Procurement of the M25 private finance contract

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Publisher : The Stationery Office
ISBN 13 : 9780102965544
Total Pages : 44 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (655 download)

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Book Synopsis Procurement of the M25 private finance contract by : Great Britain: National Audit Office

Download or read book Procurement of the M25 private finance contract written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2010-11-19 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The slowness with which the Highways Agency's PFI contract to widen the M25 was taken forward resulted in higher financing costs in the credit crisis. Moreover, the Agency was slow to investigate a potentially cheaper alternative to widening. An 18-month delay in preparing and finalizing the widening procurement meant that the contract was let in May 2009 at the height of the credit crisis. This increased the net present cost of the deal by £660 million (24 per cent) to £3.4 billion. The case for PFI was less convincing than the Agency thought owing to shortcomings in its cost estimation process. The Government had announced in 2003 its intention to reduce congestion on the M25. The Agency was starting to carry out trials at that time of an alternative, potentially cheaper solution of hard shoulder running (allowing drivers to use the hard shoulder at times of peak congestion), first tested in Europe in 1996. The NAO estimates the savings from a conventionally procured hard shoulder running solution might range between £400 million and £1.1 billion. The Agency, however, doubted the technique's suitability for one of the sections of the M25 being widened which has high traffic flow and whether operation and maintenance savings could be achieved through conventional procurement

M25 private finance contract

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Author :
Publisher : The Stationery Office
ISBN 13 : 9780215556332
Total Pages : 48 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (563 download)

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Book Synopsis M25 private finance contract by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts

Download or read book M25 private finance contract written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-02-08 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In May 2009 the Highways Agency signed a 30 year private finance contract for widening two sections of the M25 motorway, including the Dartford Crossing, and maintaining the entire 125 mile length of the road, and 125 miles of connecting roads and motorways. The Committee makes eight points in conclusion of its review of the contract: they do not agree that the PFI contract represents value for money; the £80 million spent on consultants over six years for this project was excessive; the Agency lacks the capacity to assess whether its advisers are providing value for money; the Agency significantly over-estimated the market rate for operation and maintenance; the invitation to tender was too narrowly drawn as it excluded hard should running as a solution for traffic congestion; the Agency persisted with its preferred solution of widening the M25 because of the time taken to trial hard shoulder running; the Agency appeared to be committed to a single procurement route & justified a widening deal through a flawed and biased cost estimation; evidence could not be taken from the Senior Responsible Owner of the project as he had left the Agency and was employed by one of the project's major contractors and investors. Ultimately the Committee believe that the project was mishandled at a potential extra cost to the taxpayer of around £1 billion

HC 97 - Private Finance 2

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Publisher : The Stationery Office
ISBN 13 : 0215072901
Total Pages : 84 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (15 download)

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Book Synopsis HC 97 - Private Finance 2 by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Treasury Committee

Download or read book HC 97 - Private Finance 2 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Treasury Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-06-09 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written evidence is contained in Volume 2, available on the Committee website at www.parliament.uk/treascom

Treasury minutes on the nineteenth to the twenty first and the twenty third to the twenty seventh reports from the Committee of Public Accounts session 2010-11

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Author :
Publisher : The Stationery Office
ISBN 13 : 9780101806923
Total Pages : 56 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (69 download)

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Book Synopsis Treasury minutes on the nineteenth to the twenty first and the twenty third to the twenty seventh reports from the Committee of Public Accounts session 2010-11 by : Great Britain: H.M. Treasury

Download or read book Treasury minutes on the nineteenth to the twenty first and the twenty third to the twenty seventh reports from the Committee of Public Accounts session 2010-11 written by Great Britain: H.M. Treasury and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-05-16 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dated May 2011. The reports published as HC 651 (ISBN 9780215556232); HC 688 (ISBN 9780215556363); HC 721 (ISBN 9780215556424); HC 687 (ISBN 9780215556530); HC 667 (ISBN 9780215556646); HC 668 (ISBN 9780215556745); HC 741 (ISBN 9780215556851); HC 765 (ISBN 9780215556882)

Public Private Partnerships and Constitutional Law

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0429821808
Total Pages : 220 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (298 download)

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Book Synopsis Public Private Partnerships and Constitutional Law by : Nikiforos Meletiadis

Download or read book Public Private Partnerships and Constitutional Law written by Nikiforos Meletiadis and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-12-10 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annually, the government commits significant expenditure to a type of public contracts which are known as Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) or the Private Finance Initiative (PFI). These contracts bind the public purse for decades in sectors such as Health, Defence and Detention, and involve the assignment of a significant role to the private sector in the provision of public services. This book explores the controversial subject of the public accountability of these contracts, and the corresponding large sums of public money involved. It explains how public accountability works for PPPs and the PFI, and it argues that it should be provided as part of the Economic Constitution. Drawing comparative understandings from the UK and the USA constitutional legal traditions, the book investigates public accountability from the perspective of the Economic Constitution, focusing on three accountability criteria - legal, accounting and administrative. In doing so, it provides an analysis which informs both from the perspective of academic research and from that of legal and consulting practice.

