This guide explains the audit and support work carried out by the NAO in the international environment.
Aimed at: staff in government departments spending UK funds overseas; Audit Offices and parliamentary oversight bodies in developing countries.
Limitations in Network Rail’s cost information has hampered the ability of the Office of Rail Regulation to assess efficiency savings.
The MOD supply chain is currently not value for money. It would be much more efficient if directed by a modern information system.
Value for money is not being achieved across all trusts in the planning, procurement and use of high value equipment. There are significant variations across England in levels of activity and a lack of comparable information about performance and cost of machine use.
The FCO did well in 2009-10 in quickly bringing its expenditure down to within its budget. However, measurement and evaluation were limited. The FCO’s approach to cost reduction must now be fully strategic and sustainable. It will be vital to avoid damaging value for money through over-simplistic cuts.
We have published good practice for accurate public reporting of savings in Appendix 2 of The Efficiency and Reform Group’s role in improving public sector value for money.
This guidance has been developed from our examinations of the savings programmes in the 2004 and 2007 Spending Review periods.
The Group’s priorities are to improve government efficiency and reform public services. It is too soon to judge its success. This review details various challenges that the Group faces and is intended to provide an objective baseline against which its progress can be assessed.
The Department for Transport protected the taxpayer and secured value for money in the termination of National Express’s InterCity East Coast franchise.
Achievements and participation of 16- to 18-year-olds in education have improved, but issues with performance management and accountability arrangements remain.
The BBC should strengthen its approach to achieving value for money in its soaps by being more systematic in comparing and challenging production costs and processes.
Investors in taxpayer-owned banks were paid an excessive interest rate for risk actually being shouldered by taxpayers. The buy-back was therefore value for money.
This memorandum has been prepared for the Scottish Affairs Committee and provides an overview of the Health and Safety Executive’s work in Scotland.
The Points Based System doesn’t deliver its full value for money potential, while poor data and monitoring hampers the removal of failed applicants.
Despite numbers of staff employed by central government falling slightly over the last decade, costs have increased by 10 per cent.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has improved the maturity of its financial management in a number of areas, but the NAO has not been able to conclude that the Department is achieving value for money.
This briefing has been prepared for the International Development Committee to support its inquiry into the Future of CDC.
The Higher Education Funding Council has taken a cost-efficient approach and has delivered value for money in the context in which it has operated to date. However, the sector is facing a period of transition to a very different financial environment.
Despite good progress in improving the professional capability and capacity of government finance departments, good financial management is still not embedded in the civil service culture, and financial matters do not have sufficient influence over departments’ strategic decision making.
The cost of each Typhoon aircraft has risen by 75 per cent. While Typhoon performs some defence tasks now, it won’t take on all roles until 2018.
More could be done to manage the risk of a reduction in the value of EU funds to the UK in the event of a depreciation in the euro.