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In this report the Committee of Public Accounts revisits the Prison Service's procurement system five years after publishing a critical report on it (41st report, session 2002-03, HC 676, ISBN 9780215012647). The Committee notes that the Service has responded positively and decisively. It has implemented a new strategy and introduced a centralised profession al procurement team, supported by five regional procurement teams and a new information technology system. As a direct result of implementing the Committee's recommendations the Service has generated cash savings of £120 million to 2007-08. Whenever problems have been encountered, the Service has addressed them promptly, including difficulties in phasing in its new computer system. Compliance with laid down procedures is being tightened, to ensure that all areas of the Service utilise the procurement system as effectively and efficiently as possible. The Ministry of Justice announced in October 2008 that it is to centralise procurement across the Ministry into a single function, which would include the Prison Service. With a potential budget of £2.5 billion, the new procurement function offers the opportunity to secure substantial savings.
Since a critical 2003 National Audit Office report (HC 562 session 2002-03, ISBN 9780102921250) the Prison Service has implemented a new procurement strategy, led by a new centralised professional procurement team backed up by regional purchasing units which negotiate central contracts for a range of goods and services. At the same time the Prison Service has introduced a shared service centre to provide administrative functions, including purchasing, for prisons. The implementation of these two reforms has enabled the Prison Service to make significant savings in both purchasing and administrative costs. As a result of the changes, prisons now receive more consistent supplies of goods and services often at much lower prices than before. The progress made by the Prison Service has been recognised by the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply with two awards for excellence in 2006 and 2007. The Prison Service is still capable of making further savings. In the near term it should concentrate its efforts on bringing more expenditure under the remit of its nationally negotiated contracts, and help to improve compliance by prisons with the new arrangements by further communicating the benefits of its national procurement approach.
Agenda for Change, the pay modernisation programme for 1.1 million NHS staff in England, representing a pay bill of £28 billion in 2007-08, was implemented between December 2004 and December 2006. It covered all NHS staff, except doctors, dentists and senior managers. Agenda for Change introduced a job evaluation scheme and harmonised employment terms and conditions for the multitude of jobs within the NHS. A key part of the programme is a process for encouraging staff development and improving staff performance known as the Knowledge and Skills Framework. Agenda for Change was expected to bring about new ways of working which would contribute to improved patient care and to more efficient delivery of services. Total savings of £1.3 billion over the first five years were predicted. These were to come from improvements in productivity of 1.1 to 1.5 per cent a year, reductions in equal pay claims, reduced use of agency staff and more controllable pay costs. The Department and NHS Trusts did not establish ways of measuring the effects of Agenda for Change and there is no active benefits realisation plan. The NHS pay bill for the staff covered by Agenda for Change has risen by 5.2 per cent a year on average since 2004-05 while productivity fell by 2.5 per cent a year on average between 2001 and 2005. By autumn 2008 (nearly two years after Trusts had completed transferring staff to Agenda for Change terms and conditions and pay rates) only 54 per cent of staff had had a knowledge and skills review.
The Committee is pleased to note that the Home Office (the Department) has responded positively to recommendations made in a previous report (34th report, HC 620, session 2005-06, ISBN 9780215027795). The Department has implemented the New Asylum Model, whereby a case owner manages all new asylum cases from application to conclusion, at which stage the applicant is either allowed to stay in the UK or returned to their country of origin. The Department has also established a separate process to clear the backlog of 400,000-450,000 legacy cases unresolved at the introduction of the New Asylum Model. The New Asylum Model has resulted in the Department reaching an initial decision more quickly and in cases being concluded faster than in 2006. Legacy cases will be cleared by 2011. Amongst the many cases awaiting completion, there are undoubtedly many people who genuinely need humanitarian protection because they are fleeing oppression, as well as those with more tenuous claims to asylum. The Department still faces significant challenges, however, in bringing these cases to a prompt conclusion. Faster, more accurate completion of cases reduces both uncertainty for the applicant and the cost to the tax payer. Removal poses a challenge. It will be another four years before the Department has the total of 4,000 detention spaces that it needs to increase removals to optimum levels, and before its new IT system is fully operational. The Department also needs to work with the Courts, foreign governments and other bodies to bring about the legal changes and diplomatic solutions needed to resolve obstacles to removal that lie outside its control.
