Download Free Treasury Minutes On The Third To The Thirteenth Reports From The Committee Of Public Accounts Session 2010 11 Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Treasury Minutes On The Third To The Thirteenth Reports From The Committee Of Public Accounts Session 2010 11 and write the review.

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
At a time when education is considered crucial to a country’s economic success, recent UK governments have insisted their reforms are the only way to make England’s system world class. Yet pupils are tested rather than educated, teachers bullied rather than trusted and parents cast as winners or losers in a gamble for school places. Education under siege considers the English education system as it is and as it might be. In a highly accessible style, Peter Mortimore, an author with wide experience of the education sector, both in the UK and abroad, identifies the current system’s strengths and weaknesses. He concludes that England has some of the best teachers in the world but one of the most muddled systems. Challenging the government’s view that there is no alternative, he proposes radical changes to help all schools become good schools. They include a system of schools receiving a fair balance of pupils who learn easily and those who do not, ensuring a more even spread of effective teachers, as well as banning league tables, outlawing selection, opening up faith schools and integrating private schools into the state system. In the final chapter, he asks readers who share his concerns to demand that the politicians alter course. The book will appeal to parents, education students and teachers, as well as everyone interested in the future education of our children.
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)
Each of the areas in the Whole-Place Community Budgets scheme has identified potential benefits from taking a more integrated approach to frontline services, focusing on outcomes like preventing avoidable hospital admissions or reducing reoffending. Greater Manchester, which covers ten local authorities, has estimated net savings of some £270 million over five years, while in West Cheshire savings of £56 million are estimated for the same period. In general, government has only limited information for identifying opportunities for integration or making an assessment of costs and benefits, which is needed to support the case for integration. In some instances where government has identified integration opportunities, benefits have not been achieved because of implementation difficulties. While the centre of government has recognized the importance of integration, it does not have clearly defined responsibilities to support or encourage frontline integration initiatives across government. It is early days for Whole-Place Community Budgets, central government and the four local areas have worked together effectively to assess the case for local service reforms. The true scale of potential benefits will become clear only if projects are implemented and evaluated robustly. Foundations have been laid but continuing collaboration - including sharing of data - between local and central government and delivery partners is essential to maximize the potential of Whole-Place Community Budgets. Accompanying this report, the NAO has released a case study looking at the four Whole-Place Community Budget areas, finding that these areas have taken a positive first step in assessing the case for integration (HC 1040, ISBN 9780102981339)
This report examines the Ministry of Defence's progress in meeting cost, time and performance targets for its 15 top-spending military equipment projects. The Committee has reported before that the defence equipment programme is unaffordable with commitments exceeding forecast budgets over a ten year period by £36 billion. The MoD's short term decisions to keep in year expenditure within voted limits and the need to understand the full cost implications of these decisions have damaging consequences. In this year alone the cost of the major projects rose by £3.3 billion and nearly £5 billion was lost by late cancellations. The scale of problems created by this financial imbalance masks the improved performance of the majority of projects against cost and budget. The Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) offered the Department an opportunity to bring its plans into balance with the expenditure limits set in the Comprehensive Spending Review. Projects such as the Nimrod MRA4 and Sentinel aircraft have been cancelled, accepting greater operational risks in some areas and writing off nearly £5 billion of taxpayer's money. But implementing the SDSR will require further decisions and the renegotiation or cancellation of a significant number of existing contracts to make the programme affordable. The Department has a poor track record in taking such decisions on the well informed basis necessary to optimise value for money. Other projects examined in detail include the Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers and the Typhoon aircraft.
