Off Payroll Arrangements In The Public Sector
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| Author | : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts |
| Publisher | : The Stationery Office |
| Total Pages | : 56 |
| Release | : 2012 |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : 9780215048684 |
In May 2012 HM Treasury published its report on the use of off-payroll arrangements in central government ("Review of the tax arrangements of public sector appointees", Cm. 8350, ISBN 9780101835022). This showed that over 2,400 staff, each earning more than £58,200 a year, were being paid 'off-payroll' - a practice which generates suspicions of complicity in tax avoidance and which fails to meet the standards expected of public officials. The review's recommendations should go some way to reducing the prevalence of the practice, yet the scope of the review was limited in scope to central government and did not cover other public services, like Local Government, the NHS and the BBC. Some doubts about the Treasury's proposals remain. The Review stated that off-payroll arrangements can be used in 'exceptional circumstances' but does not clarify what these exceptional circumstances are. It also recommended that departments seek assurance that those staff who remain off-payroll are paying the appropriate amount of tax, but did not specify how departments could or should do this. Ultimately, whether those paid off-payroll are paying the right amount of tax is dependent on HM Revenue & Customs properly enforcing tax rules to ensure employees pay tax as employees. However, HM Revenue & Customs has progressively reduced its enforcement of the legislation designed to eliminate the avoidance of tax and National Insurance Contributions through the use of intermediaries, such as personal service companies, putting at risk any deterrent effect the rules might have on tax avoidance
| Author | : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts |
| Publisher | : The Stationery Office |
| Total Pages | : 40 |
| Release | : 2013-03-05 |
| Genre | : Law |
| ISBN | : 9780215054531 |
The National Offender Management Service directly manages 117 public prisons, manages the contracts of 14 private prisons, and is responsible for a prisoner population of around 86,000. It commissions and funds services from 35 probation trusts, which oversee approximately 165,000 offenders serving community sentences. For 2012-13, the Agency's budget is £3,401 million. The Agency achieved its savings targets of £230 million in 2011-12 and maintained its overall performance, despite an increase in the prison population. However, the Agency's savings targets of £246 million in 2012-13, £262 million in 2013-14 and £145 million in 2014-15 are challenging. The Agency believes it has scope to make the prison estate more efficient by closing older, more expensive prisons and investing in new ones. These plans, however, assume the prison population will stay at its current level. Furthermore, the Agency has not yet secured the up-front funding for the voluntary redundancies needed to bring down prison staffing costs. Unless overcrowding is addressed and staff continue to carry out offender management work it is increasingly likely that rehabilitation work needed to reduce the risk of prisoners reoffending will not be provided. The Agency has not done enough to address the risks to safety, decency and standards in prisons and in community services arising from staffing cuts implemented to meet financial targets. The Agency plans to increase the role of private firms and the third sector in probation but the probation trusts don't appear to have the infrastructure and skills they need to commission probation services from these providers effectively
| Author | : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Lords: Liaison Committee |
| Publisher | : The Stationery Office |
| Total Pages | : 46 |
| Release | : 2013-03-13 |
| Genre | : Business & Economics |
| ISBN | : 9780108550522 |
In this report the Liaison Committee conducts a brief review of House of Lords policy committees, in advance of the appointment of those committees in the new Parliament
| Author | : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts |
| Publisher | : The Stationery Office |
| Total Pages | : 54 |
| Release | : 2013-02-08 |
| Genre | : Medical |
| ISBN | : 9780215053343 |
The Department for Work and Pensions is getting far too many decisions wrong on claimants' ability to work. This is at considerable cost to the taxpayer and can create misery and hardship to the claimants themselves. This poor decision-making is damaging public confidence and generating a lot of criticism of the Department's contractor for medical assessments, Atos Healthcare - but most of the problems lie firmly within the DWP. The Department's view that appeals against decisions are an inherent part of the process is unduly complacent. Nearly 40 per cent of appeals are successful, with a third of those successful appeals involving no new evidence. The Work Capability Assessment process hits the most vulnerable claimants hardest. The one size fits all approach fails to account adequately for mental health conditions or those which are rare or fluctuating. While the Department has started to improve, the process is still too inflexible and too often is so stressful for applicants that their health simply gets worse. A key problem is that the Department has been unable to create a competitive market for medical assessment providers, leaving Atos in the position of being a near monopoly supplier. The Department is too often just accepting what Atos tells it. It seems reluctant to challenge the contractor. It has failed to withhold payment for poor performance and rarely checked that it is being correctly charged. The Department also cannot explain how the profits being made by Atos reflect the limited risk that it bears
| Author | : Great Britain. Treasury |
| Publisher | : The Stationery Office |
| Total Pages | : 40 |
| Release | : 2013-01-21 |
| Genre | : Political Science |
| ISBN | : 9780101853422 |
Dated January 2013. The reports published as HC 104 (ISBN 9780215047670), HC 288 (ISBN 9780215047632), HC 532 (ISBN 9780215048684), HC 388 (ISBN 9780215048691), HC 103 (ISBN 9780215048653); HC 389 (ISBN 9780215049704)
| Author | : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts |
| Publisher | : The Stationery Office |
| Total Pages | : 54 |
| Release | : 2013-02-07 |
| Genre | : Medical |
| ISBN | : 9780215053312 |