Lessons from PFI and other projects

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Publisher : The Stationery Office
ISBN 13 : 9780102969672
Total Pages : 36 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (696 download)

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Book Synopsis Lessons from PFI and other projects by : Great Britain: National Audit Office

Download or read book Lessons from PFI and other projects written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-04-28 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lessons from the experience of using PFI can be applied to improve other forms of procurement and help Government achieve its aim of securing annual infrastructure delivery cost savings of £2 billion to £3 billion. To secure the best value for money from all types of procurement, the public sector needs to develop skills the NAO has identified. These are collecting better data to inform decision-making; ensuring projects have the right skills; establishing effective arrangements to test, challenge and, if necessary, stop projects; and using commercial awareness to obtain better deals. The case for using private finance in public procurement needs to be challenged more. Also, privately financed projects will often still be off balance-sheet which may continue to act as an incentive to use PFI. There has not been a systematic value for money evaluation of operational PFI projects by departments. So there is insufficient data to demonstrate whether the use of private finance has led to better or worse value for money than other forms of procurement. The Treasury and departments should identify alternative methods for delivering infrastructure and related facilities services to maximise value for money for government. The NAO welcomes the current plans of the Treasury and Cabinet Office to strengthen project assurance. The report highlights the need for independent challenge capable of stopping projects which do not give the prospect of value for money. This is particularly important as there is still a shortage of the skills needed to manage and oversee complex major projects.

The Economics of Public-Private Partnerships

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Author :
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3319680501
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (196 download)

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Book Synopsis The Economics of Public-Private Partnerships by : Stéphane Saussier

Download or read book The Economics of Public-Private Partnerships written by Stéphane Saussier and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-01-03 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates the economic decisions behind the implementation of public-private partnerships (PPPs). The first part of the book discusses different forms of public procurement contracts, in particular in France and the UK, and provides an economic analysis of the potential advantages and pitfalls of public-private partnerships. This exploration of PPPs’ efficiency also includes an examination of the financing conditions of public procurements, as well as regulatory requirements. By reviewing empirical studies on PPPs, the second part of the book compares their advantages over purely public solutions and offers practical guidance on their implementation. Practitioners will also learn best practices on how to involve stakeholders in calls for bids.

Public–Private Partnerships and the Law

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Author :
Publisher : Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1781004552
Total Pages : 329 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (81 download)

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Book Synopsis Public–Private Partnerships and the Law by : Yseult Marique

Download or read book Public–Private Partnerships and the Law written by Yseult Marique and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2014-08-30 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This timely book examines the legal regulation of Public_Private Partnerships (PPPs) and provides a systematic overview of PPPs and their functions. It covers both the contractual relationships between public and private actors and the relationships be

Public Sector Management

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Publisher : SAGE
ISBN 13 : 085702874X
Total Pages : 297 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (57 download)

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Book Synopsis Public Sector Management by : Norman Flynn

Download or read book Public Sector Management written by Norman Flynn and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2012-04-05 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The highly-anticipated Sixth Edition of Norman Flynn’s Public Sector Management continues to provide students with an insightful, jargon-free description, analysis and critique of the management of the public sector by the UK government. New companion website with free access to full-text journal articles, policy documents, links to useful websites, and relevant multimedia and social media resources, as well as additional case studies and discussion questions. www.sagepub.co.uk/flynn.

Equity investment in privately financed projects

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Publisher : The Stationery Office
ISBN 13 : 9780215044129
Total Pages : 52 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (441 download)

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Book Synopsis Equity investment in privately financed projects by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts

Download or read book Equity investment in privately financed projects written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-05-02 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report examines the risks and rewards for private equity investors in government private finance projects. The Private Finance Initiative (PFI) model has been used by governments in some 700 projects over the last 20 years but defects, including failures to demonstrate the value for money case satisfactorily, the use of long inflexible contracts and the costly contracting process, and inefficient pricing of equity have made continuing with the current model unsustainable. The Treasury is currently reviewing the PFI model. It needs to improve flexibility in the way that private finance is used, establishing quicker and more efficient procurement procedures and achieving a better balance between investors' risks and their rewards. Private finance should only be used where it secures real value for money for the taxpayer, not because of definitional statistical incentives to get projects off the balance sheet (only some 20% of long term PFI liabilities are recorded as debt in the national accounts). Business cases must be an unbiased and transparent assessment of the best form of procurement for the particular project being undertaken, taking account of expected tax receipts from alternative options and not adjusting assumptions to bias the outcome of the assessment. The Treasury needs to collect data on investors' experiences and use this information to assess and challenge investors' returns. There needs to be greater transparency over the pricing of contracts, and inefficiencies which add to the cost of private deals, such as long procurement times, need to be addressed.

