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book House of Commons - Committee of Public Accounts: Access to Clinical Trial Information and the Stockpiling of Tamiflu - HC 295 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-01-03 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The report Access To Clinical Trial Information And The Stockpiling Of Tamiflu (HC 295) examines two separate but connected issues; the routine withholding of clinical trial information from doctors and researchers, and the effectiveness of stockpiling of Tamiflu during an influenza pandemic. The full results of clinical trials are being routinely and legally withheld from doctors and researchers by the manufacturers of medicines. The ability of doctors, researchers and patients to make informed decisions about treatments is being undermined. Regulators and the industry have recently made proposals to open up access, but these do not cover the issue of access to the results of trials in the past which bear on the efficacy and safety of medicines in use today. Research suggests that the probability of completed trials being published is roughly 50%. Trials which give a favorable verdict are about twice as likely to be published as trials giving unfavorable
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215064820 Total Pages :60 pages Book Rating :4.0/5 (648 download)
Book Synopsis House of Commons - Public Accounts Committee: The Border Force: Securing the Border - HC 663 by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book House of Commons - Public Accounts Committee: The Border Force: Securing the Border - HC 663 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-12-10 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Border Force's 7,600 staff operate immigration and customs controls at 138 air, sea and rail ports across the UK. It has a budget of £604 million for 2013-14, but is facing cuts. It has had to prioritise passenger checks at the expense of its other duties thereby weakening security at the border by neglecting other duties, such as the examination of freight for illicit goods, and checks in Calais on lorries to detect concealed illegal entrants. It was not able to meet and check up to 90,000 private planes or private boats arriving in the UK each year, leaving the UK border vulnerable and raising issues about resourcing and how priorities are set. The Border Force acknowledged that it had missed 8 of its 19 seizure and detection targets. Recommendations: set out how it will ensure that it delivers its full range of duties across all ports to provide the required level of national security; demonstrate that it can deliver its workload within the resources available; must address the gaps in the data it receives on people arriving in the UK, and the existing data needs to be cleansed to increase the quality, reliability and usefulness of the intelligence generated; set out how, and by when, it will have in place the functional IT systems it needs to underpin the security of the UK border; senior management must provide the organisation with a clear sense of purpose and tackle those barriers which inhibit the flexible and effective deployment of its staff.
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215068873 Total Pages :48 pages Book Rating :4.0/5 (688 download)
Book Synopsis House of Commons - Committee of Public Accounts: Emergency Admissions to Hospital - HC 885 by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book House of Commons - Committee of Public Accounts: Emergency Admissions to Hospital - HC 885 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nearly one fifth of consultant posts in emergency departments were either vacant or filled by locums in 2012. Neither the Department nor NHS England have a clear strategy to tackle the shortage of A&E consultants and there is too much reliance on temporary staff to fill gaps. The Committee raised the possibility of paying consultants more to work at struggling hospitals. Greater use in A&E of consultants from other departments could also be made, or mandate that all trainee consultants spend time in A&E, or make A&E positions more attractive through improved terms and conditions. The slow introduction of round-the-clock consultant cover in hospitals - which will not be in place before the end of 2016-17 - is also having a negative impact. More people die as a result of being admitted at the weekend when fewer consultants are in A&E. Changing this relies on the British Medical Association and NHS Employers negotiating a more flexible consultants' contract, and neither the Department nor NHS England has direct control over the timescale or details of these negotiations. Hospitals, GPs and community health services all have a role to play in reducing emergency admissions - but financial incentives to make this happen are not in place. While hospitals get no money if patients are readmitted within 30 days, there are no financial incentives for community and social care services to reduce emergency admissions. Both the Department of Health and NHS England struggled to explain to us who is ultimately accountable for the efficient delivery of local A&E services
Download or read book Planning Gain written by Tony Crook and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Royal Town Planning Institute award for research excellence This critical examination of the development and implementation of planning gain is timely given recent changes to the economic and policy environment. The book looks both at the British context as well as experience in other developed economies and takes stock of how the policy has evolved. It examines the rationale for planning gain, how it has delivered substantial funds for infrastructure and affordable housing and, in the light of this, how it might continue to play a role in the funding of these. It also draws on overseas experience, for example on impact fees and public sector land assembly. It looks at lessons from the past for future policy, both for Britain and for countries overseas. Mechanisms to tap development value are also a global phenomenon in developed market economies - whether through formal taxation or negotiated contributions. As fiscal austerity becomes an increasingly challenging issue, ‘planning gain’ has grown in importance as a potential source of funding for infrastructure and new affordable housing, with many countries keen to examine, learn from, and adapt the experience of others. a critical commentary of planning gain as a policy timely post credit crunch analysis addresses recent planning policy changes
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :0215071921 Total Pages :64 pages Book Rating :4.2/5 (15 download)
Book Synopsis HC 941 - Establishing Free Schools by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book HC 941 - Establishing Free Schools written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-05-09 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent high-profile failures demonstrate that the Department for Education and the Education Funding Agency's oversight arrangements for free schools are not yet working effectively. The Department and Agency have set up an approach to oversight which emphasises schools' autonomy, but standards of financial management and governance in some free schools are clearly not up to scratch. The Agency relies on high levels of compliance by schools, yet fewer than half of free schools submitted their required financial returns for 2011-12 to the Agency on time. Whistleblowers played a major role in uncovering recent scandals when problems should have been identified through the Agency's monitoring processes. There is also concern that applications for new free schools are not emerging from areas of greatest forecast need for more and better school places. The Department needs to set out how, and by when, it will encourage applications from areas with a high or severe forecast need for extra schools places, working with local authorities where appropriate. The Department should also be more open about the reasons for making decisions. Capital costs of the free school programme are escalating. The most recent round of approved free schools had a greater proportion of more expensive types, such as secondaries, special and alternative provision, located in more expensive regions such as London, the South East and South West. If this mix of approved free schools continues, there is a risk of costs exceeding available funding.
