Following reforms to decision-making and the appeal process in social security benefits, introduced in 1999 by the Department for Work and Pensions, the number of appeals against decisions has fallen overall by around 15 per cent and waiting times for appeal hearings have been cut. Since the reforms, decision-making performance for some benefits, but not […]
The strategic case for HS2, in terms of increasing rail capacity and generating regional growth, has still to be demonstrated clearly.
By operating in a more integrated way, government could reduce inefficiencies in public services and deliver a better service to citizens.
Sir John Bourn, head of the National Audit Office, today told Parliament that defence equipment acquisition was an inherently complex and often expensive task. Co-operation adds another layer of complexity. It also offers potential economic, military, industrial and political benefits but in the past not all of these have been secured. Recent initiatives from the […]
This report examines whether the Home Office is well placed to deliver value for money from the Police Uplift Programme.
This report evaluates whether Defra’s management of new tree-planting schemes is likely to achieve value for money.
This report examines how the DWP is managing the process of getting to first payment in Universal Credit.
HM Treasury and HMRC do not keep track of tax reliefs intended to change behaviour, or adequately report to Parliament on whether tax reliefs work as expected.
This report applies experience from auditing cross-government challenges to highlight the risks government needs to manage to achieve net zero.
Universal Credit plans were driven by an ambitious timescale, and this led to the adoption of a new approach. The programme suffered from weak management and ineffective control.
The Comptroller and Auditor General has reported on the 2018-19 accounts of the Department for Work and Pensions.
This commentary, on the first set of Work Programme data, has been produced for the Committee of Public Accounts.
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.
Older ICT systems critical for the delivery of key public services (‘legacy ICT’) expose departments to risks which must be understood and managed.
This report examines the progress the government has made in developing specialist skills in the civil service.
The DWP has simplified the way it administers child maintenance and is approaching expected levels of performance. But overall objectives might be at risk if the number of people using family-based arrangements does not increase.