State-led Privatisation and the Demise of the Democratic State

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317050223
Total Pages : 239 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis State-led Privatisation and the Demise of the Democratic State by : Mike Raco

Download or read book State-led Privatisation and the Demise of the Democratic State written by Mike Raco and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-01 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For decades now we have been told that we are living through a governance revolution. Gone are the days when government agencies and bureaucrats told us what to do and how to do it. We are no longer clients of the state but empowered citizens who are able to take greater control over our own lives and the activities of those who govern in our name. Across the world the prevailing narrative has become one of Good Governance, devolution, liberation, and freedom of expression. In policy fields as diverse as development planning, healthcare, and public transport a neo-pluralist rhetoric has emerged based on the principles of ’co-production’ and partnership working. And yet at the same time a curious paradox is emerging. Whilst the prevailing zeitgeist is one of openness and citizen empowerment, this book will show that in reality new modes of governance are emerging in which state controls have actually been expanded into many spheres of life that were previously left unregulated. For some a new political economy of ’regulatory capitalism’ has emerged and this, in turn, has ushered in unprecedented forms of state-led privatisation under which democratically-elected politicians have voluntarily handed over their powers, responsibilities, and resources to new corporate elites who promise to deliver services in more efficient and equitable ways. As the discussion will show, in reality the rhetoric of Good Governance has, therefore, been used to legitimate the wholesale transfer of welfare assets and services beyond the democratic control of state actors and the citizens that they represent. Privatisation has become a new utopianism that involves a revolution in ways of thinking about democracy, governance, and urban management, the implications of which will be felt by current and future generations.

DfID financial management

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Publisher : The Stationery Office
ISBN 13 : 9780215561848
Total Pages : 44 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (618 download)

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Book Synopsis DfID financial management by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts

Download or read book DfID financial management written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-10-20 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report examines the Department for International Development's financial management capability, its increasing focus on value for money, and the challenges it faces in managing its increasing programme budget while reducing its overall running costs. DFID is protected from overall expenditure reductions as the Government has committed to increasing the UK's aid spending to 0.7% of gross national income by 2013. The Department faces a substantial challenge to improve its financial management while reducing its administration costs by a third over the next four years. The Committee welcomes the planned introduction, in 2011, of a finance improvement plan. DFID must now keep up the focus on better financial management. There is concern that the Department does not quantify the likely level of leakage through fraud and corruption. And DFID is only considering fraud risk at the level of delivery method rather than at a country level. Management of fraud risk will require a stronger framework for ensuring money is properly spent on the ground, with effective monitoring and pro-active anti-fraud work. The likely increase in funding via multilateral organisations (which then determine how to distribute the aid worldwide) might not ensure value for money as DFID does not have the same visibility over the cost and performance of multilaterals' programmes as it does over its own bilateral programmes. Finally, the Committee is concerned that the Department still has insufficient data to make informed investment decisions based on value for money.

Ministry of Justice financial management

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Publisher : The Stationery Office
ISBN 13 : 9780215043351
Total Pages : 44 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (433 download)

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Book Synopsis Ministry of Justice financial management by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts

Download or read book Ministry of Justice financial management written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-03-20 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ministry has improved its financial management since the Committee's last report in January 2011 (HC 574, ISBN 9780215556042). Many of the Ministry's processes have improved, including modelling and forecasting, but the Ministry has not achieved significant improvements in the delivery of key financial outcomes and therefore has much still to do. The most serious issue is the Ministry's inability to report its financial affairs on a timely and accurate basis. The Ministry's own resource accounts for 2010-11 were delivered late and there were significant problems with the accounts produced by two of its major arm's length bodies, the Legal Services Commission and HM Courts Service's Trust Statement. The Ministry faces significant accounting challenges for the 2011-12 financial year, due to the required earlier publication of the accounts. The Ministry needs to break the cycle of continuing failure to produce accurate and timely accounts. It also faces considerable challenges in meeting its tough spending review commitments, but without a full understanding of its costs, the Ministry risks unnecessarily cutting frontline services, which are critical to the poorest in the community, rather than ensuring savings are achieved through genuine efficiencies. Maximising the income it obtains will help the Ministry and fine collection is improving, but it is being outpaced by the growth in fines outstanding. Excellent financial management is critical to the Ministry's future success as it seeks to achieve significant efficiency gains while coping with workload pressures, such as increases in the prison population, that are largely outside its control.