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :0215072790 Total Pages :24 pages Book Rating :4.2/5 (15 download)
Book Synopsis HC 1114 - Probation: Landscape Review by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book HC 1114 - Probation: Landscape Review written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-05-20 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ministry of Justice is implementing wholesale changes to how rehabilitation services for offenders are delivered in England and Wales on a highly ambitious timescale. It intends to introduce new private and voluntary providers, bring in a payment by results system, create a new National Probation Service and extend the service to short-term prisoners in a very short time period. This is very challenging and this report sets out a number of risks that need to be managed. The probation service in England and Wales supervised 225,000 offenders in our communities during 2012-13, at a cost of £853 million. The service is currently delivered by 35 Probation Trusts which are independent Non-Departmental Public Bodies, reporting directly to the National Offender Management Service. As part of the Ministry's Transforming Rehabilitation reforms, the Trusts will cease to operate from 31 May 2014 and will be abolished shortly afterwards, to be replaced by a National Probation Service and 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies. The scale, complexity and pace of the reforms give rise to risks around value for money which need to be carefully managed. The Committee welcomes the Accounting Officer's assurances that the Ministry will not proceed with the arrangements unless it is safe to do so. The Ministry expects the new National Probation Service and the 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies to begin operating from 1 June 2014 with only a limited opportunity for parallel running of the new arrangements during April and May 2014. The movement of staff, records and implementation of the arrangements required to make the new structures operate are ongoing. Initially the Community Rehabilitation Companies will be in public ownership pending a share sale, expected in time to launch a payment by results mechanism in 2015.
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :021507274X Total Pages :36 pages Book Rating :4.2/5 (15 download)
Book Synopsis HC 1110 - Promoting Electronic Growth Locally by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book HC 1110 - Promoting Electronic Growth Locally written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-05-16 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the large sums available for promoting economic growth locally, little money has actually reached businesses. Of the £3.9 billion that has been allocated in total to these initiatives, only nearly £400 million had made it to local projects by the end of 2012-13. Under the Regional Growth Fund, the largest of the schemes, the Departments will need to spend £1.4 billion this year, compared to the £1.2 billion spent over the previous three years. Some £1 billion of the remaining £3.5 billion allocated to initiatives is currently parked with intermediary bodies such as local authorities, Local Enterprise Partnerships and banks - and the rest with the Departments. The Departments should introduce binding milestones for distributing funds and move quickly to claw back money not being spent - or spent disproportionately on administration - and redistribute it to better performers. Progress in creating jobs is falling well short of the Departments' initial expectations. The Departments' estimate of the cost per job created has also risen from £30,400 in Round One to £52,300 in Round Four - a 72% increase. The Departments also agreed that there is a risk of double-counting, with the same jobs scored more than once to different initiatives. The local growth initiatives have not been managed as a coordinated programme with a common strategy, objectives or plan. The recent creation by the Departments of a single growth directorate and a programme board is welcomed. Concern remains however that the Departments are not yet using the new oversight arrangements effectively.
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :0215071719 Total Pages :24 pages Book Rating :4.2/5 (15 download)
Book Synopsis NHS Waiting Times for Elective Care in England - HC 1002 by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book NHS Waiting Times for Elective Care in England - HC 1002 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-04-29 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NHS patients have the right to receive elective pre-planned consultant-led care within 18 weeks of being referred for treatment. In 2012-13, there were 19.1 million referrals to hospitals in England, with hospital-related costs of around £16 billion. The standards are that 90% of patients admitted to hospital, and 95% of other patients, should have started treatment within 18 weeks of being referred. In April 2013, NHS England introduced zero tolerance of any patient waiting more than 52 weeks. The Department of Health cannot be sure that the waiting time data NHS England publishes, based on information from NHS trust, is accurate. Trusts are struggling with a hotchpotch of IT and paper based systems that are not easily pulled together, which makes it difficult for them to track and collate the patient information needed to manage and record patients' waiting time. The National Audit Office (NAO) found that waiting times for nearly a third of cases it reviewed at seven trusts were not supported by documented evidence, and that a further 26% were simply wrong. Multiple organisations have a quality assurance role. However the external audit provided in the past by the Audit Commission has yet to be replaced and the Department acknowledged the need to do so, with regular spot checks being undertaken to ensure accuracy. But responsibilities have not been clearly defined.
