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The Efficiency And Reform Groups Role In Improving Public Sector Value For Money
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Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215561664 Total Pages :52 pages Book Rating :4.5/5 (616 download)
Book Synopsis The Efficiency and Reform Group's role in improving public sector value for money by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book The Efficiency and Reform Group's role in improving public sector value for money written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-10-11 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Efficiency and Reform Group (the Group) was established within the Cabinet Office in May 2010 to lead efforts to cut government spending by £6 billion in 2010-11. Its long term aim is to improve value for money across government by strengthening the central coordination of measures to improve efficiency. The imperative to make savings in the short term has involved the Group imposing new controls on departments, such as moratoria on certain expenditure. Sustained efficiency improvements, though, will need a much deeper change to both the culture and institutional structure of government. The Group also needs to clear up confusion over who is accountable for what in terms of improving value for money, especially in defining its responsibilities and those of the Treasury and individual departments. The Group's actions have resulted in efficiency savings of £3.75 billion across departments in 2010-11. It should continue to describe any future spending reductions accurately and explain any impact on services. The scale of the challenge to deliver efficiencies is huge: the Government intends that half of the £81 billion reduction in spending planned over the next three years should come from efficiencies rather than through cuts to services or delays to important projects. Many of the efficiencies must be achieved in areas where the Group currently has a limited influence, or by local bodies, where it has none. The Group should set out how it will operate to ensure that its approach can be replicated across the wider public sector.
Book Synopsis The Efficiency and Reform Group's role in improving public sector value for money by : Great Britain: National Audit Office
Download or read book The Efficiency and Reform Group's role in improving public sector value for money written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-03-25 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In May 2010, the Government announced the formation of the Efficiency and Reform Group within the Cabinet Office. The Group brings many of the functions of a typical corporate headquarters together in one place in the centre of government. Its priorities are improving efficiency in central government, and wider reform of the way public services are provided, in order to make the spending reductions required by the 2010 Spending Review. The Group is responsible for various new initiatives which are designed to increase efficiency, make savings and improve value for money. These include renegotiating contracts with major suppliers; implementation of a centralised procurement process; a review of major government projects; and a new Property Unit. The NAO's review details various challenges that the Group faces. It is too soon for the NAO to reach a judgment on its success in improving the value for money of government overall. The review is intended to provide an objective baseline against which progress made by the Group can be assessed by the NAO and the Public Accounts Committee.
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215042842 Total Pages :56 pages Book Rating :4.0/5 (428 download)
Book Synopsis Preparations for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book Preparations for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-03-09 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Olympic Delivery Authority's management of its building programme has been exemplary but, due to significant increases in the cost of venue security, the likelihood of staying within the overall £9.3 billion Public Sector Funding Package is very finely balanced. The Funding Package does not cover the totality of the costs to the public purse of delivering the Games and their legacy, which are already heading for around £11 billion. Operational and financial risks have emerged in areas of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games' responsibility, and LOCOG itself now has almost no contingency left to meet further costs, even though it has done well in its revenue generation. The number of security guards required in and around the venues has more than doubled, and renegotiation of the contract for venue security does not appear to have secured any price advantage. With only 109,000 new people regularly participating in sport against an original target (which the new Government chose not to adopt) of 1 million by March 2013, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has got poor value for money for the £450 million spent through sporting National Governing Bodies. It is unclear what the sporting participation legacy of the Games is intended to be. Responsibility for delivery of all legacy matters is shared across many different parts of Government, and this rings alarm bells about the effective integration of the various legacy plans and about clear accountability to the taxpayer.
