Young people are making complex choices about higher education without much effective help and advice, and the institutions concerned are under very little competitive pressure to provide best value.
“Violent crime is an issue everyone will have read about and it is something which a fifth of the adult population have said they worry about. The rise of gun and knife crime is something that will deeply concern every community and the impacts of this sort of criminal activity can devastate individuals and destabilise communities.
“To date, the Home Office has not had a long term, strategic approach to tackling violent crime. It has this week published a new Tackling Violence Action Plan which we all hope will deliver results.”
“Whilst 65 per cent of people in our case review did not go on to commit any further anti-social behaviour after receiving one anti-social behaviour intervention, there is a hard core of individuals who repeatedly behave in an anti-social way and for whom more action is needed.
“The Home Office should formally evaluate the success of different interventions and the impact of combining enforcement interventions with support services to better advise Anti-Social Behaviour Co-ordinators at a local level. They should also consider developing and implementing further more preventive measures to tackle the causes of anti-social behaviour.”
This briefing for the Commons Science and Technology Committee sets out the results of a review of the data available to the Home Office to help it oversee the forensics market; the adequacy of the data the Home Office has available; current trends in the forensics market and associated risks; and the Home Office’s response to the Committee’s previous recommendations on this matter.
Local authorities have worked hard to manage reductions in government funding, but the DCLG needs to be better informed about the situation across England.
Government initiatives to reduce ICT spending are starting to work but the challenge will be to use ICT to reform public services and how government works.
The Department for Work and Pension has limited information about who will be affected by the impact of state pension reforms in April 2016 on people with Guaranteed Minimum Pensions. The impact will depend on a number of factors, and some people are likely to lose out. The Department is now seeking to improve how it communicates the impact of pension reforms.
24 March 2016
Changes made in 2007-08 to public service pension schemes are on course to deliver savings and stabilise pension costs. However the value for money of the changes cannot be demonstrated in the absence of a strategic assessment of their long term impact on staff motivation and retention.
“Good information systems have a vital part to play in helping probation officers carry out their work in supervising offenders serving their sentences in the community and in helping them turn against crime.
“Whilst the Home Office has been able to install a standard information technology infrastructure across a large part of the probation service, there are some important lessons to be learnt from the serious flaws in the Home Office’s procurement and management of this IT programme. The new National Probation Service now has an opportunity to address these issues as it develops a new IT strategy and enters into a new strategic partnership.”
“The IPCC has an important, high profile and sensitive role. It has made significant improvements in performance in the four years it has been in operation. But it faces challenges in managing its increasing workload and in ensuring the quality of its work. It needs to increase its productivity further, improve its quality assurance procedures for investigations, and obtain regular feedback from complainants, police officers and appellants about how their cases have been handled.”
