Treasury minutes on the nineteenth to the twenty first and the twenty third to the twenty seventh reports from the Committee of Public Accounts session 2010-11

Treasury minutes on the nineteenth to the twenty first and the twenty third to the twenty seventh reports from the Committee of Public Accounts session 2010-11
Author: Great Britain: H.M. Treasury
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 56
Release: 2011-05-16
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780101806923

Dated May 2011. The reports published as HC 651 (ISBN 9780215556232); HC 688 (ISBN 9780215556363); HC 721 (ISBN 9780215556424); HC 687 (ISBN 9780215556530); HC 667 (ISBN 9780215556646); HC 668 (ISBN 9780215556745); HC 741 (ISBN 9780215556851); HC 765 (ISBN 9780215556882)

Treasury minutes on the third to the thirteenth reports from the Committee of Public Accounts session 2010-11

Treasury minutes on the third to the thirteenth reports from the Committee of Public Accounts session 2010-11
Author: Great Britain. Treasury
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 72
Release: 2011-02-16
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780101801423

The reports published as HC 470 (ISBN 9780215555106); HC 440 (9780215555144); HC 471 (9780215555205); HC 439 (9780215555243); HC 538 (9780215555434); HC 424 (9780215555496); HC 553 (9780215555502); HC 503 (9780215555571); HC 573 (9780215555595); HC 610 (9780215555656); HC 594 (9780215555717), session 2010-11

Whole of government accounts 2009-10

Whole of government accounts 2009-10
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 44
Release: 2012-02-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780215041593

In November 2011, HM Treasury published the first audited Whole of Government Accounts (WGA), covering the year 1 April 2009 to 31 March 2010 (HC 1601, ISBN 9780102975192). The Committee welcomes this major step forward in improving transparency and accountability and highlights some of the information it contains: at 31 March 2010 the government's public service pensions liability was around £1,132 billion; the present value of its future commitments under PFI schemes was £131.5 billion; the government wrote off £10.9 billion in unpaid taxes and expected to have to pay £15.7 billion for outstanding clinical negligence claims; cost of future nuclear decommissioning (£56.7 billion); the need for stronger accountability systems to secure effective responsibility for cost and value for money at local levels - academies, Free Schools, Foundation Trusts and GP consortia. But the WGA will only serve its purpose- showing what the government owns, owes, spends and receives - if it is timely and robust. The figures in the first audited WGA are too dated because Treasury took 20 months to prepare and publish the report. Treasury must address the issues that led the Comptroller and Auditor General to qualify his audit opinion on the WGA 2009-10. A key issue is Treasury's decision to deviate from accounting standards, by omitting Network Rail, the publicly owned banks, and various other government-controlled or owned bodies from the WGA. The Committee sets out a set of principles that future accounts should follow.

Ofcom

Ofcom
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 68
Release: 2011-02-10
Genre: Telecommunication
ISBN: 9780215556363

The Committee looked at Ofcom's management of its resources and also the outcomes for citizens and consumers. There is scope for Ofcom to do more to tackle persistent problems such as the volume of silent calls, relatively low levels of switching between telecoms providers, and limited competition in fixed-line telephony. Ofcom has successfully reduced its cost base, despite having taken on a number of additional duties. But, because it has classified some of the benefits of the merger as efficiency savings, it is questionable whether the scale of these is as much as would have been expected, once the merger-specific savings have been taken into account. Ofcom manages its expenditure within an overall cap, which is agreed each year with the Treasury. In most organisations the intended work plan will determine the budget, but in Ofcom it is effectively the other way round. This has the potential to incentivise Ofcom to make decisions based on keeping within the cap - rather than maximising value. This means that value for money - optimising the available resources to achieve intended outcomes - is not always the primary focus. Ofcom needs to do more to demonstrate its focus on value for money and to allow the taxpayers and companies that fund its activities to assess its performance. Ofcom sets out in its annual work plan the activities it plans to undertake, but it does not specify its intended outcomes, explain how its activities will achieve those outcomes, or set out how it will measure success. This makes it impossible to assess whether Ofcom is delivering value for money.

Nine Reports from the Comptroller and Auditor General Published from July 2009 to March 2010

Nine Reports from the Comptroller and Auditor General Published from July 2009 to March 2010
Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 40
Release: 2010
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780215553737

This report endorses the conclusions and recommendations of the following nine reports by the Comptroller and Auditor General: HC 878, session 2008-09 (ISBN 9780102955088); HC 546, session 2008-09 (ISBN 9780102963250); HC 465, session 2008-09 (ISBN 9780102963205); HC 1028, session 2008-09 (ISBN 9780102963274); HC 962, session 2008-09 (ISBN 9780102963281); HC 86, session 2009-10 (ISBN 9780102963366); HC 293, session 2009-10 (ISBN 9780102963465); HC 216 (9780102963519); HC 452, session 2009-10 (ISBN 9780102963618)

Office of Rail Regulation

Office of Rail Regulation
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 60
Release: 2011-07-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780215560506

The Office of Rail Regulation (the Regulator) is the independent economic and safety regulator of the rail industry in England, Scotland and Wales. The Regulator's duties include promoting economy and efficiency in the rail industry with much of its work focusing on Network Rail, the owner and monopoly provider of the national rail network, including track, signalling and stations. Network Rail does not face normal commercial pressures from investors and lenders to improve efficiency as it is a not-for-dividend company without shareholders, financed by debt guaranteed by the Government. It is therefore the role of the Regulator to hold Network Rail to account for its performance and to incentivise it to become more efficient. The Regulator sets efficiency targets when it determines the limits on fees Network Rail can charge train operators for use of tracks, stations and depots. Sir Roy McNulty's recent review of the rail industry showed that the rail industry continued to fail to achieve effective value for money. The Committee states that the Regulator did not exert sufficient pressure on Network Rail to improve its efficiency, and that there is an absence of effective sanctions for under-performance in the system and should enforce a stronger link between performance and bonus payments to Network Rail's senior managers. The relationship between Network Rail, the Regulator and their advisors appears to the Committee to be too cosy. Network Rail should be more accountable for its use of public money, and more transparent in its operations. The Committee sets out 11 conclusions and recommendations.