CDC Group Plc, formerly the Commonwealth Development Corporation, is the United Kingdom's Development Finance Institution. Wholly owned by the Department for International Development (DFID), it aims to help reduce poverty by supporting private sector development. CDC invests equity in private enterprises in developing countries in order to demonstrate to other investors that it is possible to make money in such countries, while at the same time creating sustainable jobs, paying taxes and following good social and environmental policies. DFID restructured CDC in 2004 in order to invest indirectly, through private fund managers. CDC invests largely in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asian enterprises in sectors as diverse as retail, financial, agricultural and manufacturing. Since 2004, CDC has grown rapidly, more than doubling the value of its assets to £2.7 billion by mid-2008. DFID's oversight of certain elements of business efficiency needs to be improved. CDC invests over 70 per cent of its resources in poor countries, but has limited influence where its fund managers invest. Only 4 per cent of its resources are invested in small and medium enterprises, which suffer a shortage of finance. For DFID, financial performance is the principal indicator of CDC's development impact, but this information is not sufficient to assess CDC's effect on poverty reduction and not enough is done to measure compliance with ethical investment principles. The level and nature of CDC executive remuneration are also relevant to business efficiency and management incentives. The Chief Executive's remuneration increased from £383,000 in 2003 to £970,000 in 2007, reflecting in part CDC's exceptional financial performance but pay arrangements place too much emphasis on financial performance and too little on success in reducing poverty.
Incorporating HC 1184-i, session 2007-08 previously unpublished
This report examines the scale and quality of end of life care; the current and future approach to commissioning and funding of services; and the capability and capacity of NHS and social care staff to provide such care. In England approximately half a million people die each year. Around three quarters of deaths follow a period of chronic illness, such as cancer or heart disease, where people may need access to end of life care. End of life care services seek to support those with advanced, progressive, incurable illness to live as well as possible until they die. The provision of end of life care is becoming increasingly complex, often requiring a complex mix of health and social care services. End of life care is delivered by many people, including families and friends, specialist palliative care staff, and generalist staff such as doctors, nurses and social workers, for whom end of life care represents a varying proportion of their role. There are no full estimates of the full financial cost of end of life care, but in 2006-07 primary care trusts estimated they spent £245 million on specialist palliative care, delivered by around 5,500 staff with specific training in the management of pain and other symptoms. Most people would prefer not to die in hospital but a lack of NHS and social care support services means that many people do so when there is no clinical need for them to be there. The Department of Health published its End of Life Care Strategy in 2008 which commits additional funding of £286 million over two years, and aims to increase the availability of services in the community and develop the skills of health and social care staff.
This report examines how well the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) is managing its resources, the adequacy of the IPCC's quality assurance arrangements and how far the IPCC has sought to assess the impact of its work. Complaints against the police of a serious nature requiring IPCC involvement led to it opening 100 independent investigations in 2007-08, compared to 31 in 2004-05. The IPCC also received 4,141 appeals about local police investigations which was a four-fold increase on the number in 2004-05. As a result of its increasing workload, the IPCC has found itself working at above full capacity. The IPCC has no formal quality control framework in place. The IPCC's Commissioners have not been formally approving all investigation reports, one of their key responsibilities. Public confidence in the police complaints system is essential. While the IPCC has commissioned research to look at levels of public confidence in the complaints system, it has not sought the views of complainants, police officers and appellants about their experiences of the IPCC's processes. The absence of feedback from those who have had direct experience of dealing with the IPCC is a significant oversight which the IPCC is now rectifying. There is a lack of clarity about who has responsibility for monitoring the implementation of IPCC recommendations. The IPCC accepts responsibility for recording each police force's acceptance or rejection of the recommendations following an investigation, but not for monitoring the implementation of the recommendations. The IPCC has, therefore, only limited evidence on the impact of its work.
On cover and title page: House, committees of the whole House, general committees and select committees
The Major Projects Report 2008 provides information on the time, cost and performance of 20 of the largest military equipment projects being undertaken by the Ministry of Defence, where the main investment decision has been taken, as well as the top 10 projects in the earlier Assessment Phase. In the last year, the 20 biggest projects suffered a further £205 million of cost increases, and 96 months additional slippage. This is the worst in-year slippage since 2003. The total forecast costs for these projects have now risen to nearly £28 billion, some 12 per cent over budget. Total slippage stands at over 40 years, a 36 per cent increase on approved timescales. The number of Key User Requirements reported as being "at risk" of not being met has also increased from 12 to 16 in the last year. This is a disappointing set of results, particularly because the problems are being caused by previously identified failures such as poor project management, a lack of realism, not identifying key dependencies and underestimating of costs and timescales. The reoccurrence of these problems suggests that the Department's latest acquisition reforms, introduced in 2001, are not yet resulting in the Department making better investment decisions or improving the execution of its defence projects. Project delays also have a detrimental impact on operational capability and costs, in some cases forcing the Department to buy interim vehicles and continue using equipment suffering from obsolescence in Afghanistan and either older Hercules aircraft will have to serve beyond their planned out of service date, or other transport aircraft will have to be bought or leased to address a growing gap in capability.