Showing 1261 - 1280 of 2702 results

  1. Criminal justice landscape review

    Report Value for money

    Published on:

    The criminal justice system, overseen by the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice and the Attorney General’s Office, is intended to cut crime, protect the public and punish offenders.

  2. Minimising the cost of administrative errors in the benefit system

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    DWP has not reduced the mistakes made by staff processing benefits. In 2009-10 it overpaid an estimated £1.1 billion and made underpayments of £500 million. However, the scale of the challenge facing the Department should not be underestimated.

  3. Procurement of the M25 private finance contract

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    The Highways Agency’s PFI contract to widen the M25 could have been better value for money. The slowness with which it was taken forward resulted in higher financing costs, and the Agency was slow to investigate a potentially cheaper alternative to widening.

  4. Delivering the Cancer Reform Strategy

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    Improvements and efficiencies have been made in key areas of cancer care since the Cancer Reform Strategy was published. However, a lack of high quality information on costs of cancer services and their outcomes inhibits substantial further improvements.

  5. Educating the next generation of scientists

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    The Department for Education has made good progress in improving take-up and achievement in areas such as A-Level maths and GCSE Triple Science. However, there has been less success in increasing the number of science teachers, improving take-up of A-Level physics and raising the standards of school science facilities.

  6. Ofcom: The effectiveness of converged regulation

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    Ofcom has saved some £23 million over the last five years. However, with its complex remit across the telecommunications sector, Ofcom needs a better articulation of the intended outcomes of its activities and how its work achieves those outcomes.

  8. Ministry of Defence: The Major Projects Report 2010

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    Central Departmental decisions by the Ministry of Defence to try to balance the defence budget have reduced its cash-flow requirements in the short-term but at a long-term cost that represents poor value for money for the taxpayer.

  9. The NAO’s work on regulatory reform

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    This briefing paper presents the Regulatory Reform Committee with an overview of regulatory reform, the background to the system and the recent work that the National Audit Office had conducted in the area.

  10. Central government’s use of consultants and interims

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    The amount of money being spent by government on external consultants has fallen slightly since 2006-07. However, government is not getting value for money from its use of consultants because it often lacks the information, skills and strategies to manage them effectively.

  11. HM Revenue & Customs: Engaging with tax agents

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    HMRC might be able to increase tax revenues by providing more support to professional tax agents, third parties paid by taxpayers to act on their behalf in their dealings with the Department.

  12. NAO Submission to the Review of Offender Learning

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    This submission summarises what the National Audit Office believes to be the fundamental issues that need to be addressed to improve VFM from the low level found by our work and that of the Public Accounts Committee in two reports in 2008.

  13. Department for Education: The Academies Programme

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    Many academies are performing impressively in delivering the Academies Programme’s intended improvements. Most academies are achieving greater rates of improvement in academic attainment than their predecessor schools.

  14. Sustainable development

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    Sustainable development is a devolved issue and this briefing covers government policy in England with a brief overview of the work of the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

  15. Environmental protection

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    The National Audit Office has prepared this briefing on environmental protection for the new members of the Environmental Audit Committee

  16. The Electricity Generating Landscape in Great Britain

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    This briefing for the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee provides an overview of the key features of the policy and regulatory framework for electricity generation, and the nature of the transition required over the next 10 years to meet emissions reduction and renewable energy targets.

  18. Cafcass’s response to increased demand for its services

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    Although Cafcass could not have predicted the sustained increase in care cases from November 2008, it could have responded more quickly and cost effectively to the large and sustained increase in care cases from local authorities.

  20. Department for Work and Pensions: Resource Accounts 2009-10

    Report Financial audit

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    The Comptroller and Auditor General has qualified the 2009-10 accounts of the DWP, which have been qualified every year since 1988-89, because of the material level of fraud and error in expenditure on state benefits.