Transforming NHS ambulance services

Transforming NHS ambulance services
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 52
Release: 2011-09-16
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9780215561329

In 2009-10 the eleven regional ambulance services in England handled 7.9 million emergency calls and spent 1.5 billion pounds on urgent and emergency services. They are expected to make 4 percent efficiency savings year on year in a time when public demand for services continues to rise. Performance was measured against three response time targets until 1 April 2011, but the incentive to meet these targets has led to some inefficiency, such as when more than one team is sent to incidents. The Committee welcomes the decision to introduce a wider suite of health quality indicators to create a broader performance regime in which response times remain one indicator. There is wide variation in the cost of responding to an incident across the services, and there is a need for more consistent performance data in order to benchmark and share best practice. Under the NHS reforms there is vagueness around who will be responsible for what: who commissions ambulance services; who is responsible for improving efficiency in ambulance services or who will intervene if a service has financial trouble or seriously under performs? There is need for greater clarity on the roles and responsibilities of the Department, commissioners and ambulance trusts with appropriate structures for accountability. Other parts of the Health service affect ambulance services and a more integrated emergency care system is needed to ensure that ambulances are utilised in the most efficient manner. Levels of collaboration between ambulance, fire and police services could be strengthened.

Management of NHS hospital productivity

Management of NHS hospital productivity
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 44
Release: 2011-03-15
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9780215556851

Government spending on the NHS has increased by 70%, from £60 billion in 2000-01 to £102 billion in 2010-11., with around 40% spent on services provided by acute and foundation hospitals. There have been significant improvements in the performance of the NHS, particularly in those areas targeted by the Department of Health (the Department) such as hospital waiting times and outcomes for patients with cancer and coronary heart disease. But productivity has actually fallen over the last decade. The Office for National Statistics estimates that, since 2000, total NHS productivity fell by an average of 0.2% a year, and by an average of 1.4% a year in hospitals. The trend of falling productivity will need to be reversed if the NHS is to meet the Department's productivity challenge, to deliver up to £20 billion of efficiency savings a year, by 2014-15, without compromising services. The Payment by Results approach (a tariff for procedures) has driven some improvements, but it only covers 60% of hospital activity and there is substantial variation in hospital costs and activity. The tariff system could, though, prioritise price over quality. National pay contracts have not yet been used to manage staff performance effectively, and consultants' productivity has fallen at the same time as they have had significant pay rises. There are risks to the NHS being able to deliver up to £20 billion savings annually, for reinvestment in healthcare, alongside implementing a substantial agenda of reform. Productivity improvements will be key to delivering these savings.

Reducing errors in the benefits system

Reducing errors in the benefits system
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 64
Release: 2011-03-10
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780215556745

There are around 30 different types of benefits and pensions, and £148 billion was paid out to 20 million people in 2009-10. The Department for Work and Pensions estimates that £2.2 billion of overpayments and £1.3 billion of underpayments were made in 2009-10 as a result of administrative errors by its staff and mistakes by customers. Efforts to tackle error have had little success and levels of error have remained constant since 2007. A joint HM Revenue and Customs and Department for Work and Pensions fraud and error strategy announced in October 2010, along with additional funding of £425 million over four years, is an opportunity to inject a new impetus. Importantly, the Department has not addressed underpayments, despite the hardship that benefit underpayments can create for people in need. Interventions to reduce error must be targeted where they are most likely to get the greatest return. Progress on reducing error requires a better understanding of where and why errors arise, and a greater focus on preventing errors occurring in the first place. The Department is not making use of all available sources of information to identify the reasons why staff make mistakes, where guidance and training efforts should be directed, and to identify which customers are most likely to make mistakes on their benefit claims. Wider welfare reforms have the potential to reduce errors in the long term by simplifying benefits administration, but waiting for the implementation of the Universal Credit is not an option.

The national programme for IT in the NHS

The national programme for IT in the NHS
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 84
Release: 2011-08-03
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9780215561121

The National Programme for IT in the NHS is an ambitious £11.4 billion programme of investment. This report is concerned with a central part of the Programme, where the aim was to create a fully integrated electronic care records system, which is expected to cost around £7 billion in total The Department has failed to demonstrate the benefits achieved for the £2.7 billion spent to date on care records systems and has accepted it is unable to deliver its original vision. It is now relying on individual NHS trusts to develop systems compatible with those in the Programme. Furthermore the Department could not explain how potential inconsistencies would be dealt with or what it will cost local NHS organisations to connect up. The Department has not got the best out of its suppliers, despite having paid them some £1.8 billion so far. One supplier, CSC, has yet to deliver the bulk of the systems it is contracted to supply and has instead implemented a large number of interim systems as a stopgap. The Department has been in negotiations with CSC for over a year, but conceded that it may be more expensive to terminate the contract than to complete it. The Department has also revised its contract with BT reducing the number of systems and increasing the price for each system delivered. This has resulted in BT being paid £9 million to implement systems at each NHS site, even though the same systems have been purchased for under £2 million by NHS organisations outside the Programme. The Committee is further concerned about the problems in getting timely and reliable information from the Department. Information provided has frequently been late, has contained inconsistencies and has contradicted other evidence.