2019 will be a pivotal year for local government in England. Numerous difficult and open-ended questions need rapid resolution, at a time when government focus and capacity is directed elsewhere. Drawing on a number of our recent reports, here I explore some of the challenges facing the sector, from budget cuts and growing social care […]
This short guide is one of 17 we have produced covering our work on each major government department. It summarises our work on HM Revenue & Customs during the last Parliament.
Gareth Davies, the Comptroller and Auditor General of the National Audit Office, has reported on the 2020-21 accounts of HM Revenue & Customs.
This report considers how well HMRC has managed tax debt through the pandemic.
Significant annual savings worth tens of billions of pounds are available through improving public sector productivity, the head of the NAO will say.
HM Revenue and Customs’ performance in answering telephone calls in 2008-09 was well below its own targets and industry standards, the National Audit Office has reported today. In its Customer Contact Directorate, which answers 95 per cent of calls to the Department’s contact centres, only 57 per cent of 103 million call attempts were answered, compared […]
The sale of Eurostar generated proceeds of £757m. The government prepared well for the sale and achieved its objectives to maximise proceeds. The sale illustrates some general lessons for government as it embarks on its asset sales programme.
Older people are a growing group for HM Revenue & Customs and significant numbers pay too much or too little tax, according to a report released today by the National Audit Office. Errors occur because many people’s tax affairs become more complicated when they reach pension age and HMRC’s systems do not cope well with […]
The National Audit Office has today published the findings of its investigation into the Department for Work & Pensions’ closure of its 1993 and 2003 ‘Child Support Agency’ child maintenance schemes.
HMRC has taken significant steps to improve the efficiency of National Insurance administration, but needs to demonstrate more clearly that it is providing value for money from the £350 million it spends each year and take advantage of opportunities to secure further savings.
DWP does not yet have enough evidence to demonstrate that its activities to reduce the cost of mistakes by customers have been value for money. Although mistakes are difficult to detect, correct and prevent, the scale of overpayments and underpayments demonstrates a clear need for improvement.
This report looks at how much the Treasury’s Value for Money savings programme has improved value for money across government. The programme aims to achieve government-wide annual savings of £35 billion from 2008-09 to 2010-11.
The Whole of Government Accounts provide a unique perspective owing to their reach and approach to measuring the government’s financial performance and position.
Since privatisation, Ofwat and Defra have overseen major improvements in water quality and service quality. Customers have seen a marked rise in bills but not the benefits of companies’ unexpected financial gains.
This report examines how HM Treasury and HMRC manage tax measures that have an impact on the environment.
Local authorities have kept up levels of capital spending but face pressure to meet debt costs and maintain investment in existing assets.
The approach to reducing the cost of regulation is set up to ensure that government can hit a £10bn target but misses the point by not truly reducing costs on businesses.
This investigation assesses government’s oversight of the waste industry and what action is taken to address illegal activity.
Wave 1 City Deals encouraged cities to develop capacity to manage devolved funding and increased responsibility. It is too early to tell what impact they will have on growth.
HM Revenue & Customs faces large peaks in its workload but, by introducing different filing deadlines for paper and online Income Tax Self Assessment returns, it has smoothed some of those peaks. A National Audit Office report today found that, in 2007-08, HMRC received more than a quarter of the 4 million Tax Credit renewals […]