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215038968 Total Pages :44 pages Book Rating :4.0/5 (389 download)
Book Synopsis The cost effective delivery of armoured vehicle capability by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book The cost effective delivery of armoured vehicle capability written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-12-09 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Armoured vehicles such as tanks, reconnaissance and personnel-carrying vehicles are essential for a wide range of military tasks. Since the 1998 Strategic Defence Review, the Ministry of Defence has attempted to acquire the vehicles it needs through a number of procurement projects. However, none of the principal armoured vehicles it requires have yet been delivered, despite the MoD spending £1.1 billion since 1998, including £321 million wasted on cancelled or suspended projects. As a result there will be gaps in capability until at least 2025, making it more difficult to undertake essential tasks such as battlefield reconnaissance. Partly as a result of this £1.1 billion failure to yet deliver any armoured vehicles, and to meet the specific military demands of operating in Iraq and Afghanistan, the MoD was provided with a further £2.8 billion from the Treasury Reserve to buy Urgent Operational Requirements (UOR) vehicles. Over the past six years, the Department has removed £10.8 billion from armoured vehicle budgets up to 2021. This has left £5.5 billion available for the next ten years, which is insufficient to deliver all of the armoured vehicle programmes which are planned. The MoD needs to be clearer about its priorities, and stop raiding the armoured vehicles chest every time it needs to make savings across the defence budget. It will also need to set more realistic requirements in future if it is to deliver projects on time and to budget. The Committee expressed concern that the Department was unable to identify anyone who has been held to account for the clear delivery failures. Further, the MoD has yet to balance its defence budget fully and devise a plan to close capability gaps, despite having conducted the SDSR and two subsequent planning exercises. It needs to determine its armoured vehicle equipment priorities and deliver these as rapidly and cost-effectively as possible, including making an assessment of which of its existing vehicles should be retained after combat operations in Afghanistan cease.
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215045058 Total Pages :56 pages Book Rating :4.0/5 (45 download)
Book Synopsis Adult apprenticeships by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book Adult apprenticeships written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-05-17 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills works with the Skills Funding Agency (the Agency) and the National Apprenticeship Service (the Service), to deliver the Apprenticeship Programme. Adult apprentices represented 325,500, or 71%, of the 457,200 apprentices who started their apprenticeship in the 2010/11 academic year. During the 2010-11 financial year the Department spent £451 million on adult apprenticeships. The Programme has been a success more than quadrupling the number of adult apprenticeships in the four years to 2010/11 and the proportion of adult apprentices successfully completing their apprenticeship has also risen, from around a third in 2004/05 to over three-quarters in 2010/11. Further work, however, needs to be done to maximise its impacts. The Department should improve its understanding of which apprenticeships offer the biggest returns. The Service should give both employers and individuals better information about the benefits arising from different types of apprenticeship, as well as about the quality of the many training providers. The Service should do more to increase the number of employers offering apprenticeships, and to increase the proportion of advanced skill level apprenticeships achieved, moving England closer to the levels delivered in other European countries. Importantly, around one in five apprenticeships lasted for six months or less. The Service accepts concern that apprenticeships lasting for such a short period are of no proper benefit to either individuals or employers. The Service says it is tackling the problem but it needs to do more to guarantee the length and quality of training -especially the off-the-job training apprentices receive
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215040183 Total Pages :44 pages Book Rating :4.0/5 (41 download)
Book Synopsis Means testing by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book Means testing written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-01-12 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Government uses means testing to distribute at least £87 billion of benefits to claimants each year, around 13% of total public spending. The poorest fifth of households rely on means-tested benefits for a third of their net income. The planned introduction of a new means-tested Universal Credit will replace a number of existing means-tested benefits. Currently 30 different means tested benefits are managed by nine departments and 152 local authorities in England. But Departments have a limited understanding of how their design of benefits affects incentives for employment, the burden on claimants, take-up and administrative costs. Departments need to improve their understanding of how all benefits interact and how changes to eligibility rules can affect claimants. Complexity increases the burden on claimants which can harm take-up, and is likely to disadvantage the most vulnerable members of society in particular. The Government expects Universal Credit reforms to simplify the system and improve incentives to find work. The DWP's priority is to focus on the effective delivery of these reforms. However, success will also depend on proper coordination between Universal Credit and other means-tested benefits. In addition, DWP and HMRC are designing a real-time information (RTI) system for Universal Credit to reduce the risk of overpayments, with benefits being recalculated as soon as circumstances change. Both DWP and HMRC need to understand how the introduction of this system will impact on small businesses and the self-employed who may not have the necessary IT to administer it.