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :0215071689 Total Pages :24 pages Book Rating :4.2/5 (15 download)
Book Synopsis COMPASS: Provision of Asylum Accommodation - HC 1000 by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book COMPASS: Provision of Asylum Accommodation - HC 1000 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-04-24 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At any one time the Home Office (the Department) provides accommodation for around 23,000 destitute asylum seekers awaiting the outcome of their application to remain in the UK. The cost of providing this accommodation in 2011-12 was £150 million. In March 2012 the Department decided to introduce a new delivery model involving fewer and bigger housing providers than under previous contracts. There are now six regional contracts (known collectively as COMPASS), delivered by three prime contractors (G4S, Serco and Clearel, each of which has two contracts): these replaced 22 separate contracts with 13 different suppliers from across the private and voluntary sectors and local authorities. Savings of £140 million over seven years are forecast. The decision to rely on fewer, larger contractors was risky and has so far led to delays in providing suitable accommodation. The Department expected this to result in economies of scale. However, it is inconsistent with the Government's wider approach of encouraging more small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) to supply services to government. The transition to the new contracts was poorly managed: the three month mobilisation period for the contracts was very challenging. The Department has incurred additional costs and so is less likely to achieve the expected savings. The standard of the accommodation provided has often been unacceptably poor for a very fragile group of individuals and families and the companies failed to improve quality in a timely manner.
Author :Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :0215085779 Total Pages :41 pages Book Rating :4.2/5 (15 download)
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 2015-03-28 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.
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :0215071700 Total Pages :24 pages Book Rating :4.2/5 (15 download)
Book Synopsis Ministry of Justice and National Offender Management Service: Managing the Prison Service - HC 1001 by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book Ministry of Justice and National Offender Management Service: Managing the Prison Service - HC 1001 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-04-25 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The National Offender Management Service (the Agency) is responsible for the prison system in England and Wales which holds around 84,000 prisoners. The prison estate consists of some 130 prisons of varying layout, geographical location, age and state of repair. The main factor behind the Agency's estate strategy, of closing small costly prisons and building new accommodation that is cheaper to run, is the need to make recurring savings. Under the strategy, the Agency had by the end of 2013, closed 13 prisons and built two new prisons. The estate strategy's objectives are to reduce resource costs; create durable, good standard accommodation and provide an estate that better meets offenders' needs, allowing more of them to work and be kept closer to their homes. Against these objectives, the Agency has built new, good quality, accommodation to time and within budget; is on track to achieve cost reductions of £70 million a year; and is starting to match better the geographical spread of prisons to the prison population. Key factors behind this good performance are that senior staff in the Agency have experience and knowledge and have remained in post throughout this period of change. However, the performance of the two new prisons, HMP Oakwood and HMP Thameside, has been poor and disappointing since they opened. They do not give sufficient priority to meeting offenders' rehabilitation needs, nor do they provide enough quality purposeful activity for prisoners. The Agency has also closed some prisons that were performing well.
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :0215070607 Total Pages :118 pages Book Rating :4.2/5 (15 download)
Book Synopsis Programmes to Help Families Facing Multiple Challenges - HC 668 by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book Programmes to Help Families Facing Multiple Challenges - HC 668 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-04-04 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this report the Public Accounts Committee examines DCLG and DWP's programmes to help families facing multiple challenges. In 2006, the Government estimated that there were 120,000 families in England facing multiple challenges, such as unemployment and poor housing, crime and antisocial behaviour. The estimated cost to the taxpayer of providing services to support these families is £9 billion a year, of which £8 billion is spent reacting to issues and £1 billion in trying to tackle them. In 2012, DCLG and DWP each introduced separate programmes to help these families. DCLG's Troubled Families programme, with a central government budget of £448 million, aims to 'turn around' all 120,000 families by May 2015. DWP's Families with Multiple Problems programme, with a budget of £200 million, seeks to move 22% of those joining the programme into employment by March 2015. There was no clear rationale for the simultaneous introduction of two separate programmes, which focused on addressing similar issues. The integration of the programmes at the design phase was poor, leading to confusion, and contributing to the low number of referrals to the DWP's programme. But the good practice evident in DCLG's Troubled Families programme, demonstrates how central and local government agencies can work together effectively. Data sharing is critical to identifying the families most in need of the support available. Both departments should publish, alongside details of the programmes' progress against their respective targets, details of the wider benefits and financial savings that they have identified.
