The C&AG has qualified the Social Fund Account for the eighth consecutive year. The account has been qualified because of material levels of error in discretionary awards, which include Budgeting Loans, Crisis Loans and Community Care Grants, and in Funeral Expense Payments. He has also qualified, for the first time, his opinion on Cold Weather Payments.
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.
The NAO has published its report on the 2010-11 accounts of HM Revenue and Customs.
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.
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.
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.
The Comptroller and Auditor General has qualified his audit opinion on the 2009-10 accounts of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
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.
In 2007, the five UK audit agencies jointly launched a set of indicators for each of five corporate service activities – estates management, finance, human resources, ICT, and procurement. Two further services were subsequently added – communications and legal.
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.
The suspension and cancellation of a number of key armoured vehicle projects since the 1998 defence review has resulted in the Armed Forces facing a significant shortage in the principal armoured vehicles they require, until at least 2024-2025.
The rate at which electronic care records systems are being put in place across the NHS under the National Programme for IT is falling far below expectations and the core aim that every patient should have an electronic care record under the Programme will not now be achieved.
Being able to measure performance is a key step to managing performance. Most organisations in the public and private sectors use formal performance frameworks as a means to secure coherent performance management and report progress to their boards.
This review examines whether the Department for Transport has in place suitable arrangements to secure value for money from Regional Funding Allocation Programme investment.
The Comptroller and Auditor General has today reported on the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission’s Client Funds Account 2008-09 and 2009-10.
Lessons from the large body of experience of using PFI can be applied to improve other forms of procurement. Government should also do more to act as an ‘intelligent customer’ in the procurement and management of projects.