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215045102 Total Pages :48 pages Book Rating :4.0/5 (451 download)
Book Synopsis The free entitlement to education for three and four year olds by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book The free entitlement to education for three and four year olds written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-05-22 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Department for Education provides funding for local authorities to pay for three and four year olds to receive their entitlement to 15 hours of free education each week. The Department devolves delivery to local authorities and providers but it is responsible for the overall value for money from the system. In 2011-12 the Department's estimated funding for the entitlement of £1.9 billion provided over 800,000 three and four year olds with access to free education; an estimated annual allocation of approximately £2,300 per child. While the Department and local authorities have focused on ensuring places for children are available, there has been less attention on how value for money can be secured and improved. While there is evidence of educational improvement at age five, the evidence that this is sustained is questionable. The Department needs to do more to understand how educational benefits can be lasting. There is not enough good information for parents to make informed choices and there is concern at reports that some families are still not receiving the entitlement free of charge. It is important that all parents know what the entitlement is and that it should be provided completely free. Early years education has the greatest benefit for children from disadvantaged backgrounds however these children have the lowest levels of take-up and deprived areas have the lowest levels of high quality services. The Department needs to identify and share good practice from those local authorities which are having the most success.
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215038548 Total Pages :56 pages Book Rating :4.0/5 (385 download)
Book Synopsis Protecting consumers - the system for enforcing consumer law by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book Protecting consumers - the system for enforcing consumer law written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-11-09 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Commons Public Accounts Committee publishes its 54th report of Session 2010-12, on the basis of evidence from consumer groups, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Office of Fair Trading, and the Trading Standards Institute, examining the current arrangements for the enforcement of consumer law, and the proposed changes to the regime. Individual consumers lose around £6.6 billion every year because of the malpractices of traders. At least £4.8 billion is lost through malpractices which occur at a regional or national level, such as mass market scams, counterfeiting, and unscrupulous traders who operate over large geographical areas. The Department has overall responsibility for policy on consumer protection. However, the majority of enforcement work, from weights and measures testing to the prosecution of rogue traders, is carried out by local authority Trading Standards Services, each with jurisdiction in only its own local area. The Committee states, that the Department has limited understanding of the true cost of protecting consumers or of the success of existing interventions. There is no clear and complete information on how much enforcement activity actually costs. The approach to enforcing consumer protection has not kept pace with the changing nature of the problems it is intended to tackle, such as online shopping. Any changes the Department makes must deliver a system fit for the modern era. Responsibility for tackling regional and national instances of malpractice or rogue trading must be clearly designated.
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215041586 Total Pages :20 pages Book Rating :4.0/5 (415 download)
Book Synopsis Excess votes in 2010-11 by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book Excess votes in 2010-11 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-02-02 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Committee of Public Accounts scrutinises the reasons behind individual Departments exceeding their allocated resources, and reports to the House of Commons on whether it has any objection to the amounts needed to rectify the reported excesses. The Committee may also make recommendations to Departments concerning the causes of these excesses. In 2010-11, two bodies breached their expenditure limits: The Department for Transport breached its Net Cash Requirement by £335.2 million, primarily because of weaknesses in monitoring its budget for the operation of its rail franchises; The Teachers' Pension Scheme (England & Wales) breached its Net Cash Requirement by £11.9 million because the Department for Education underestimated the number of members that would retire in 2010-11 and overestimated the contributions that would be collected from employers. On the basis of an examination of the reasons why these two bodies exceeded their voted provisions, the Committee has no objection to Parliament providing the necessary amounts by means of an Excess Vote. Nevertheless, it expects both bodies to set out what actions they have taken to improve their financial management and avoid exceeding their allocated resources in the future.
