Accountability to Parliament for taxpayers’ money
Published on:The incentives on government Accounting Officers to prioritise value for money are weak compared to those associated with the day-to-day job of satisfying Ministers.
Showing 141 - 160 of 188 results
-
-
Investigating the potential impacts of cost of debt indexation in the water sector
Published on:This paper sets out how we constructed a counterfactual to establish how much water customers in England and Wales could have benefited from an alternative charging system between 2010/11 and 2014/15.
-
Competitive and demand-led grants: good practice guide
Published on:The Cabinet Office estimates that government commits around £130 billion to grants each year – nearly 20% of all government spend. Grants are an important delivery mechanism for policy across government, not just centrally but also in agencies, local authorities and other bodies across the public sector.
-
Environmental and sustainability metrics briefing
Published on:This briefing gives a high-level overview of the range of metrics that government uses to assess and report on sustainable development and environmental protection, and how these compare with good practice principles for a performance management framework.
-
Managing business operations– what government needs to get right
Published on:We present here what we’ve been learning about the problems government faces in managing its business operations, the actions taken to address them, and our analysis of what government needs to focus on to get this right.
-
Investigating the impact of out-of-hours GP services on A&E attendance rates: multilevel regression analysis
Published on:This series of papers summarises the methodological approaches we have taken in carrying out innovative or novel analysis. Such analysis is conducted under our statutory authority to examine and report to Parliament on the economy, efficiency and effectiveness with which government departments and other bodies have used their resources.
The Audit insights papers are methodological summaries and do not make new observations about value for money.
-
Investigating the impact of out-of-hours GP services on A&E attendance rates: multilevel regression analysis
Published on:This paper sets out how we used an analytical technique called multilevel regression modelling to investigate the factors affecting levels of attendance at accident and emergency (A&E) departments by patients registered at a GP practice.
-
Principles Paper: Managing provider failure
Published on:This paper explores the principles departments should use to manage provider failure. There is room for improvement in the way failure of providers is considered and managed.
-
Fraud and Error Stocktake
Published on:The government continues to lose large amounts of money through fraud and error overpayments and many vulnerable people get less support than they are entitled to.
-
Outcome-based payment schemes: government’s use of payment by results
Published on:Payment by results (PbR) schemes are hard to get right, and are risky and costly for commissioners. Credible evidence for claimed benefits of PbR is now needed.
-
Lessons for major service transformation
Published on:This briefing note draws on lessons developed in our report Welfare reform – lessons learned and sets out broader principles from our work auditing government programmes and reporting on value for money.
-
Welfare reform
Published on:It is important that the DWP use the hard lessons it learned from implementing its recent programme of welfare reforms to improve how it manages change and anticipates risk.
-
The choice of finance for capital investment
Published on:The NAO publishes a briefing paper considering capital investment by government and how it chooses to finance it.
-
Modelling of maternity services in England
Published on:This paper sets out how we used a modelling technique called ‘discrete event simulation’ to investigate a local maternity service.
-
Mapping between different commissioners of healthcare
Published on:This paper sets out how we created look-up files to map between different commissioning geographies. This enabled us, for example, to estimate overall health funding at an area-level despite the different geographical bases of the various commissioners. We provide links to these look-up files.
-
Conflicts of interest
Published on:This report outlines the importance of recognising and adequately managing conflicts of interest.
-
Delivering value and accountability – CIMA and NAO expert panel report
Published on:Fiscal pressure on government departments is set to continue through the next Parliament, with citizen expectations continuing to rise. With the ‘more for less’ challenge continuing indefinitely and an increasingly complex public sector landscape, a strong and integrated finance function across government is crucial.
-
Understanding central government’s accounts – an introductory guide for those with an oversight role
Published on:Our new guide is aimed at helping non-accountant readers of government’s accounts understand better what is being reported in them and what it means.
-
Forecasting in government to achieve value for money
Published on:Inadequate forecasting is an entrenched problem for government departments, leading to poor value for money and increased costs for the taxpayer.
-
Government whistleblowing policies
Published on:This report provides the context around whistleblowing and examines the procedures in place for whistleblowing within government departments.