Government has made progress in making a wide range of information available to the public through the internet. But the National Audit Office has found that although internet users rate government websites reasonably well, the quality of those websites has improved only slightly since 2002. Todays report to Parliament looked at the progress made by […]
Measures to encourage people to save for retirement are not being managed by Departments with enough coherence or accountability.
Government has given less attention to grants than to other policy funding mechanisms, despite grant funding being higher in value, making up 41 per cent (£292 billion) of its total expenditure.
Government funding for renewable energy technologies has delivered innovation and increased supply. However, co-ordination has historically been limited and the absence of a consistent approach to measuring the impact of this support means overall value for money cannot be demonstrated.
The cyber threat to UK government is severe; government must act now to protect its own operations and key public services.
Sir John Bourn, head of the National Audit Office, reported to Parliament today that GCHQs new headquarter building, which will cost GCHQ about 46 million a year, and which was procured through a PFI deal, was on track to be delivered on time and within its finally determined budget; and it was handled well overall. […]
This overview of the NAO’s work on the government’s management of contracting examines subjects including the government’s commercial capability, accountability and transparency, and its management of contracted-out service delivery.
Central government could improve its day to day cash management and reduce the amount of interest it pays on debt if its departments and their sponsored bodies held less money in commercial bank accounts. Today’s report to Parliament by the National Audit Office recommends that these organisations instead use the Exchequer as their main banking […]
To assist those responsible for producing Governance Statements, we have prepared a Fact Sheet which summarises guidance provided in Managing Public Money and advises that the good practice messages from earlier NAO guidance on the Statement on Internal Control remain relevant.
This is the first report on Agile delivery in which we aim to provide practical support to those in publicly funded bodies who are using or considering using the approach in business change programmes.
Sir John Bourn, head of the National Audit Office, issued a report today on good practice in performance reporting by Executive Agencies and Executive Non-Departmental Public Bodies. His report is designed to assist agencies to improve further their performance reporting by setting out suggestions based on their own good practice in collecting and reporting performance […]
Published 12 July 2006
Sir John Bourn, head of the National Audit Office, has welcomed progress made by the Charity Commission in tackling concerns previously raised about its performance by the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee. Scope for further improvement remains, however, particularly in the Commission’s approach to investigation where problems arise among registered charities and […]
HMRC and the Treasury do not know if incentives designed to increase charitable giving, at a cost to the taxpayer of £940 million in 2012-13, have resulted in more income for charities.
Achievements and participation of 16- to 18-year-olds in education have improved, but issues with performance management and accountability arrangements remain.
A set of six questions for departments to consider to promote value for money in their expenditure on professional services, taken from from pages 15-16 of the NAO Value for Money report, “Purchasing Professional Services” (HC 400 2000-2001) published in April 2001.