The Commons Public Accounts Committee publishes its 61st Report of the Session which, on the basis of evidence from the Cabinet Office and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), examined tax disputes. At 31 March 2011 HM Revenue & Customs was seeking to resolve tax issues valued at over £25 billion with large companies, some of which included disputes over outstanding tax. In this report, the Committee expresses concern about how the Department handled some cases involving large settlements and that there needs to be proper separation between the negotiation of tax settlements and the authorization of such settlements. The Committee also states that HMRC made matters worse by trying to avoid scrutiny of these settlements, keeping confidential the details of specific settlements with large companies. This effects Parliament's ability to establish value for money, compounded further by imprecise, inconsistent and potentially misleading answers given by senior departmental officials, including the Permanent Secretary for Tax in particular over his evidence on his relationship with Goldman Sachs, in facilitating a settlement with the company over their tax dispute. HMRC governance processes in these matters were inconsistent and it has now appointed two new Commissioners with tax expertise, and plans to introduce a new assessor role to permit independent review of large settlements before they are finalised. The Committee further states that it saw little evidence of personal accountability within the Department, and that a perception has developed that large companies are treated more favourably, receiving preferential treatment compared to small businesses and individuals.
This report assesses the Ministry of Defence's performance in managing the supply chain to front line troops. The MoD rightly puts a strong emphasis on ensuring troops get the supplies they need. Equally, providing an efficient supply chain would release resources for the front line. The Committee believes there should be greater emphasis on securing value for money and that there is room for it to find efficiencies in the supply chain without jeopardising operational effectiveness. Previous reports have identified persistent problems with late deliveries, unnecessary costs and missed targets. At present, the MoD does not have the information to identify where savings could be made. It does not know the full costs of its current activities or the cost of alternative supply options. The failure to collect basic data about where supplies are stored has directly contributed to the MoD accounts being qualified for three consecutive years. The MoD is now seeking to resolve these information problems through a major initiative known as the Future Logistics Information Services project, expected to be implemented by 2014. Until then, the Department will continue to store data in systems that are at critical risk of failure. It is vital that the MOD sustains its programme in order to secure value for money. Measures which could improve the efficiency of supply operations include putting more pressure on suppliers to deliver on time, keeping stocks at lower levels to reduce the risk of them deteriorating, and benchmarking performance against relevant comparators such as other armed forces.
The reports published as HC 1398 (ISBN 9780215561848), HC1469 (ISBN 9780215561862), HC 1468 (ISBN 9780215038548), HC 1502 ((9780215038585), HC 1530 (ISBN 9780215038913, HC 1565 (ISBN 9780215039910), HC 1444 (ISBN 9780215038968), HC 1566 (9780215039941), HC 1531 (9780215040077)
The coalition Government has committed to increasing the Department for International Development's total aid spending from £7.8 billion in 2010-11 to £11.5 billion in 2014-15. The Department aims to improve and expand state primary education, focusing on sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. It works largely by influencing and financing developing country governments to pursue Millennium Development Goals. The Committee supports these aims, but expresses concerns about its ability to assess the value for money of its spending. Fourteen of the 22 countries the Department supports are on track to meet Millennium Development Goals for primary enrolment by 2015. The Committee also expresses concern that the Department cannot adequately attribute impacts to its spending and its influence. Even for its largest programmes, such as India, it typically contributes a low proportion of the countries' education spend. For the Committee, the Department needs to place value for money as the primary focus when allocating resources or assessing the performance of its education programmes. It needs to focus on how many children attend and complete primary education, along with the literacy and numeracy they achieve.
This Public Accounts Committee report addresses an issue at the core of the relationship between Parliament and government - accountability for public spending. The Committee is interested in the implications for accountability of two recent developments: the governance reforms which include Ministers chairing departmental boards and greater non-executive involvement in those boards; and the reform and localism proposals which envisage a significant devolution of responsibility for service delivery to a wide range of new bodies, in some cases independent of both central and local government. The reform and localism proposals raised fundamental points about the current model of accountability which the report explores. In practice government has long chosen to discharge accountability through the senior civil servant in each department, the Accounting Officer. Government vests in each Accounting Officer a direct and personal accountability to Parliament for his or her department's stewardship of public funds. While significant sums are spent locally, local taxes account for just 5% of revenue raised and so the overwhelming majority of public spending in the UK is routed through departments and is the responsibility of the departmental Accounting Officer. Parliament vests responsibility in the Public Accounts Committee to hold Accounting Officers accountable on its behalf. Sir Bob Kerslake has been appointed to review how the policy objectives of the reform and localism agenda might be reconciled with the current accountability model based on the Accounting Officer. The Committee sets out its fundamental elements for an effective accountability model.