House of Commons - Committee of Public Accounts: The Duchy of Cornwall - HC 475

House of Commons - Committee of Public Accounts: The Duchy of Cornwall - HC 475
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 52
Release: 2013-11-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780215063366

The Duchy of Cornwall (the Duchy) delivered a good financial performance in 2012-13, increasing its total income and also its net revenue after taking account of costs. However, the Treasury is not doing enough to scrutinise the Duchy's financial strategy or transactions-it does not independently verify information offered by the Duchy, and details of its approvals for the Duchy's land transactions over £500,000 are not published. The Duchy has a Crown Exemption from tax, but there is no clear understanding of any consequences for its competitors, which are subject to corporation and capital gains tax. The transparency of The Prince of Wales's tax payments is limited by reporting only a combined amount for income tax and VAT. The Duchy's charter rules that each future Duke of Cornwall will be the eldest son and heir of the Monarch, which is out of line with the Succession to the Crown Act 2013.

House of Commons - Committee of Public Accounts: Access to Clinical Trial Information and the Stockpiling of Tamiflu - HC 295

House of Commons - Committee of Public Accounts: Access to Clinical Trial Information and the Stockpiling of Tamiflu - HC 295
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 52
Release: 2014-01-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780215065971

The report Access To Clinical Trial Information And The Stockpiling Of Tamiflu (HC 295) examines two separate but connected issues; the routine withholding of clinical trial information from doctors and researchers, and the effectiveness of stockpiling of Tamiflu during an influenza pandemic. The full results of clinical trials are being routinely and legally withheld from doctors and researchers by the manufacturers of medicines. The ability of doctors, researchers and patients to make informed decisions about treatments is being undermined. Regulators and the industry have recently made proposals to open up access, but these do not cover the issue of access to the results of trials in the past which bear on the efficacy and safety of medicines in use today. Research suggests that the probability of completed trials being published is roughly 50%. Trials which give a favorable verdict are about twice as likely to be published as trials giving unfavorable

House of Commons - Committee of Public Accounts: Charges for Customer Telephone Lines - HC 617

House of Commons - Committee of Public Accounts: Charges for Customer Telephone Lines - HC 617
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 52
Release: 2013-11-11
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780215063427

Telephone services are a vital part of government support, accounting for 43% of all customer contacts. But departments are continuing to make extensive use of higher rate phone numbers for customer telephone lines despite the fact that many people are put off calling as a result. The most vulnerable callers, on the lowest incomes, face some of the highest charges. Costs to callers are even higher because the caller has to endure long waiting times and poor customer service. In the face of this evidence we welcome the Cabinet Office's acknowledgement that it was "inappropriate" for vulnerable citizens to pay a substantial charge to access public services and its commitment to establish best practice in this field and ensure it is followed across government

Accountability for public money - progress report

Accountability for public money - progress report
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 82
Release: 2012-04-17
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780215043740

This report is a follow-up to the Committee's report on Accountability for Public Money (HC 740, session 2010-11 (ISBN 9780215559029)) an issue at the core of the relationship between Parliament and government. Accounting Officers remain accountable to Parliament for funds voted to their departments but the policy intention is that local bodies will have significant discretion over the services they deliver. In the Government's response, 'Accountability: Adapting to Decentralisation', Sir Bob Kerslake drew a distinction between those services that government delivers directly and those that it may fund but are delivered in more decentralised arrangements. He proposed that Accounting Officers set out, in Accountability System Statements, the arrangements they have in place to provide assurance about the probity and value for money of funds spent through devolved systems. All departments are expected to produce Statements by summer 2012. Departments have made a genuine effort to develop arrangements which reconcile accountability and localism but the Statements so far are unwieldy and considerably more needs to be done to improve their clarity, consistency and completeness. There is concern that accountability frameworks must drive value for money and, critically, are sufficiently robust to address the operational or financial failure of service providers. Departments are placing increasing reliance on market mechanisms such as user choice to drive up performance and value for money, but there are limits to what these mechanisms can achieve. The Treasury needs to take ownership of the system and ensure that the Comptroller and Auditor General has the necessary powers and rights of access to examine the value for money of funds spent through devolved systems

DEFRA

DEFRA
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 40
Release: 2009-07-07
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780215532701

A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) is an area of land containing habitats and wildlife which are of national or international importance. There are over 4,000 SSSI sites in England, protected through restrictions on activities and development which would adversely affect the sites. In 2000, the Department agreed a Public Service Agreement (PSA) target to bring 95 per cent of SSSI land area into a 'favourable' or 'recovering' condition by December 2010. The reported condition of sites has increased from 52 per cent of land area in target condition in December 2002 to 86 per cent in February 2009. The programme of SSSI condition assessments is not up-to-date and Natural England has put in place a programme of work to address the backlog of assessments by 2010, and has introduced quality assurance systems and guidelines to improve the consistency of its record keeping. Public expenditure on SSSIs has more than doubled over the past eight years, from £35.6 million a year in 2000-01 to £85.4 million in 2008-09. Financial incentives to encourage private landowners to conserve sites account for some 58 per cent of public expenditure. There is scope to improve the processes for identifying new sites and declassifying existing ones which are no longer of special interest.

