Sir John Bourn, the head of the National Audit Office, today reported on the results of his examination of the Government’s estimates of the number of people who may be affected by the proposed introduction of a lifetime allowance for the amount of tax-privileged saving in a pension scheme. The proposed allowance of £1.4 million […]
The government now accepts the urgent need for a skilled cross-departmental leadership group – but this requires changing the long-standing culture of the Senior Civil Service.
This investigation examines the recent increase in identified errors in Carer’s Allowance and attempts to recover overpayments.
The Whole of Government Accounts (WGA) are an audited set of accounts showing in one place the financial position of the whole public sector. However, the NAO considers that the picture is incomplete.
This report establishes the facts on how the government has provided accommodation for rough sleepers during COVID-19.
The Whole of Government Accounts (WGA) are the consolidated financial statements for the whole of the UK public sector, showing what the UK Government spends and receives, and what it owns and owes.
Following reforms to decision-making and the appeal process in social security benefits, introduced in 1999 by the Department for Work and Pensions, the number of appeals against decisions has fallen overall by around 15 per cent and waiting times for appeal hearings have been cut. Since the reforms, decision-making performance for some benefits, but not […]
Head of the National Audit Office Sir John Bourn has qualified the Northern Ireland National Insurance Fund Account for 2002-03 because of the estimated high level of benefit being lost through fraud and error. This is the third year running for which Sir John has qualified his opinion on the account. The Northern Ireland Department […]
Sir John Bourn, Head of the National Audit Office, reported to Parliament today that good progress has been made in recent years in increasing the overall employment rate for older people. The gap between the proportion of older people in work compared to the general working population has also narrowed by 1 per cent over […]
This investigation sets out facts about penalty charge notices and how the NHS supports vulnerable people to navigate the system.
Using competition to award companies licences to transmit electricity from offshore wind farms has benefits but consumers might end up bearing the cost of inflation.
Head of the National Audit Office Sir John Bourn has qualified his opinion on the Child Support Agency’s account for the tenth year running because of high levels of error in the amounts considered as recoverable from non-resident parents. At the 31 March 2004, £976 million was due to be collected by the Agency from […]
In this report, we assess the value for money of the Department for Work and Pensions’ introduction of Universal Credit.
The C&AG has published his audit opinions for 2017-18 on the 1993, 2003 and 2012 Child Maintenance Schemes
Sir John Bourn, head of the National Audit Office, today reported to Parliament on the £1.2 billion expansion of the PRIME contract, that DWP had succeeded in getting the deal it had set out to achieve. The decision to proceed via a non-competitive negotiation with LST was the right one. DWP introduced competitive tension into […]
Head of the NAO Sir John Bourn reported to Parliament today that, according to the Department for Work and Pensions’ estimate, £3 billion may have been lost from benefit payments, the same amount as reported in 2001-2002. This constitutes some 2.7 per cent of the £112 billion of gross expenditure recorded in the Department’s resource […]
More employers in England need to be persuaded of the value to their businesses of employment-related education and skills training, according to the National Audit Office. Today’s report to Parliament recommends that the ways in which employers get advice and information be simplified; that the emphasis should be on flexible and affordable training that employers […]
The Comptroller & Auditor General , Gareth Davies, has qualified his opinion on the regularity of HMRC’s 2018-19 Resource Accounts.
Opra, the UK body responsible for regulating the governance of work-based pensions, needs to build on its achievements by focusing more closely on the risks to the members of pension schemes, according to a report published to Parliament today by Sir John Bourn, the head of the National Audit Office. The report concludes that Opra […]