Jobcentre Plus personal advisers provide an effective and highly valued service in helping people looking for work. There are over 9,000 personal advisers who conducted 10.8 million interviews last year with people looking for work. The feedback from those they help is positive and suggests they are an effective method of support in helping people […]
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 […]
Sir John Bourn, head of the National Audit Office, today reported to Parliament on the £1.2 billion expansion of the PRIME contract, that DWP had succeeded in getting the deal it had set out to achieve. The decision to proceed via a non-competitive negotiation with LST was the right one. DWP introduced competitive tension into […]
The Department for Work and Pensions have made good progress in tackling benefit fraud and estimating the level of fraud and error in key benefits, according to the National Audit Office. By March 2002 the Department had cut the estimated level of fraud and error in Income Support and Jobseeker’s Allowance by 24 per cent […]
Sir John Bourn, Head of the National Audit Office, reported to Parliament today that good progress has been made in recent years in increasing the overall employment rate for older people. The gap between the proportion of older people in work compared to the general working population has also narrowed by 1 per cent over […]
Head of the National Audit Office Sir John Bourn has qualified his opinion on the Child Support Agency’s account for the tenth year running because of high levels of error in the amounts considered as recoverable from non-resident parents. At the 31 March 2004, £976 million was due to be collected by the Agency from […]
The Efficiency and Reform Group (ERG) has achieved significant savings for the taxpayer and has improved the process of calculating government savings.
The National Audit Office has reported today that Government departments and local health and social care organisations do not have enough information on numbers of adults with autism. They also lack a full understanding and awareness of the condition, limiting their ability to plan and deliver services effectively. Autism, which includes Asperger syndrome, is a […]
There is a shortfall of 5,170 (2.8 per cent) trained Armed Forces personnel against the Ministry of Defence’s estimated requirements. Only the Army is within “manning balance”, and there are wider shortages of personnel in specific trade groups. According to today’s report to Parliament, by head of the National Audit Office Sir John Bourn, there […]
Government is continuing to make extensive use of higher rate telephone numbers for customer telephone lines, despite efforts by departments to reduce their use.
This is the second report on Agile delivery in which we aim to provide practical support to those in publicly funded bodies who are using or considering using the approach in business change programmes.
The Better Regulation Executive is currently reviewing controls on regulation. This document is the National Audit Office’s submission to that review. It is based on a combination of our previous work and new work with five case study departments earlier this year.
Head of the National Audit Office Sir John Bourn has qualified the Northern Ireland National Insurance Fund Account for 2002-03 because of the estimated high level of benefit being lost through fraud and error. This is the third year running for which Sir John has qualified his opinion on the account. The Northern Ireland Department […]
Opra, the UK body responsible for regulating the governance of work-based pensions, needs to build on its achievements by focusing more closely on the risks to the members of pension schemes, according to a report published to Parliament today by Sir John Bourn, the head of the National Audit Office. The report concludes that Opra […]
Head of the NAO Sir John Bourn reported to Parliament today that, according to the Department for Work and Pensions’ estimate, £3 billion may have been lost from benefit payments, the same amount as reported in 2001-2002. This constitutes some 2.7 per cent of the £112 billion of gross expenditure recorded in the Department’s resource […]
This investigation sets out how the Department for Education set up and implemented the free school meals voucher scheme.
Head of the National Audit Office Sir John Bourn has qualified his audit opinion on the Department for Work and Pensions’ Resource Accounts for 2001-2002 because of significant levels of estimated fraud and error in welfare benefits. As much as £3 billion may have been lost from benefit payments in 2001-2002, according to the Department’s […]
This report looks at how effectively government met the needs of clinically extremely vulnerable through the shielding programme.