House of Commons - Committee of Public Accounts: Whole of Government Accounts 2011-12 - HC 667

House of Commons - Committee of Public Accounts: Whole of Government Accounts 2011-12 - HC 667
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 40
Release: 2013-12-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780215064868

The Whole of Government Accounts for 2011-12 presents the combined financial activities of some 3,000 organisations. It provides vital data on which Government needs to act. Key issues have been identified, such as the £19.4 billion liability for clinical negligence claims. But it is frustrating to see other issues seemingly ignored in long-term policy making and spending decisions. In one year, the public sector was defrauded of over £20 billion and the tax gap rose to £35 billion. The financial liabilities for dealing with nuclear waste also keep growing. There is room for improvement in the document itself and how it is used. Users find it hard to understand, for example, why the Government debt and deficit highlighted in the WGA differ from those reported in the ONS's National Accounts. Also, by changing definitions in its commentary published alongside the WGA, the Treasury makes it difficult to track changes over time. The Treasury's introduction in the commentary of a new concept of so-called 'direct' expenditure leaves out key costs such as the interest paid on the National Debt. The publicly owned and controlled bodies - such as Network Rail and the taxpayer owned banks - are still being excluded, in defiance of normal accounting rules. The usefulness of the WGA is also being limited by the length of time it takes to produce the document and by poor quality data from some of the bodies. The accounts have again been qualified over the completeness, timeliness and accuracy of the information supplied for schools and academies

Policy, Management and Finance of Public-Private Partnerships

Policy, Management and Finance of Public-Private Partnerships
Author: Akintola Akintoye
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 504
Release: 2009-01-26
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1444301438

This book examines some of the key policy, financial and managerialaspects of public-private partnerships within the context of theglobal spread of this form of procurement. The chapters investigate political and institutional issuessurrounding PPPs, together with the financial and managerialstrategies employed by the private sector. Adopting across-disciplinary perspective, the book highlights the oftenpolitically sensitive nature of these projects and identifies aneed for the private sector to investigate a broad set ofparameters which relate to the particular political economy ofindividual partnerships. Policy, Finance & Management for Public-Private Partnershipscovers a range of specific issues, including: partnerships indeveloping countries; innovation in partnership-based procurement;government and business interaction; institutional andorganisational approaches to facilitating partnership; project andcorporate financing; risk and value management; market analysis,modelling and forecasting; capital structure decisions andmanagement; investment theory and practice; pricing and costevaluation; statutory regulations and their financial implications;option pricing; financial monitoring; syndicate funding; new rolesfor the financial and insurance sectors; institutional andmultilateral funding; payment mechanisms; concession perioddetermination; risk analysis and management; whole life valuemethodology; cost comparators and best value; team building, teamwork and skill development. Contributions from Australia, Europe, the Far East, South Africaand the United States together present the current thinking andstate-of-the-art approaches to public-private partnerships.

Ministry of Defence

Ministry of Defence
Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 60
Release: 2004
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 9780215019271

Operation TELIC was the UK's contribution to the Coalition effort to remove Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq in Spring 2003. This was the UK's largest military operation since the 1990-91 Gulf War, involving the deployment of 46,000 personnel from all three armed services, 19 warships, 15,000 vehicles and 115 aircraft, as well as support from large numbers of Service personnel, civilians and contractors in the UK and elsewhere. Following on from a National Audit Office report (HCP 60, session 2003-04; ISBN 0102926565) published in December 2003, the Committee's report focuses on four main issues: the Ministry of Defence's ability to deploy forces at short notice; logistics and shortages of equipment at the front line; the consignment tracking system; and the Department's process of identifying and implementing lessons. Findings include i) that front line equipment shortages, such as lack of combat body armour and nuclear, biological and chemical detection/protection equipment, exposed troops to increased risks; ii) despite significant investment, the MoD still lacks a credible consignment tracking system; iii) the planning and handing over of responsibilities to civilian agencies should have been better managed; and iv) there are fundamental shortcomings in the MoD's ability to learn and act upon lessons from previous experience.