The National Audit Office has warned that the value for money of 43 major government projects worth around £200 billion is at risk because of significant weaknesses in the Government’s commercial skills and expertise. But there is an even greater risk to many other complex projects where skills shortages are not being assessed systematically. The […]
Since the introduction of a new type of maintenance contract in 2001 by the Highways Agency there have been some improvements in the quality and delivery to budget of maintenance on England’s motorways and trunk roads. However, according to a report by the National Audit Office, costs have risen, with those for routine maintenance increasing […]
The National Audit Office has been unable to conclude that the Ministry of Defence has achieved value for money from the procurement phase of its £10.5 billion private finance deal for the Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA), according to a report released today. Despite managing the later stages of the procurement well, the MOD’s ability […]
This page is part of our decision support tool. The ‘three Es’ The National Audit Office uses three criteria to assess the value for money of government spending: Economy: minimising the cost of resources used or required – spending less Efficiency: the relationship between the output from goods or services and the resources to produce […]
This paper has been prepared for the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee to support their inquiry on Private Finance.
The Trust board’s poor financial management and procurement of an unaffordable PFI scheme have left the Trust in a critical financial position.
This page is part of our decision support tool. What is meant by the term ‘third sector organisation’ (TSO)? Organisations are traditionally divided on the basis of‘private’ or ‘public’, and ‘for-profit’ or ‘not-for-profit’.Organisations which are established on a not-for-profit basis, and which are not directly controlled by the state (not part of the public sector) […]
As a publicly funded organisation we have a duty to be transparent in our business operations. This page sets out our transparency principles and provides all of our publicly disclosed corporate information.
The Comptroller and Auditor General has today qualified his audit opinion on the 2011-12 Social Fund White Paper Account.
Most PFI hospital contracts are well-managed and the evidence indicates that they are currently achieving the value for money expected when the contracts were signed. There continue to be risks, however, to the long-term value for money of these contracts.
Regulatory Impact Assessments (RIAs), used to assess the need for, and potential impact of, new regulations, have not always been used effectively, according to a report published today by the National Audit Office. The report finds that RIAs often failed to consider fully the cost and benefit of regulation, and did not take account of […]
By transferring ownership or leases of around 60 per cent of its estate (591 properties) to a private contractor, Mapeley, in 2001, the Inland Revenue and HM Customs & Excise planned to reduce their running costs and had the opportunity to save up to £1.2 billion by reducing the size of the estate. However, in […]
This page is part of our successful commissioning toolkit. Accountability is the obligation to explain to someone how well you have met your responsibilities. Those responsibilities may be for the outcome of a programme or the custody and use of assets (such as goods, intellectual property, land and buildings, people and money). Such an obligation may […]
The National Audit Office has today reported to Parliament that there are risks to value for money from the way the Legal Services Commission (the LSC) administers and procures legal aid for criminal cases. In 2008-09, the Commission spent more than £1.1 billion on criminal legal aid – legal assistance for people suspected of or […]
Five years after its creation the Financial Services Authority, the independent body regulating the financial services industry in the UK, is a well-established regulator with an impressive set of processes and structures to help tackle high-risk organisations and markets. It now needs to streamline and fully integrate these processes and structures, and increase its focus […]
A report today by the National Audit Office has found that the failure of Metronet – a private infrastructure company responsible for the maintenance and upgrade of sections of the London Underground – has led to an estimated direct loss to the taxpayer of between £170 million and £410 million. There has also been an […]
This report examines government’s progress in securing potential vaccines and determining how they will be deployed to the public.
This page is part of our successful commissioning toolkit. The rules on when you can use procurement are simple. Essentially, you need to: Be outsourcing a function of the public body. For example, if it is a function of your public body to maintain certain pathways, you may outsource that to a contractor, and you may use […]