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215045072 Total Pages :52 pages Book Rating :4.0/5 (45 download)
Book Synopsis Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-05-18 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Around half of all children in the UK from separated families are being brought up in poverty. In 2010-11 the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission collected and transferred £1.1 billion to parents caring for more than 880,000 children. Nevertheless significant, all too familiar and recurring challenges remain: parents are frustrated with the standard of support received from the Commission. Maintenance payments totalling some £3.7 billion are outstanding, but the Commission estimates that only £1 billion of this is collectable; and costs remain high. The Commission also faces further significant challenges in introducing its new child maintenance scheme. In particular, it will need to respond to substantial cost reductions and successfully implement a new system of charging fees to parents who choose to use the Commission's services. The Commission needs to deliver acceptable standards of service at a reasonable cost. The new child maintenance scheme should improve efficiency, but further changes are needed to streamline existing processes. The Commission has to deliver cost reductions of £117 million by 2014-15 and its plans are currently £16 million short of this target. Its cost reduction plans depend in part on a new IT system which is already late. To meet the current timetable critical testing will have to be undertaken in parallel with development work, mirroring poor practices that have contributed to the failure of a number of government IT projects. Each month of delay will increase the Commission's costs by at least £3 million and may delay planned income from fees.
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215042927 Total Pages :44 pages Book Rating :4.0/5 (429 download)
Book Synopsis Reducing costs in the Department for Transport by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book Reducing costs in the Department for Transport written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-03-13 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As part of the 2010 Spending Review the government announced a significant reduction in the budget of the Department for Transport, with spending due to be 15% lower by 2014-15, in real terms, than the Department's £12.8 billion budget in 2010-11. The Department prepared early, identifying areas for budget reductions based on good analysis. But for road users, railway passengers and taxpayers, there are many questions which remain unanswered. The Department doesn't fully understand the impact of its cuts to road maintenance. There is concern that short-term budget cutting could prove counter-productive, costing more in the long-term as a result of increased vehicle damage and the higher cost of repairing the more severe road damage. Another area of concern is rail spending. The Department spends two-thirds of its budget through third party organisations such as Network Rail and Transport for London. While information and assurance have improved over some third party spending, there is still a lack of proper accountability and transparency for Network Rail. Rail budgets aren't being reduced as much as other areas, yet passengers still face high fares. The Department hands Network Rail over £3 billion each year, underwrites debt of over £25 billion and continues to treat it as a private sector company. The National Audit Office must be allowed full audit access as quickly as possible.. Better contingency plans for dealing with threats to its planned budget reductions also need to be developed - for example if some of its planned efficiency savings do not deliver or if inflation is higher than forecast
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215041487 Total Pages :40 pages Book Rating :4.0/5 (414 download)
Book Synopsis Flood risk management in England by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book Flood risk management in England written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-01-31 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Flood protection is a national priority and features on the National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies. Recently the annual cost of flood damage has been £1.1 billion, and 5.2 million homes are at risk of flooding. In 2010-11 the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (the Department) spent £664 million on flood and coastal risk management, 95% of which went to the Environment Agency (the Agency). In 2009 the Agency projected that its flood risk management budget needed to rise by 9% during the spending review period (2011-12 to 2014-15) to sustain current levels of protection. However during the same period the Agency's flood risk management budget has been reduced by over 10%. The Department wants to increase local authority and private contributions, but expecting an increase in local authority contributions when their resources are reducing may well be over-optimistic. The Committee was very concerned that the Department did not accept ultimate responsibility for managing the risk of floods. The Department also needs more reliable information to inform its decisions on when and where to intervene if local risk management plans are inadequate. The Agency needs to improve how it involves local communities in the decision-making process. The agreement between the Department and the insurance industry that insurance cover will be provided to households at risk of flooding ends in 2013. In some areas premiums appear to have risen as a result of growing uncertainty over local levels of protection, so an early revised agreement is needed.