The strategic management of health resources across the East of England Strategic Health Authority has failed. Ultimate responsibility for this rests with the Department of Health. For many years to come, the local community as well as the NHS and taxpayers will have to live with the consequences of separate decisions to build a new PFI hospital at Peterborough and to award a franchise to a private company to run the nearby Hinchingbrooke hospital. These decisions were taken separately despite the fact that the two hospitals are only 24 miles apart in an area where the NHS has long acknowledged that healthcare provision is running ahead of local needs. The reality is that there is not enough funding there for both Trusts to thrive as currently configured. Their financial viability will be further eroded if more people are treated outside hospitals, in line with present and past government policy. Circle Healthcare, the franchisee of Hinchingbrooke, has not achieved its expected savings in its first few months and its Chief Executive has already left. The bid was not properly risk-assessed and the successful bidder was encouraged to submit over-optimistic savings projections. The PFI deal for Peterborough and Stamford PFI hospital has proved catastrophic, with the Department now being forced to pay out nearly £1 million a week of taxpayers' money to keep the Trust afloat. Both Trusts will have to make unprecedented levels of savings to become viable. In Peterborough and Stamford's case, this won't be enough
| Author | : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts |
| Publisher | : The Stationery Office |
| Total Pages | : 40 |
| Release | : 2013-02-05 |
| Genre | : Business & Economics |
| ISBN | : 9780215053275 |
The Department for Transport works with local partners to deliver many of its policies. Local authorities play a key role in planning and commissioning transport services, such as bus and light rail, and providing and maintaining roads and other local infrastructure. They spent a total of £8.5 billion on transport in 2010-11. The Department provided around a quarter of this (£2.2 billion), with the rest raised locally from council tax, from the £411 million surplus raised from parking levies, or from the Department for Communities and Local Government formula grant. In 2011-12 the Department provided £1.2 billion to local authorities for highways maintenance and small transport projects in the form of two un-ringfenced formula-based grants. The Department does not monitor how un-ringfenced grants are spent and there is insufficient information to determine the impact of the Department's contribution on local authorities' spending decisions and therefore to achieving the Department's objectives. The Department plans to devolve more control over its funding to the local level (raising the proportion of resources which are not ringfenced portion from 60% to around 80%); and new local transport bodies will take on some decision-making responsibilities previously held centrally. Full details of how the new system will work are still to be determined and there is uncertainty over how the arrangements will work in practice.
| Author | : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts |
| Publisher | : The Stationery Office |
| Total Pages | : 46 |
| Release | : 2013-02-04 |
| Genre | : Science |
| ISBN | : 9780215053237 |
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (the Authority) was set up in 2005 with the specific remit to tackle the UK's nuclear legacy. Sellafield is run for the Authority by Sellafield Limited. In November 2008, the Authority contracted with an international consortium-Nuclear Management Partners Limited-to improve Sellafield Limited's management of the site, including the development of an improved lifetime plan. Over several decades, successive governments have been guilty of failing to tackle issues on the site. Deadlines for cleaning up Sellafield have been missed, while total lifetime costs for decommissioning the site continue to rise each year and now stand at £67.5 billion. The Authority believes it now has a credible plan for decommissioning Sellafield and expects Sellafield Limited to start retrieving hazardous waste currently held in legacy facilities in 2015. Nonetheless, given the track record on the site and given that only 2 of the 14 major projects were being delivered on or ahead of schedule in 2011-12, the Committee is not yet convinced that this date will be met or that sufficient progress is being made. Basic project management failings continue to cause delays and increase costs, while doubts remain over the robustness of the plan, in particular whether the Authority is progressing the development of the geological disposal facility as quickly as possible. Nor is the Committee convinced that taxpayers are getting a good deal from the Authority's arrangement with Nuclear Management Partners. And taxpayers currently bear the financial risks of delays and cost increases.
| Author | : Great Britain: H.M. Treasury |
| Publisher | : The Stationery Office |
| Total Pages | : 24 |
| Release | : 2012-05-23 |
| Genre | : Business & Economics |
| ISBN | : 9780101835022 |
The impetus for this review concerns questions about the tax arrangements of senior public sector appointees. Findings have revealed a lack of transparency around such tax arrangements, with over 2400 staff identified as off the regular payroll engagements who are employed by central government departments and their associated bodies. About 85% are engaged for longer than six months. Although such arrangements maybe appropriate, it is not absolutely clear to the employer whether a particular individual is paying the right amount of tax and National Insurance in relation to their role. To ensure future tax transparency in this regard, the review has set out a three pronged approach: (i) The most senior staff to be on the payroll; (ii) Employers to ensure that they have the right to seek assurance about the tax arrangements of long-term specialist contractors; (iii) Monitoring after one year, with sanctions applied to Government departments that have not complied with these recommendations.
| Author | : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts |
| Publisher | : The Stationery Office |
| Total Pages | : 36 |
| Release | : 2013-03-18 |
| Genre | : Business & Economics |
| ISBN | : 9780215055231 |
In 2011-12, 20 million phone calls to HMRC were not answered. It cost the callers £136 million while they waited to speak to an adviser. And, against its target of responding to 80% of letters within 15 days, the department managed to reply to just 66%. Officials are beginning to realize that good customer service lies at the heart of any strategy to maximize revenues while cutting costs. Callers will no longer be forced to use the more expensive 0845 numbers. Other planned changes include the resolution of more queries first time and a call-back service where this is not possible. However, HMRC's new target of answering 80% of calls within five minutes is still woefully short of the industry standard of answering 80% of calls within 20 seconds. Just how the department is going to improve standards of customer service, given the prospect of its having fewer staff and receiving a higher volume of calls, is open to question. HMRC plans to cut the number of customer-facing staff by a third by 2015. At the same time, the stresses associated with introducing the Real Time Information System, Universal Credit and changes to child benefit are likely to drive up the number of phone calls to the department. HMRC is also to close all of its 281 enquiry centres which give face-to-face advice to customers. HMRC considers that it will be able to improve service standards by using its staff more flexibly. It may need to put in additional resources, though, to avoid the kind of plummeting performance we have seen in the past
