Managing NHS hospital consultants
Published on:The 2003 contract for hospital consultants delivered many expected benefits, but there is room for improvement in how trusts manage their consultants.
The 2003 contract for hospital consultants delivered many expected benefits, but there is room for improvement in how trusts manage their consultants.
Regulation of the consumer credit market is providing benefits to consumers, but is not minimizing consumer harm from unscrupulous trading practices.
This commentary, on the first set of Work Programme data, has been produced for the Committee of Public Accounts.
The NAO has underlined the success of the 2012 Games and stressed the importance of building on that success to deliver legacy benefits.
DWP is working to manage the introduction of the housing benefit reforms and has a critical role to play in anticipating adverse consequences.
Defra should continue to fund the Agency to complete this programme to improve the management of animal disease and secure the full benefits of the new ICT.
The Comptroller and Auditor General, has published his audit opinion on the 2011-12 accounts of the Department for Work and Pensions.
The Pensions Regulator and other agencies regulating defined contribution pension schemes should take a concerted approach towards collecting evidence and assessing risks to members.
Using competition to award companies licences to transmit electricity from offshore wind farms has benefits but consumers might end up bearing the cost of inflation.
The Treasury’s 2009 decision to split Northern Rock in two was reasonable at the time but the final net cost to the taxpayer could be some £2 billion.
Better access to public information can improve accountability and service delivery. Government needs a firm grasp of whether that potential is being realised.
The HS1 project has delivered a high performing line, which was subsequently sold in a well-managed way. But international passenger numbers are falling far short of forecasts and the project costs exceed the value of journey time saving benefits.
Used appropriately, GPC can be a cost-effective way for government to procure goods and services. However, there is no up to date value-for-money case quantifying the benefits of the cards. There has also been a lack of clear central guidance on when the cards are the most appropriate way to procure goods and services.
Departments have acted quickly to reduce staff numbers and this should bring significant savings. To sustain these savings, and deliver long-term value for money improvements, staff numbers must stay at these reduced levels and departments must develop new ways of working.
By creating complex shared services over-tailored to individual departments, government has increased costs rather than made savings.
A major HMRC programme to improve the way it tackles evasion delivered £4.32 billion of additional tax yield, reduced staff numbers and improved compliance work. However the Department is not yet exploiting the full potential of its new systems.
The Ministry of Defence, under pressure to make rapid financial savings, is significantly reducing the size of its workforce, by over 54,000 personnel. A report today by the National Audit Office has found that these reductions are happening in advance of the Department’s fully understanding how it will operate with significantly fewer staff.
The Department for Education has made progress against many of its objectives in delivering the free entitlement to early education, but it must address variations in take-up, quality of provision and the impact on attainment in later years if it is to achieve value for money.
A programme to equip frontline police officers with mobile devices, such as BlackBerrys and personal data assistants, has achieved a basic level of benefits. However, as the benefits for most forces do not extend beyond this basic level, then value for money has not yet been achieved from the £80 million of expenditure.
HMRC’s renewed strategy for dealing with alcohol duty fraud is a significant improvement on the previous strategy. However, the Department needs a reliable estimate of the tax gaps for beer and wine; and to tackle successfully the illicit diversion of duty-unpaid alcohol back into the UK market.