This briefing was prepared for the House of Commons Defence Committee to help inform its inquiry into the education of Service personnel, its fourth in a series of inquiries looking at the workings of the Armed Forces Covenant.
The welfare cap is encouraging a greater understanding of spending on some benefits and tax credits across government, but it is important that processes for managing the cap are reliable.
The Ministry of Defence has introduced positive changes to how it manages its estate and has invested substantial resources to maintain and improve it. The MoD, however, accepts that it has more work to do to provide a sustainable estate of the right quality, the National Audit Office has today reported to Parliament. The MoD […]
The Department of Health now needs to gain a better understanding of the different ways to commission personalised services for users, and how these lead to improvements in user outcomes.
The Better Care Fund has not achieved the expected value for money, in terms of savings, outcomes for patients or hospital activity.
Devolution deals to devolve power from central government to local areas in England offer opportunities to stimulate economic growth and reform public services for local users, but the arrangements are untested and government could do more to provide confidence that these deals will achieve the benefits intended
The Department for Education recognised since 2010 that child protection services are not good enough but its subsequent response has not yet resulted in better outcomes. Spending on children’s social work, including on child protection, varies widely across England and is not related to quality. Neither the DfE nor authorities understand why spending varies.
Having shown that the concept of a national citizen service has something to offer young people, to demonstrate value for money the OCS and the Trust now need to show they can grow NCS as intended and run it at a more affordable cost to the taxpayer.
The Pension Service has made real and substantial progress since 2002 in helping pensioners to secure their entitlements using new and well thought through approaches, but will need to build on this work to improve take-up still further. A report today by the National Audit Office highlights the need to develop local work to reach […]
The first sale of government shares in the Royal Bank of Scotland in August 2015 was well planned and organised and represented value for money.
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.
A briefing for the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee and the Energy and Climate Change Committee.
This briefing paper is provided in response to a request from the Environmental Audit Committee that the National Audit Office provide information on local authorities and climate change.
Probation services have been restructured on time and within cost targets during a period of major change but operational problems and risks to further service transformation need to be resolved if re-offending levels are to reduce.
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.
This briefing was prepared for the House of Commons Justice Committee to provide an international dimension to its inquiry into the budget and structure of the Ministry of Justice in England and Wales.
Overall spending on discretionary local welfare support by central and local government has reduced since April 2013. The consequences of this gap in provision are not understood.
Head of the NAO Sir John Bourn reported to Parliament today that he has qualified his opinion on the accounts of the Department for Work and Pensions. This is because of substantial levels of estimated losses from fraud and error in benefit expenditure, a significant limitation in the evidence made available to the NAO during […]
In response to questions raised by the House of Commons Health Committee in late 2013 and wider Parliamentary interest, we conducted an investigation into five specific concerns about NHS Property Services. Our investigation established the facts relating to these concerns.
May 2014
Most government departments are continuing to produce high quality accounts and are presenting them for audit in a timely fashion. However, Sir John Bourn, head of the National Audit Office, had to issue qualified opinions on seven out of 54 sets of departmental resource accounts in 2005-06, compared with two out of 54 sets in […]