If the government is serious about increasing its use of small and medium – sized enterprises (SMEs), it will need to focus on those areas where SMEs can deliver real benefits.
PaceSetter has led to productivity improvements and may have contributed to greater staff engagement. However, the extent to which overall efficiency has improved is not clear; and some key principles of process improvement are not yet being applied strategically across the entire organisation.
BBC has improved the way it manages its business critical projects. Most are on course to deliver and achieve their intended benefits but needs to do more to manage its critical projects as a coherent portfolio.
The BBC Trust has today published an independent report prepared by the National Audit Office (NAO) on the BBC’s management of three major estates projects. These were the refurbishment and redevelopment of Broadcasting House in London, the construction of Pacific Quay in Glasgow and the Corporation’s forthcoming move to Salford Quays.
The Mortgage Rescue Scheme, launched in January 2009 by the Department for Communities and Local Government, achieved fewer than half of the rescues expected. The Department helped 2,600 households avoid repossession and homelessness at a cost of in excess of £240 million – but it originally expected to help 6,000 households for £205 million.
The Comptroller and Auditor General, Amyas Morse, has qualified his audit opinion on the regularity of the 2015-16 accounts of the Department for Work and Pensions. This is owing to the unacceptably high level of fraud and error in benefit expenditure, other than State Pension where the level of fraud and error is lower.
The Department for Children, Schools and Families is achieving its aim of promoting partnering in secondary education in England, according to a report today by the National Audit Office. Some 87 per cent of schools work with other schools and organisations on improving attainment and behaviour – and headteachers are clear that partnering is delivering […]
The Department for Work and Pensions will have to make rapid progress in reorganising the way it operates if it is to meet its target of cutting costs by £20 billion in four years while achieving substantial reform of the welfare system.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change’s Green Deal design not only failed to deliver any meaningful benefit, it increased suppliers’ costs – and therefore energy bills – in meeting their obligations through the ECO scheme.
The rate at which electronic care records systems are being put in place across the NHS under the National Programme for IT is falling far below expectations and the core aim that every patient should have an electronic care record under the Programme will not now be achieved.
The report examines whether to inform decisions across the BBC, the Corporation efficiently, effectively and economically understands how people use and respond to the full range of its services.
This report is about the Department for Work & Pensions’ support to help disabled people overcome barriers to work.
HS2 is a large, complex and ambitious programme which is facing cost and time pressures. The unrealistic timetable set for HS2 Ltd by the Department means they are not as ready to deliver as they hoped to be at this point.
A National Audit Office report on UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) has found that, three years into its five-year strategy to deliver improved support to UK exporters, it is close to meeting most of its performance targets. UKTI lacks, however, sufficiently robust measures of the costs of delivering its individual services. Without such information it […]
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has improved the maturity of its financial management in a number of areas, but the NAO has not been able to conclude that the Department is achieving value for money.
Government is committed to conducting formal impact assessments of the need for and likely impact of new regulations. A National Audit Office report has found that scrutiny of proposed legislation is strengthening and that the standard is better than it was, but one fifth of assessments still did not include any quantified data to assess […]
This investigation covers how the UK government determines the amount of funding it allocates to the devolved administrations.
This report builds on our previous work and takes stock of the Ministry of Justice’s Transforming Rehabilitation reforms
Departments have continued to reduce their estates and government is now getting better value for money. The Government Property Unit, however, has not yet made much progress towards its more challenging objective of creating an integrated estate.
The Department has committed electricity consumers and taxpayers to a high cost and risky deal in a changing energy marketplace. We cannot say the Department has maximised the chances that it will achieve value for money.