The Comptroller and Auditor General has qualified the financial accounts of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) over how the Council has accounted for two of its sponsored institutes, the Institute of Food Research and the Babraham Institute.
A National Audit Office report to Parliament today on the handling of the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak showed that the outbreak cost the public sector over £3 billion and the private sector more than £5 billion. According to head of the NAO Sir John Bourn, lessons to be learned from the outbreak, unprecedented in […]
The disposal of former Northern Rock mortgages and loans in 2015 was the government’s largest ever financial asset sale. When judged against the Government’s objective to shrink the balance sheet swiftly the deal was value for money.
The Thames Tideway Tunnel is a planned project to build a large sewer running under the River Thames. It is the Government’s preferred solution to the problem of spills from London’s sewers into the tidal part of the Thames. In response to correspondence, we explain the roles of the different parties, identify potential risks to value for money and set out what we expect good project management to look like. To avoid influencing the outcome of ongoing competitions for the construction and financing of the project, we do not evaluate the value for money of the project and the issues raised do not imply any audit judgement about its performance.
Sir John Bourn, the head of the National Audit Office, today presented to Parliament his reports on the purchase, refurbishment and fitting out of buildings for the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service. These Reports were produced in 1992 and 1995 as classified reports to Parliament and in accordance with the then arrangements for […]
This is the second NAO report on government’s approach to test and trace services in England.
Sir John Bourn, head of the National Audit Office, today reported to Parliament on the 2000-2001 Teachers’ Pension Scheme (England and Wales) Resource Account. He has limited the scope of the audit opinion because the Managers of the Scheme were unable to provide him at the date of his opinion with sufficient evidence to support […]
NAO assesses if DfE is achieving value for money through its work to recruit and retain teachers for secondary schools and further education
There are more than 1000 tax reliefs in the UK tax system. The NAO intends to carry out future work evaluating how they are developed and implemented.
Although government provides billions in tax reliefs each year to encourage growth, it does not monitor or evaluate them closely enough.
HMRC is making some headway in reducing opportunities for tax avoidance, but over 100 new schemes have been disclosed in each of the last four years.
In its final review of the quality of the data systems used by departments to measure progress against PSAs, the NAO underlines the vital importance of measuring government performance.
This report examines efforts to address gender based violence, to support government’s target to halve violence against women and girls.
This report examines the effectiveness of HMRC’s approach, in partnership with HM Treasury, in reducing the tax gap.
HM Revenue & Customs achieved a return of around £4.50 for every £1 spent on tackling the hidden economy in 2006-07 and recent campaigns to encourage people into the formal economy have achieved much higher returns. But, according to the National Audit Office, the penalties the Department imposes when it detects people in the hidden […]
HMRC has met its targets to raise more tax revenue in the short-term; however, an estimated £16 billion is lost to tax fraud each year. HMRC needs to improve the way it uses data and analysis to understand the effect of its actions to tackle fraud.