This interactive briefing pack summarises the National Audit Office’s work in the police and fire sectors since 2012. It highlights the key messages coming from a selection of our recent reports and should be of interest to Police and Crime Commissioners and their officers, senior police and fire officials and the general public.
This paper sets out how we constructed a counterfactual to establish how much water customers in England and Wales could have benefited from an alternative charging system between 2010/11 and 2014/15.
Since privatisation, Ofwat and Defra have overseen major improvements in water quality and service quality. Customers have seen a marked rise in bills but not the benefits of companies’ unexpected financial gains.
With the number of further education (FE) colleges in financial difficulty expected to rise rapidly, there are fundamental structural problems which might require decisions at a regional or sector-wide level.
A plan by the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills to reduce complexity and administrative burdens in the further education and skills sector, despite improving some processes, has had only limited impact on providers’ costs.
The National Audit Office and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary have jointly produced a practical guide on procuring and managing partnerships with the private sector.
The Programme launch has been successful, however key risks remain such as the planned delivery of new homes towards the end of the programme period.
The Group’s priorities are to improve government efficiency and reform public services. It is too soon to judge its success. This review details various challenges that the Group faces and is intended to provide an objective baseline against which its progress can be assessed.
The National Audit Office and the Audit Commission have today called for public bodies to work together much more effectively than they currently do to maximise savings from procurement activities.
Reducing bureaucracy for public sector frontline staff: Briefing for the House of Commons Regulatory Reform Committee
Disclosure guides are designed to ensure that audited bodies have prepared an account in the appropriate form and have complied with all disclosure requirements.
“Intelligent Monitoring” is the term we use for putting into practice the principles of good monitoring and for avoiding the pitfalls of poor practice in monitoring.
The BBC Trust today (18 March 2009) published an independent report it had commissioned from the National Audit Office on the BBC’s management of its strategic contracts with the private sector. Jeremy Peat, BBC Trustee, said: “The Trust welcomes this report from the NAO into the BBC’s strategic contracts. We are pleased that the NAO […]
The Decision Support Tool for public bodies in England provides practical support to officials who are involved in making, or advising on, ‘real-life’ decisions about the design of appropriate funding relationships with third sector organisations. It takes into account such issues as programme objectives, funding channels, duration of award, full cost recovery, EU state aid […]
A National Audit Office report has concluded that two programmes aimed at building capacity in the third sector have had a positive impact on frontline third sector organisations but have not yet demonstrated value for money. Both have suffered from administrative weaknesses and a lack of initial targets against which the effectiveness of the programmes […]
This report contributes to the debate on incentivising public sector performance. It brings together the evidence on the effectiveness of sanctions and rewards (we commissioned Deloitte to conduct a review of the literature), summarises the results of our survey on their use in central government, and provides a practical guide on how to use them well. Discussions about how to lever greater levels of performance increasingly propose the use of these measures.
Grant-makers in the culture, media and sport sector fund awards of around £1.8 billion a year. The cost of administering these grants, and of related activities, is in the region of £200 million. Variations in administration costs between grant programmes reflect their differing objectives but also suggest scope for grant-makers to learn from each other […]
The public sector should plan more carefully how it disposes of its growing volume of personal computers and associated equipment, according to a report out today by the National Audit Office. The efficient, legal and socially responsible disposal of such equipment is an increasingly important issue for the public sector. Many public bodies have limited […]
Local authorities should work more collaboratively with voluntary and community organisations to help them improve the delivery of public services, according to a report out today by the National Audit Office. The report looked at whether Local Area Agreements (LAAs) are helping to promote better value for money in the way government works with the […]