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215045195 Total Pages :44 pages Book Rating :4.0/5 (451 download)
Book Synopsis HM Revenue & Customs by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book HM Revenue & Customs written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-05-24 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: HMRC estimates that the tax gap - the difference between taxes due and the amount actually collected - stood at £35 billion (7.9% of tax due) in 2009-10, although other estimates suggest the figure is much greater. The Compliance and Enforcement Programme brought in £4.32 billion of tax revenue over the five years to 2010-11and is expected to generate a further £8.87 billion by 2014-15. However, in shedding more than 3,300 staff, the Department lost £1.1 billion in potential tax revenue: about £10 in tax lost for every £1 in running costs saved. The Committee is also not confident that the Department is sufficiently clear about the marginal rate of return it could achieve from different levels of spending. In order to live within funding limits, the Department had to defer the introduction of new systems or reduce their scope. In particular, by delaying implementation of its new Caseflow and Spectrum systems, the Department reduced the expected additional tax revenue of £743 million by 2010-11 to £547 million by 2014-15. In this Spending Review period £917 million has been allocated to further activities to tackle tax evasion and avoidance, and to collect more debt. This investment is more than double the money spent on the Programme over the last five years, and is expected to generate an additional £7 billion a year by 2014-15. It is therefore essential that the Department learns and applies lessons learnt. There was also alarm at reports that the Department had advised that the use of managed service companies to avoid tax could ever be appropriate for full-time employees of public bodies
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215038913 Total Pages :40 pages Book Rating :4.0/5 (389 download)
Book Synopsis Oversight of user choice and provider competition in care markets by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book Oversight of user choice and provider competition in care markets written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2011-12-06 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Currently, 340,000 people, or 30 % of eligible care users, have a personal budget, which enables the individual to choose their care provider. The Government wants all eligible users to be offered a personal budget by April 2013. Personal budgets currently cost the taxpayer £1.5 billion each year. The total annual expenditure on care is around £23 billion. Effective oversight of the care market is essential to protect the interests of both social care users and of taxpayers. There is growing consolidation in the social care market at a regional level. Yet the Department did not have a view on what level of market share represents a risk of provider dominance, or arrangements to protect users should a large-scale provider fail. This is worrying given the recent experience of Southern Cross and the high levels of debt that some providers are carrying. There are risks to the future functioning of the social care market from local authority budget reductions. The report notes some difficult areas with personal budgets: provision of advice, ease of changing support, redress. The Department has to rely on local authorities to implement its policy of universal provision of personal budgets but it cannot compel local authorities to act. The Department will shortly issue a White Paper on reforming social care delivery. The changes the Department makes must address concerns about giving users a real choice, overseeing the market to ensure competition and stability, and putting in place arrangements and contingencies to deal with major provider failure.
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215044129 Total Pages :52 pages Book Rating :4.0/5 (441 download)
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.
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215041906 Total Pages :48 pages Book Rating :4.0/5 (419 download)
Book Synopsis Oversight of special education for young people aged 16-25 by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book Oversight of special education for young people aged 16-25 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-02-24 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Almost a third of young people with a Statement of special educational needs at the age of 16 are not in any form of education, employment or training two years later. The Government spent £640 million on special education for 16- to 25-year-olds in 2009-10, yet too many of these young people are falling through the gaps after they leave compulsory education, damaging their life chances and leaving a legacy of costs to the taxpayer. The system is extremely complex and difficult to navigate, with an array of different providers. Too many parents and young people are not given the information they need to make decisions about what is right for them. But three quarters of local authorities do not give parents any information at all about the respective performance of schools, FE colleges and specialist providers. The Department doesn't know how much money is actually spent on support. The huge variation between local authorities in funding per student suggests that a postcode lottery is at work. Students with higher-level needs are placed on the basis of statutory assessments of need; however, witnesses emphasised just how patchy the quality of these assessments can be. The opportunity for reform presented by the Department's recent Special Educational Needs Green Paper should be used to address our concerns It is right for local authorities to decide how to meet the needs of young people in their area - but local people must have access to clear information so that they can hold local authorities to account for how well they deliver
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts Publisher :The Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215043818 Total Pages :36 pages Book Rating :4.0/5 (438 download)
Book Synopsis Cost reduction in central government by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Download or read book Cost reduction in central government written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-04-27 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The National Audit Office report on this topic published as HC 1788, session 2010-12 (ISBN 9780102975376)