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Network Rail owns most of Britain's 2507 stations and is responsible for their structural repair and renewal. It also operates and manages 17 large stations, known as managed stations. It leases the remainder, known as franchised stations, to 22 Train Operating Companies (TOCs) responsible for station maintenance, cleaning and operations. The Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) sets minimum standards, including facilities and services required at franchised stations, monitors TOCs' compliance with requirements and helps fund stations' operation and improvement. In this report, NAO examines whether passengers are satisfied with station facilities and services and whether station requirements are being met, the barriers to station improvement and what is being done to overcome them. There has been a little improvement in passengers' satisfaction over recent years. National Passenger Survey data show that satisfaction increased from 59 per cent to 63 per cent between 1999 and 2005, but the greatest levels of dissatisfaction are with the more than 2000 small and medium-sized stations which are unstaffed, or staffed for only part of the day, and which have few facilities. But there is a gap between rising passenger expectations on the one hand, and value for money and what the government and the industry can afford to spend on the other. Funding constraints constitute the biggest barrier to further improvement. Having originally envisaged spending £225 million on new facilities at 980 stations in its Modern Facilities at Stations programme, the SRA shrank the programme to £25 million and 68 stations to match the amount of money the Department for Transport made available.
This NAO report examines the role and cost effectiveness of contact services for customers from the Department for Work and Pensions. During the 2004-05 period the Department spent £190 million on running contact centres. The centres themselves answered more than 33 million incoming calls, and made 7 million outgoing calls, as well as handling 300,000 e-mails, 30,000 faxes and 4 million incoming letters and application forms. The Department serves a wide range of customers, including 28 million pensioners and benefit recipients, paying out £112 billion a year in benefits and pensions. This report sets out a number of recommendations: that the Department should develop its understanding of customer demand and improve its forecasting processes; that the Department should aim to offer a seamless service, by reducing the number of telephone contact points, as well as sharing good practice techniques across such areas as forecasting and training; that contractual arrangements for staff should match the demand needs of customers, and that contact centre targets should therefore focus on customer need; that the Department should advance initiatives to improve its information on costs.
Significant improvements have been made in HM Prison Service's catering arrangements resulting in financial savings and improved quality of service. Since 2003-04, savings of some £2.5 million have been made each year from expenditure on food and some £1.7 million a year on catering staff - mainly through civilianisation of catering staff posts. Other savings have arisen from more efficient procurement and reduced stockholdings of food. In addition most prisoners are offered full and varied programmes of physical education activities.
MG Rover went into administration in April 2005 when its proposed deal with a Chinese company (SAIC) collapsed and it did not have sufficient cash to continue trading. The subsequent closure of MG Rover's plant at Longbridge in the West Midlands resulted in the direct loss of almost 6,000 jobs and with potentially serious consequences for the local economy. This NAO report examines the support provided to MG Rover by the DTI and other public bodies before and during the Company's collapse in 2005, and on the effectiveness of plans to deal with and mitigate the consequences of the firm's closure. Amongst the conclusions drawn, the report identifies weaknesses in the DTI's contingency planning and questions the cost-effectiveness of the DTI's loan of £6.5 million designed to sustain the business for a week while the administrators sought to sell the Company as a going concern. The report goes on to make a number of recommendations to improve future decision-making, contingency planning, and the delivery of training and support in the event of a large-scale company failure.
Going for Gold : Transport for London's 2012 Olympic Games, third report of session 2005-06, Vol. 2: Oral and written Evidence
In June 2005, the National Grid plc sold four of the eight regional gas distribution networks in Britain for £5.8 billion (those covering Scotland, Wales and the north, south and west of England). The Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem), the industry regulator, controls the licenses for operation of these networks; and in making its recommendation on their sale, Ofgem's primary statutory responsibility was to protect the interest of consumers. This NAO report finds that Ofgem successfully fulfilled its duty in relation to the sales, and in seeking to maintain a stable regulatory framework and manage future risks. The sales should help encourage price competition and more efficient working practices, and help deliver potential savings to customers. However, the projected benefits to consumers are subject to uncertainty, given that they are forecast over a long time frame. The report makes a number of recommendations designed to highlight lessons learned in relation to: calculating customer benefits; the internal management of projects involving sales and mergers; and protecting the consumer interest in the future.
Electronic monitoring of a curfew has become an integral part of the criminal justice system and its use has increased from 9,000 cases in 1999-2000 to 53,000 in 2004-05. This report examines its cost effectiveness and covers: whether breaches of curfew are detected and dealt with promptly; the cost compared to custody; the impact on the offending behaviour. The main conclusion is that electronic tagging does offer value for money but effectiveness is undermined by delays in fitting tags and delays in responding to breaches of curfew.
The tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean region in December 2004 resulted in some 300,000 deaths across the region, many more injured and 1.6 million people displaced, with Indonesia and Sri Lanka the worst affected countries. The disaster has also had longer-term economic effects in terms of the damage to roads and other infrastructure, as well as to people's livelihoods dependent on tourism, farming and fishing. This NAO report assesses the Government's response to the disaster, focusing on the extent to which the Department for International Development (DFID) met its commitment to provide humanitarian assistance to the victims of the tsunami in the six months immediately following the event. It finds that the DFID's initial response was both rapid and impressive, with the first cargo of relief supplies airlifted to the affected area within 24 hours. However, the DFID needs to strengthen its financial monitoring to establish how much of the £50 million paid in grants to multilateral agencies and non-governmental organisations actually reached the victims of the disaster, and how much remains in bank accounts waiting to be spent.
The Crown Prosecution Service has an annual expenditure of £568 million, employs over 7,800 staff and in 2004-5 prosecuted about 1.25 million people for criminal offences. This study looks at its performance in making effective use of magistrates' court trials and hearings.. It estimates that ineffective trials and hearings cost the criminal justice system £173 million of which the CPS is responsible for £24 million. The report identifies examples of good practice and recommends changes to improve the efficiency of the prosecution of magistrates' court cases.
The Department of Health estimates that one in ten patients admitted to NHS hospitals will be unintentionally harmed (a rate similar to other developed countries), due to incidents such as an injury from a fall, medication errors, equipment related incidents, record documentation errors and hospital acquired infections. About half of such incidents could have been avoided, if lessons from previous incidents had been learned. This NAO report examines the progress being made in the NHS to improve the patient safety culture, to encourage incident reporting and to learn lessons for the future. The report finds that most trusts have developed a predominantly open and fair reporting culture at the local level, driven largely by the Department of Health's clinical governance initiative and more effective risk management systems. However, a 'blame culture' still exists in some trusts, and there have been delays in establishing an effective national reporting system. There is scope for improving strategies for sharing good practice and for monitoring that lessons are learned.