Maintaining financial stability of UK banks

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Publisher : The Stationery Office
ISBN 13 : 9780215559241
Total Pages : 44 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (592 download)

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Book Synopsis Maintaining financial stability of UK banks by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts

Download or read book Maintaining financial stability of UK banks written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-04-20 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report examines the progress on repaying taxpayer support and maintenance of financial stability following action taken in the 2007 crisis in the financial markets. Action included nationalisation, the purchase of a large number of shares in RBS and Lloyds, establishing sector-wide schemes to guarantee banks' debt-funding and protect their assets, and indemnifying the Bank of England against losses for providing temporary liquidity. The level of explicit support has gone down from nearly £1 trillion to £512 billion, and estimates of the size of the implicit subsidy vary - from as high as £100 billion to just below £10 billion in 2009 alone. The explicit subsidy includes the fees paid by banks for their use of the Credit Guarantee Scheme which, to date, have been at least £1 billion less than the benefit received by the banks. These subsidies enable private gains to be made at the expense of public risk, and some of these gains have been used to pay bonuses to staff and dividends to shareholders, rather than enhancing the financial sustainability of the sector. This causes the Committee and the wider public much concern. For the taxpayer to obtain value for money from exiting from the support depends heavily on a successful sale of the shares in RBS and Lloyds. The government shareholding is far greater than in previous share sales and will require extraordinarily careful handling to protect the taxpayers' interest. Regulatory and political uncertainty over the banking sector will remain until the Government has responded to the recommendations from the Independent Commission on Banking.

Regulating financial stability in higher education

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Publisher : The Stationery Office
ISBN 13 : 9780215559920
Total Pages : 56 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (599 download)

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Book Synopsis Regulating financial stability in higher education by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts

Download or read book Regulating financial stability in higher education written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-06-07 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last five years student numbers and income have grown annually by 2 per cent and 6 per cent respectively. As the sector has begun the transition to a new system of funding in which Funding Council grants to institutions will be replaced by higher tuition fees the Higher Education Funding Council's role in the allocation of funds & influence will diminish. The Department for Education will need to provide new powers for the Funding Council to regulate these institutions and the Funding Council must monitor risks as they emerge and respond quickly. All the indications are that more institutions will charge significantly higher fees than was anticipated by the Department. The Office for Fair Access has yet to agree the measures universities will adopt to widen participation where the proposed fees are above the £6000 level. However it is likely that a significant funding gap of hundreds of millions of pounds for the taxpayer will occur. The Funding Council also has a responsibility for promoting value for money, although it does not assess the value for money of institutions. In future, prospective students will need better information to make an informed choice about where they will study, including comparable information on the financial health of, and value for money provided by, individual institutions. The Funding Council does not normally publish the names of institutions it judges to be at financial risk, so as to protect them while they are in recovery. Now that students are required to make a substantial financial investment in their degree, the Funding Council needs to strike a suitable balance between the interests of institutions and those of prospective students

Accountability for public money

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Author :
Publisher : The Stationery Office
ISBN 13 : 9780215559029
Total Pages : 52 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (59 download)

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Book Synopsis Accountability for public money by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts

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.

Accountability for public money - progress report

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Author :
Publisher : The Stationery Office
ISBN 13 : 9780215043740
Total Pages : 82 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (437 download)

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Book Synopsis Accountability for public money - progress report by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts

Download or read book Accountability for public money - progress report written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-04-17 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report is a follow-up to the Committee's report on Accountability for Public Money (HC 740, session 2010-11 (ISBN 9780215559029)) an issue at the core of the relationship between Parliament and government. Accounting Officers remain accountable to Parliament for funds voted to their departments but the policy intention is that local bodies will have significant discretion over the services they deliver. In the Government's response, 'Accountability: Adapting to Decentralisation', Sir Bob Kerslake drew a distinction between those services that government delivers directly and those that it may fund but are delivered in more decentralised arrangements. He proposed that Accounting Officers set out, in Accountability System Statements, the arrangements they have in place to provide assurance about the probity and value for money of funds spent through devolved systems. All departments are expected to produce Statements by summer 2012. Departments have made a genuine effort to develop arrangements which reconcile accountability and localism but the Statements so far are unwieldy and considerably more needs to be done to improve their clarity, consistency and completeness. There is concern that accountability frameworks must drive value for money and, critically, are sufficiently robust to address the operational or financial failure of service providers. Departments are placing increasing reliance on market mechanisms such as user choice to drive up performance and value for money, but there are limits to what these mechanisms can achieve. The Treasury needs to take ownership of the system and ensure that the Comptroller and Auditor General has the necessary powers and rights of access to examine the value for money of funds spent through devolved systems