Financial pressures are growing on local authority maintained schools and the capacity of local authorities to support financial management in schools is itself under pressure. The Department for Education needs a system for alerting it to problems requiring intervention.
Many NHS trusts need to tackle a range of financial, quality and governance issues if they are to meet the standards required of them to become self-governing foundation trusts by 2014. The Department of Health and the NHS will now have to decide how they will deal with those facing the most severe problems.
There is a growing belief that policy goals may be achieved more effectively if the design and use of interventions incorporate a better understanding of behaviour. This is therefore intrinsic to value for money. This guide provides the NAO’s emerging thinking on what a value for money assessment of a behaviour change programme may focus on.
Shortcomings must be addressed if value for money is to be secured in the future for users of social care “personal budgets” once they are extended to all eligible users by April 2013.
It will be difficult for government departments to achieve value for money from means-tested benefits unless government understands the impacts of means testing, learns from past experience and improves coordination between different benefits.
Defra needs good cost information to scrutinise and challenge its arm’s length bodies, so that it can reduce costs with minimal disruption to frontline services.
HMRC faces a significant challenge in securing a £1.6 billion reduction in running costs over the next four years, at the same time as increasing tax revenues, improving customer service and achieving reductions in welfare payments.
PaceSetter has led to productivity improvements and may have contributed to greater staff engagement. However, the extent to which overall efficiency has improved is not clear; and some key principles of process improvement are not yet being applied strategically across the entire organisation.
Despite major expenditure by central government departments,weaknesses in departmental strategies and governance arrangements have limited the effectiveness of skills development activities.
DEFRA has delivered some value from the £39.3 million spent on its geographic information strategy and activities. However, a lack of financial information means that the NAO cannot determine that value for money has been achieved.
This guide provides practical advice on how to plan for and manage the decommissioning of public services delivered by civil society organisations (CSOs) and maintain value for money while doing so.
IPSA’s scheme for MPs’ expenses is safeguarding public money but IPSA has not had enough regard to the effect of the scheme on MPs’ work.
Changes to the aircraft carrier project in the 2010 defence review will save £3.4 billion but leave the UK without carrier capability for nine years.
The project to replace the 46 Fire and Rescue Services’ local control rooms across England with nine purpose-built regional control centres linked by a new IT system has been a comprehensive failure, according to the National Audit Office. The Department for Communities and Local Government acted to cut its losses by terminating the contract in […]
There are major risks the Department of Energy and Climate Change must address to achieve value for money from its £11.3 billion national programme to install ‘smart’ electricity and gas meters in all homes and smaller non-domestic premises in Great Britain from 2014 to 2019.
This report highlights risks to value for money associated with the Department of Health’s programme aimed at enabling its staff to take the lead in leaving the NHS to set up health social enterprises. These are independent bodies delivering services, previously provided in-house, under contract to PCTs.
The Department for Work and Pensions will have to make rapid progress in reorganising the way it operates if it is to meet its target of cutting costs by £20 billion in four years while achieving substantial reform of the welfare system.
Unfair treatment of consumers, ranging from pressure selling to systematic scams by criminals, is costing billions of pounds each year – but the system for enforcing consumer law is not delivering value for money.
The Department of Health has until recently been focusing on speed of response as a measure of performance of the ambulance service, rather than on clinical outcomes. The service achieves high levels of public satisfaction but there are wide variations in ambulance trusts’ efficiency. The system has not delivered the best value for money to date.
The Mortgage Rescue Scheme, launched in January 2009 by the Department for Communities and Local Government, achieved fewer than half of the rescues expected. The Department helped 2,600 households avoid repossession and homelessness at a cost of in excess of £240 million – but it originally expected to help 6,000 households for £205 million.